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Brushing Your Teeth
Brushing my teeth and rinsing my mouth,
I vow to speak purely and lovingly
When my mouth is fragrant with right speech,
a flower blooms in the garden of my heart.
A short vow for right speech.
Unhealthy Speech
Practice renouncing a particular pattern of speech, such as the need to complain, express anger, repeat gossip, or indulge in memories. Start each day with a commitment to let go of of the impulse to use unwise speech. Try to make your speech unhurried, calm, and thoughtful, even in the face of provocation, so that in the renunciation of unhealthy speech, wholesome speech comes naturally.
Christopher Titmuss on renouncing unhealthy speech.
How We Talk
What would we do without the adventures of lively conversations during which we can voice our opinions, share our experiences, and tally up our evaluations and judgments of everything from movies to the ethical challenges? In these contentious times, it is crucial not only to converse well but also to listen attentively.
N. J. Enfield is a professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia. In this snappy and edifying book, he charts some of the important rules of conversation, explores the split-second timing that is operative even in chit-chat, analyses the ways we handle errors and misunderstandings, and discusses the functions of clichés such as "uh," "um-hmm," and "huh?"
Enfield sings the praises of “the remarkable feats of everyday dialogue.” He sees it as a collaborative art that provides both pleasure and community. We have a friend who, thanks to his faulty memory, is constantly frustrated by missing the magic moment when he has the chance to join in the conversation around the lunch table. By the time he gets his thoughts together, the train of talk has left the station with him standing alone, lamenting his lost chance to join it. We are going to give him a copy of this book so he can work out ways of catching the conversation train before it leaves the station.
A snappy and edifying look at the art of conversation.
Phoning Words Like Gems
In The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching, Thich Nhat Hanh offers a short verse, called a gatha, to reinforce the intention to cultivate right speech. Try repeating this as you pick up your telephone:
"Words can travel thousands of miles.
May my words create mutual understanding and love.
May they be as beautiful as gems,
as lovely as flowers."
A practice for spreading mutual understanding and love when telephoning.
Visualizing Your Adversary in Kindness
People often think of visualization as some exotic, complex practice. Some visualization practices are like that, but visualization can also be quite simple. In fact, it is something we do all the time. When we are angry, particularly when we are "harboring" anger — reviewing it in our mind long after the incident that made us angry has passed — we are probably engaged in a visualization of our adversary, conjuring up a mental image of our anger's object.
So when you are angry, close your eyes and imagine your adversary sitting before you in a chair. Feel your anger rising up, but suspend, if you can, the inner monologue that "speaks" the anger. Forget, for a moment, the put-downs and incisive comebacks that you wish you had said.
Instead, just focus on the feeling of your anger in your body and the image of your adversary before you. Yes, what she did made you angry. What she did was unfair, insensitive, even cruel.
Once you have the image of your adversary clearly in mind, imagine her doing or saying something quite unexpected. Imagine her performing an act of kindness. Imagine her apologizing to you or helping you. Imagine a steady stream of generosity and kindness flowing from your adversary to you.
How do you feel about your adversary now?
If you say, "That's ridiculous. She would never do that!" remember that this is your visualization, an act of focused, intentional imagination. Your imagined adversary can do whatever you intend for him or her to do.
Are you sure your resistance is really because you think your adversary would never be kind to you or because you don't want to give up the protective coating of your righteous anger, even for a moment?
Pausing before you respond.
Tibetan Yogas of Body, Speech, and Mind
Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is the founder and spiritual director of Ligmincha Institute. Recognized as one of the few Bon masters now living in the West, he is the author of Tibetan Yogas of Dreams and Sleep. In this substantive book, Tenzin Wangyal explores the three doors to enlightenment in the Tibetan Bon Buddhist tradition: body, speech, and mind. Each can be hobbled by pain, as the author illustrates with movies: pain body in The Wrestler; pain speech in Burn after Reading; and pain mind in Brokeback Mountain.
Many of us regularly feel stressed, exhausted and at the end-of-our-rope. The body holds this tension and needs light. Tenzin Wangyal suggests infusing positive behaviors into our days such as finding places where we can renew our bodies through silence and peace. Or seek out persons who lift you up or make you feel energized. In another chapter, the author presents six vigorous physical movements that overcome negative emotions.
Our way of speaking in the world can be enhanced by following the four virtues, abandoning lies, not slandering, not using harsh words, and not indulging in idle gossip. Next, Tenzin Wangyal shows how ancient mantras can enhance what he calls "inner sound."
Last but not least is taming the mind through guided meditation, use of the tantric mandala as a gateway to wholeness, making the most of prana, and trying to transform the ego-based identity. The spiritual practices of the Bon Tibetan branch of Buddhism offer some fresh approaches to dealing with obstacles and bad habits related to our bodies, speech, and minds.
Tibetan Bon Buddhist practices for the body, speech, and mind.
Rocket Science
Teenager Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson) lives in New Jersey with his parents and older brother Earl (Vincent Piazza). He is quite traumatized when his father, Doyle (Denis O'Hare), leaves home and his mother (Lisbeth Bartlett) begins an affair with another man (Stephen Park). To make things worse, his brother constantly berates him and treats him disdainfully. Hal's self-doubts and anxiety about life manifest in an unpredictable stutter than embarrasses him in school and forces him to get special help. Whenever things overwhelm him, Hal retreats to the janitor's closet and crouches on the floor in fear.
The downward spiral of his days is halted one day by a sort of miracle. Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), a pretty girl who is a member of the high school debating team, asks him to join the squad. She has chosen him to replace Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D'Agosto), a brilliant fellow who dropped out of school after going blank at the New Jersey High School Policy Debate Championships the previous spring. Surprised and sexually turned on by her belief in his potential, Hal joins the team and begins learning the basic tricks of the trade from her. She is a quick wit and wizard who is totally self-confident in everything she says and does. Ginny loves having a pet project, and Hal is convinced that he is in love with her. He hopes that he will fare better than his father and mother in that arena.
Rocket Science is written and directed by Jeffrey Blitz, the filmmaker behind Spellbound. He has drawn out a touching and memorable performance from Reece Daniel Thompson as Hal. He respects this young man's many idiosyncrasies and in doing so enables us to empathize with him as he finds his true voice in the midst of harrowing circumstances and deep disappointment. In contrast to Hal, Ginny and Ben reveal the high cost of being super-achievers. Blitz does not humiliate them, but he does shows us what is lost when competition and winning consume our desires. Rocket Science blasts off as one of the year's most endearing coming-of-age stories.
One of the year's most endearing coming-of-age stories.
Michael Strassfeld, A Book of Life
Gossip is prevalent and destructive, yet it seems only realistic to accept it as common practice, like taking sweeteners from restaurants, overeating, or driving just above the speed limit. But imagine for a moment how different the world would be if gossip were to disappear! A gossip-free workplace, for instance, would be spiritually healthy just as a smoke-free workplace is physically healthy. As human beings, created in the image of the Divine, we are ultimately more alike than unalike. Gossip only serves to sidetrack us from confronting both our own goodness and our own flaws.
Gossip is prevalent and destructive
Madeline Ko-I Bastis, Heart of Forgiveness
When we realize that we are not victims
we can accept responsibility for our action
and not resort to blame.
When we realize that we are not victims
Jonathan Sacks, Celebrating Life
Judaism contains some of the most stringent rules ever formulated about the ethics of speech. The Bible commands "You shall not go as a gossip among your people." Jewish law condemns "evil speech" — speaking in a way that reflects badly on others — as a cardinal sin. One who shames a person in public is "as if he shed blood."
Rules about the ethics of speech