[An] aspect of Right Speech is honesty. The truth itself can be a gift, if it is given in the right spirit. I say "Gentle Truth" because the truth can also be hurtful. We don't want to just walk up to one of our coworkers and blurt out, "You know you have bad breath. No one can stand to be close to you." We also need to be careful to distinguish between our truth, which may just be our opinion, and the truth, in which everyone can share....

I am reminded of an incident that involved Suzuki Roshi during his days as a temple priest in Japan. One day he was outside his temple with another priest when a workman called down to them from the roof, where he was making repairs. "There you go, a couple of lazy priests who don't work for a living. What good are you to anyone?" Suzuki looked up at the roofer without saying anything for a while. At last, he called out to the roofer, "That temple next door has a beautiful roof."

Now, besides the fact that the temple next door was well known throughout the district for its beautiful tile roof, what relevance did this comment have to the worker's rude remark? None at all, unless we understood Suzuki Roshi's words as an offering of truth. If we wanted to take that thought further, we could say that Suzuki Roshi was introducing into the conversation something that he and the roofer could agree on, regardless of the roofer's opinion of priests or of him.