The Fourth Precept : Deep Listening And Loving Speech

This is the fourth in a series of talks on the five precepts. This talk addresses the fourth precept: abstaining from false speech, or deep listening and loving speech. Aspects of meditation in relation to a practice of the precepts are also reviewed.

Transcript

Good morning.

Over the last few weeks we have been talking about the practice of precepts generally and specifically practicing precepts in relation to our practice of meditation.

This is the fourth talk in a series of five,

Today having to do with the fourth precept,

Generally thought of as abstaining from false speech.

Remember that the heart of meditation and recovery is to recognize our own patterns of suffering,

To see them rise,

To see them clearly for what they are and to practice non-attachment,

Remembering that our suffering thoughts are impermanent.

We're helped in this,

As we said before,

By living in ways which bring less suffering to ourselves and to others in the first place.

And that's what an observance of precepts,

Living a precept-led life,

Is about.

As I've said before,

The practice of precepts helps us with specific elements of our human nature,

Things like greed,

Anger,

Ill will,

Or our tendencies toward physical and emotional violence,

Things that are hindrances on our spiritual path,

Defilements that cover our true basic nature,

Defilements which obscure our expression of our own Buddha nature.

When we observe precepts,

When we live our lives by that commitment,

It's said that we live the life of the Buddha,

Living life as the Buddha did,

Practicing the Dharma in such a way that our clinging and aversion are understood and their effects minimized.

Where right effort leads to actively exploring our potential for sobriety and awakening,

Where the fruit of our meditation is a calm and open mind,

And where we've come to understand the benefit of a life lived in the refuges of Buddha,

Dharma,

And Sangha.

There's an idea in Buddhism that is important to all of this,

And that's interdependence.

There's a wonderful metaphor which illustrates this idea.

It's an ancient image,

And some of you may have heard it before.

It has to do with an idea called Indra's net,

And I know I've outlined this before.

If you imagine a fabric,

Like a hammock fabric made up of cords in squares,

And at the corner of each square is a knot.

And now if you imagine in each of those knots a jewel shining brightly.

And when we look closely at the light of each jewel,

We find there the reflection of each and every other jewel in the net.

That is to say that the light of any one jewel is dependent upon,

Or interdependently related to,

The light of all of the other jewels.

Now we can deepen this image into the idea of what's called dependent co-arising.

The idea that things come into being when causes and conditions are such that allow that thing to come into being.

And things go out of being when those causes and conditions change.

This is where the idea of impermanence comes in.

Causes and conditions change,

And when they do,

Things change.

Things go out of being.

This is because that is.

Those are because these are.

Dependent co-arising.

So it's in this context,

From the ideas of interdependence and dependent co-arising,

That we need to consider the five precepts,

As we see them expressed in the Recovery Dharma book,

The Refuge Recovery book,

And other places.

The five universal precepts I undertake to abstain from taking life,

To abstain from taking what is not freely given,

To abstain from sensuous misconduct,

To abstain from false speech,

And to abstain from intoxicants.

To practice precepts,

Remember is to make a commitment,

To observe our patterns of action,

Whether these are consciously chosen or not.

As we've considered the first three precepts in previous talks,

We've been reading the precepts as worded by Thich Nhat Hanh for the Order of Interbeing,

And as found in his book,

For a Future to be Possible.

The Order of Interbeing,

Remember,

Was formed by Thich Nhat Hanh in the mid-1960s,

At a time when the Vietnam War was raging around him,

And he felt that the teachings of the Buddha could be used in community to combat the hatred,

The violence,

And the divisiveness that was happening in his country.

And the Order of Interbeing has continued to grow since then.

And as the Order of Interbeing grew,

Thich Nhat Hanh expanded the wording of the five precepts,

In order to help us to extend them more deeply into the situations and interpretations of our lives.

And in this rewording,

Thich Nhat Hanh retitled each of the precepts.

And so the five precepts I undertake to abstain from taking life,

Thich Nhat Hanh has retitled Reverence for Life.

To abstain from taking what is not freely given,

Thich Nhat Hanh calls True Happiness.

To abstain from sensuous misconduct is True Love.

To abstain from false speech,

Thich Nhat Hanh titles Deep Listening and Loving Speech.

And to abstain from intoxicants,

Nourishment and healing.

The last time we talked about the third precept,

To abstain from sensuous misconduct,

Or as Thich Nhat Hanh calls it,

True Love.

And I'd like to just read back through that precept in his words.

Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct,

I'm committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals,

Couples,

Families,

And society.

I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without love and a long-term commitment.

To preserve the happiness of myself and others,

I am determined to respect my commitments and the commitments of others.

I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct.

So the third precept,

To abstain from sensuous misconduct,

Or True Love,

Helps us to practice love and understanding for ourselves and for others.

And it really is the basis for the fourth precept,

Practicing deep listening and loving speech.

The fourth precept,

Which we generally consider as to abstain from false speech,

Thich Nhat Hanh has retitled Deep Listening and Loving Speech.

Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others,

I am committed to cultivating loving speech and deep listening in order to bring joy and happiness to others and to relieve others of their suffering.

Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering,

I am determined to speak truthfully with words that inspire self-confidence,

Joy,

And hope.

I will not spread news that I do not know to be certain,

And I will not criticize or condemn things of which I am not sure.

I will refrain from uttering words that can cause division or discord,

Or that can cause the family or the community to break.

I am determined to make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts,

However small.

In reflecting on the fourth precept,

Thich Nhat Hanh writes,

When we can listen to others with deep compassion,

We can understand their pain and difficulties.

This helps us to be calm and receptive,

And it becomes easier for us to talk with them using loving speech.

He goes on,

Sometimes when we attempt to listen to another person,

We can't hear them because we haven't yet listened to ourselves.

Our own thoughts are so loud in us,

Crying out for our attention,

That we can't hear another person.

Therefore,

Before we listen to another,

We need to spend time listening to ourselves.

Using loving,

Gentle speech means letting go of anger and suspicion in an effort to understand and be understood.

There is a strong link here between Thich Nhat Hanh's thoughts on the fourth precept and our practice of meditation and recovery.

Thich Nhat Hanh says that in order to truly engage in loving speech and deep listening,

We need to first listen to ourselves.

In our meditation we bring mindful attention and open listening to our breath and our bodies.

We attune ourselves with our being and we settle ourselves into calmness and contentment.

With mindfulness we listen to our feelings,

Our reactive patterns.

We observe their impermanent nature and we allow them to calm themselves so we can begin to see more deeply with clarity and insight.

With mindfulness we find the essence of our minds.

We listen for the suffering that is there.

We observe the impermanent nature of our suffering thoughts.

We allow each impermanent expression of suffering to calm and to pass.

And we learn to find the space between these expressions of suffering thought and to live there in gladness,

With deeper concentration and a growing sense of liberation.

The first precept,

Abstaining from taking life,

Having reverence for life,

Isn't just about not killing,

But also not causing violence,

Physical,

Emotional,

Or verbal.

So much harm can be caused by our speech.

Violence can live in our words,

Not just in our physical actions.

Thich Nhat Hanh acknowledges in his writing that using right speech isn't always easy.

It brings things back to the Eightfold Path,

Specifically to the idea of diligence,

Or right effort.

Loving speech,

He says,

Requires that we notice when we're watering the seeds of envy,

Anger,

Or despair in ourselves,

And to take steps,

Skillful actions,

To keep our minds and hearts in a state of wholesomeness.

In his book Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness,

Ponte Gunaratana notes that there are four specific tasks in the practice of right effort.

First,

To prevent unwholesome mind states from arising.

Second,

To abandon unwholesome states of mind that have arisen.

Third,

To arouse wholesome mind states.

And fourth,

To maintain wholesome mind states that have arisen.

So let's look at these one by one.

First,

To prevent unwholesome states of mind from arising.

How do we do this?

By retaining unremitting mindfulness,

Gunaratana tells us.

He counsels us to develop a greater tolerance for the small uncomfortable things in life without automatically trying to fix them.

When we keep choosing to change things,

He tells us,

Our minds can get fussy and unwholesome mind states can arise more easily.

He also advises us to avoid unmindful people,

As we tend to pick up on their behaviors.

Instead,

He tells us,

We can associate with people with qualities that we want to emulate.

Spiritual friends who are upright,

Mindful,

And moderate in their behavior.

Gunaratana also notes that we should not give so much attention to the signs and features of things that might give rise to unwholesome mind states.

The sign of something refers to the hook,

That thing that catches our eyes,

So to speak,

And makes us want to observe more closely,

To be part of something,

To hold on to something,

All of which can give rise to unwholesome states of mind,

Such as clinging or aversion.

The feature of something refers to specific qualities of a thing that may stir up or deepen unwholesome mind states that we experience.

Instead,

Gunaratana speaks of practicing equanimity.

He writes,

If you are able to maintain continuous mindfulness,

Nothing will upset you.

You will not become angry or agitated.

You can stay peaceful and happy,

And unwholesome or negative states of mind cannot arrive at the same time as a moment of mindfulness.

Let's hear that again.

Unwholesome or negative states of mind cannot arrive at the same time as a moment of mindfulness.

The second quality of right effort is to abandon unwholesome mind states that have arisen in mind.

No matter what we do,

No matter how skillful we become preventing unwholesome mind states,

Difficult states of mind are still going to crop up.

We can't always choose what thoughts will arise.

We can choose,

However,

Which thoughts we allow to grow.

Positive,

Wholesome thoughts help the mind and these should be cultivated.

Negative,

Unwholesome thoughts,

Such as those we think of as hindrances such as doubt,

Worry,

Greed,

These are harmful to the mind and they should be opposed immediately,

With skillful effort and overcome.

There is a sutra in the Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha on the removal of distracting thoughts.

In the sutra,

One of the images offered is the idea of a carpenter.

In dealing with a rotten peg in the restoration of a wooden structure,

The carpenter will take a new,

Sound peg and with a mallet drive out the old,

Flawed peg by driving the new,

Wholesome peg into its place.

You can hear this sutra on a podcast called Thus Have I Heard,

Or you can find it somewhere online,

I'm sure.

The third aspect of right effort is to arouse wholesome states of mind.

States of mind which arise from our practice of meditation,

Feelings of contentment in the moment,

Happiness in the stability of deeper self-understanding,

Increasing concentration,

And joy.

Overcoming unwholesome states of mind is a necessary step,

But even when these efforts have been successful,

The mind remains vulnerable and we have to use skillful efforts to gladden our minds,

To uplift,

To keep the mind free of unwholesome mind states.

Gunaratana says that when an unwholesome state of mind has been overcome,

The mind goes into a neutral state and we can use these intervals of neutrality with their calm sense of clarity to cultivate positive states of mind.

The fourth and last aspect of right effort is to maintain wholesome states of mind when they do arise,

And this speaks of diligence in our practice.

We have to repeat positive thoughts and actions again and again in order to grow and deepen in our practice.

Practice makes progress,

As a friend of mine once said.

So again,

These four aspects of right effort to prevent unwholesome mind states that have not yet arisen,

To abandon unwholesome mind states that have arisen,

To arouse wholesome mind states,

And to maintain wholesome mind states that have arisen.

And we build our ability to do these things through meditation and practice.

And as our minds calm,

As our spirits clear,

We live more fully into a precept-led life.

Reviews

Excellent! Great voice, inflection, pacing, and message!