I think a lot about the fact that the Buddha made a separate category for Right Speech. He could have been more efficient and included it in Right Action, since speaking is a form of action. For a while I thought it was separate because we speak so much. But then I changed my mind — some people don't speak a lot. Now, I think it's a separate category because speech is so potent.
I read a sentence in a magazine years ago, a page filler added to the bottom of a column because the article wasn't quite long enough. I don't recall what magazine it was or what the article was about, but I remember the sentence. It said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can always harm me."
Sometimes, in a class, I will say, "Raise your hand if you have ever broken a bone." After people raise their hands, I say, "Leave your hand up if that bone still hurts you now." Usually, all the hands come down. Then I say, "Raise your hand if you still feel pain from something someone said to you in the past year." Lots of hands go up. "Keep your hand up if you have pain from a remark someone made about you in the last five years." Hands stay up. "Last ten years . . . twenty years . . . thirty years . . . a remark made before you were five years old." Many people still have an arm in the air. They look around at each other and smile, sheepishly, but I don't think anyone is amused. It is a lovely moment of shared compassion, of being a witness to the burden we have all borne of carrying the pain of hurtful remarks. Perhaps we think that if we are mature adults we should have gotten over the rebukes of childhood. I wonder if we ever do. I think we are all quite vulnerable, like cream puffs, crisp on the outside but fragile inside and very sweet.
— Sylvia Boorstein, It's Easier Than You Think