Good morning.
Nice to be with you,
Sit with you,
Practice together.
We've come to the fifth of the five talks on wise communication and these are five reflections that we can do before or after we speak.
The Buddha suggested that these five criteria for when we speak with someone provides immediate feedback.
We need to ask ourselves these five questions.
Is what I am about to say true?
Is it the right time?
Can I deliver it in a way that is kind?
Will it be beneficial?
And the last is,
Will it bring us together?
So if we have some difficult conversations to talk about with someone and if we're going to sort of stand up and demonstrate or express ourselves in a very clear and strong way about what we feel is right or wrong,
From the Buddhist point of view,
To ask ourselves these five questions is to evoke the highest standard in challenging situations where there's difficult discussion.
These Dharma teachings hold a very high standard.
That's why we have to practice.
That's why we look at ourselves and work with ourselves and we grow gradually,
Learning to move in the direction where we can live a life of goodwill and that we can actually cultivate a heart of goodwill for others and for ourselves.
So this fifth exploration is considering speaking with goodwill,
Speaking in a way that brings metta,
Loving kindness,
Friendliness.
These are the words that translate as metta.
So to cultivate a heart and a mind of kindness and of goodwill and a friendliness towards others.
And it's possible to have good will for other people without loving them.
If the idea is you have to have loving kindness for everyone,
That might just be too high of a standard.
But to have goodwill to approach and be with people with sort of well-wishing as the foundation,
Even for people that you have conflict with.
You know,
I don't have to love you,
But I don't have to be,
You know,
I don't have to gush with kindness,
But I can be kind and provide goodwill and well-wishing and basic human friendliness.
That's a place where we can come from in all of our interactions.
And the reference point is sort of,
Is there goodwill or not?
If there's not goodwill,
Then there's work to be done.
There's practice to be done internally.
And we don't try to force ourselves to have goodwill.
If we see it as a moral obligation,
It's fake and forced.
It will remain on the surface and it won't be beneficial to us.
So it's not something that we can pretend,
It's a cultivation.
When we first started these talks,
I shared with you the statement that in meditation,
We watch our mind and in the world,
We watch our speech.
And there is a reciprocal relationship between the mind and our speaking.
The state of our mind is often reflected in how we speak.
The mind influences our speaking.
But how we speak will also have an influence on the mind.
If we speak angrily,
If we're angry and speaking angry words,
That will reinforce the mind's tendency or habit of anger.
And if we speak in a friendly way,
That's calm and caring.
That reinforces the tendency,
The disposition of the mind to be friendly.
And in Buddhist practice,
We always want to check in with ourselves.
You know,
How are we right now?
This is a really good question to ask throughout the day.
And when we're speaking,
Okay,
Is this really serving me?
You know,
Is this beneficial for me?
Asking these questions,
Not only the questions of wise communication and speech,
But checking in like how am I right now?
If we use this as a reference point,
You know,
Checking in,
Is what I'm about to say beneficial?
Is this the right time for me to speak?
It can be a reference point to find a way to live more from an open heart with freedom and goodwill.
And our genuine goodwill,
It grows within us when we really take care of ourselves and ask these questions to ourselves.
How am I?
Is this the right time to have this conversation?
Will it be beneficial for me and others?
Do I have goodwill towards myself at this moment?
And it grows,
It grows.
So I want to close this series of talks with some words from the teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.
This comes from his book for a future to be possible.
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others.
I vow to cultivate 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 vow to learn to speak truthfully with words that inspire self confidence,
Joy and hope.
I am determined to not spread news that I do not know to be certain and to 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 will make all efforts to reconcile and resolve all conflicts,
However small.
So we want to live and speak in this way that makes a good future possible for us.
I hope these talks on wise communication have given us something to think about.
And I have a tremendous trust in the power of looking at ourselves deeply.
If we do,
We will naturally want to move towards a way of being,
Which is better for ourselves and others.
So thank you.
