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Paramahansa Yogananda, How to Be Happy All the Time
Unkind words are ruthless murderers of lifelong friendship and the harmony of homes. Banish unkind words from your lips forever, and make your home life safe from trouble. Sincere, sweet words are nectar to thirsty souls.
Banish unkind words
Barbara Ann Kipfer, 201 Little Buddhist Reminders
Brushing my teeth, outside — inside — underneath, and rinsing, I take the vow to speak purely and lovingly. Cleaning is not enough. When my mouth offers only wisely chosen speech, I sow beautiful seeds in the garden of my heart and life.
When my mouth offers only wisely chosen speech
Christopher Titmuss, An Awakened Life
Undertaking the practice of wise speech is a true act of kindness. Since the things we say often travel much further afield than we realize, we need to stick to the principle that whatever we say about someone who is not present, we would be willing to say in the same way, in the same tone, to their face. If not, it is preferable to observe noble silence: when there are no hearers there are no recriminations later.
No hearers means no recriminations later
Mother Teresa , Frederic Brussat's Twitter Collection
Kind words can be short and easy to speak but their echoes are truly endless.
Kind words have echoes
Paul Woodruff, Reverence
Reverence declares itself through silence, more deeply and more truly than through speech. We hear of the silence of great teachers in many traditions. Confucius is silent about heaven, Badva about Brahma, and the Buddhist teacher Vimalakirti too was silent on occasion.
Reverence declares itself through silence
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, The Sun and Moon Over Assisi
Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence.
Listen to God's speech in all-embracing silence.
Nilton Bonder, The Kabbalah of Money
The evil tongue can be compared to nuclear weapons: its destructive force spreads in a powerful chain reaction and remains in the air for a long time, slowly killing off the possibilities of a healthy Market [of existence].
The evil tongue can be compared to nuclear weapons
Hunter of Stories
“I learned a lot from the Uruguayan novelist Juan Carlos Onetti when I was starting out.
“He taught me flat on his back, smoking. He taught me with silences or lies, because he loved to add some luster to the few words he spoke by attributing them to ancient civilizations.
“On one of those nights of silence and cigarettes and wine that caused instantaneous cirrhosis, the master was lying down, as always, and I was seated by his side. Time passed without us noticing in the least.
“That was when Onetti told me a Chinese proverb: ‘The only worthwhile words are ones that improve upon silence.’
“I suspect the proverb was not Chinese, but I never forgot it.
“Neither did I forget what I was told by one of Gandhi’s granddaughters, who years later visited Montevideo.
“We met up at my café, El Brasilero. Recalling her childhood, she told me about her grandfahter’s word-fasts: for one day a week Gandhi neither listened nor spoke. Not at all.
“The next day, words sounded different.”
“Silence, which speaks without a sound, teaches us to speak.”
A call for silence, please, from Eduardo Galeano.
Your Word Is Fire
An Excerpt from Your Word Is Fire: The Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Prayer edited by Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz
Editors Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz share with us a rich deposit of devotional practices from the early Hasidic masters. Here is a wise and salutary suggestion to enrich your spiritual practice of devotion.
"Take special care to guard your tongue
before the morning prayer.
Even greeting your fellow, we are told,
can be harmful at that hour.
A person who wakes up in the morning is
like a new creation.
Begin your day with unkind words,
or even trivial matters —
even though you may later turn to prayer,
you have not been true to your Creation.
All of your words each day
are related to one another.
All of them are rooted
in the first words that you speak."
Arthur Green and Barry W. Holtz on the Hasidic devotional practice of guarding your tongue especially in the morning.
Benedict's Dharma
An Excerpt from Benedict's Dharma: Buddhists Reflect on the Rule of Saint Benedict edited by Patrick Henry
In this volume, four Buddhist scholars ruminate on the spiritual practices in Benedict's Rule. Here Joseph Goldstein, cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, comments on one aspect of the spiritual practice of kindness, refraining from wrong speech.
"I once did an experiment that I found very beneficial toward understanding the importance of speech and its effect on the mind. As a kind of training, I decided that for a period of three months I would not speak about any third person. That is, I wouldn't speak to someone about someone else. I discovered several things from doing this. First, my mind became much less judgmental because I wasn't giving voice to the various judgments in my mind — even good ones. And as I judged others less, I found that I judged myself less as well. Second, I discovered in this experiment that about 90 percent of my speech was eliminated. This silence led to a lot more peace in my mind. It was astonishing to see so clearly how much of the time our talk is about other people."
Joseph Goldstein on refraining from talking about third parties, a kindness practice (book edited by Patrick Henry)