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Sharon Salzberg, Lovingkindness
The path begins with cultivating appreciation of our oneness with others through generosity, non-harming, right speech, and right action.
Cultivating appreciation of our oneness with others
Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, Longing for Certainty
The fatal human tendency to speak harshly causes so much obvious misery, resentment, and strife that we can hardly doubt the wisdom of refraining from this sort of speech; although in practice most of us find it very hard. Too often we react to life's normal or exceptional annoyances with angry, cutting speech.
The fatal human tendency to speak harshly
William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude
Don't believe anything against another unless you have good grounds. And don't share anything that might hurt another, unless it could cause greater hurt to others to keep it secret.
Don't believe anything against another
Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, Longing for Certainty
It is not hard to grasp the general meaning of what the Buddha designates as wrong speech: false speech, malicious speech, harsh speech, and gossip. But keeping aware of the hundred daily impulses toward such speech and restraining ourselves are for most of us much more difficult.
What the Buddha designates as wrong speech
Khandro Rinpoche, This Precious Life
Purification of speech includes practices such as recitation of praises, supplications, prayers, or mantras. These skillful means transform speech by overcoming habitual patterns and negative tendencies. . . . Let go of harmful speech.
Purification of speech includes
Daphne Rose Kingma, 101 Ways to Have True Love in Your Life
Compliments are verbal nourishment. They generate self-esteem and in a very subtle way create a person in the full spectrum of his or her essence. Compliments invite the person who is complimented to embrace a new perception of him- or herself. Just as layers of a nacre form a pearl over a grain of sand, so compliments collect around us, developing us in all our beauty.
Compliments are verbal nourishment
Brenda Shoshanna, The Anger Diet
Lying includes not simply saying untruths but also exaggeration, communicating mixed messages, and implying things you do not mean. Lying includes nonverbal communication — acting one way when you feel another. It includes the unwillingness to communicate — shutting yourself off. You are lying to another by withholding the truth of who you are.
When we minimize, dismiss, deny, and pretend something isn't happening we are also engaged in lying. Often we lie to ourselves.
Lying includes not simply saying untruths
Christopher Titmuss, An Awakened Life
Backbiting, slander, patronizing and arrogant speech reveal an unhealthy self. The practice of wise speech includes refusing to feed malicious and cynical conversations, regardless of what anybody says. We can easily conform to the complaining mind that runs though our culture, and there is a terrible tendency for our mind to get stuck in particular points of view. What comes out of our mouth will often reveal more about ourselves than what we are talking about.
The practice of wise speech
Feathers in the Wind
There is a Hasidic story about a town gossip. This fellow thoughtlessly told and retold stories about others that brought them shame. The town's rabbi met with the man and confronted him with his words. The man was stunned. He had no idea he was spreading such hurt. He broke into tears and begged the rabbi for help. "There must be something I can do to atone for the wickedness I have done."
The rabbi instructed the man to take four pillows out into a field. Once there he was to slice open each pillow with a knife and shake its feathers into the wind. The man thanked the rabbi and rushed off to do as he was told. He purchased four fine feather pillows and cut them open in the field, watching as the feathers scattered in every direction.
He returned to the rabbi to let him know he had completed his penance. "Not quite," said the rabbi. "Now go back to the field and retrieve the feathers."
"But that is impossible," said the man. "The winds have taken them everywhere."
"It is the same with your words," the rabbi said gravely. "Just as you cannot retrieve the feathers once spilled, so you cannot withdraw words once spoken. No matter how sincerely you desire to undo what you have done, the harm caused by thoughtless speech cannot be rectified."
To Practice: Monitor your words so that they do not set in motion harmful things. And when they do, ask for forgiveness.
A teaching story on the difficulty of rectifying thoughtless speech.
Sakya Pandita in Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama
When you have nothing meaningful to say, simply enjoy the silence.
When you have nothing meaningful to say