Right speech

Rev. Meg Barnhouse
November 6, 2016
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In the third strand of the Noble Eight-Fold Path, the Buddha recommends that we abstain from lying, divisive speech, abusive speech, and idle chatter. How might we do this?

We gather this morning on the Sunday before a Presidential campaign which has broken all recent records for vulgarity and nastiness. Well, there was the election of 1828, where Adams’ camp called Andrew Jackson a slave-trading, brawling murderer. This was ugly, but no one could much quibble, as it was all true. Jackson’s people said Adams was visiting with his wife before she was divorced, and that, as ambassador to Russia he had procured an American working girl for Alexander 1. The one that takes the prize for me was when, in 1800, the Federalists let it be known far and wide that the Republican candidate, Thomas Jefferson, was dead. That was a rank exaggeration. It’s been bad lately. I don’t mean to make light of it. The fabric of our culture is showing the wear. The Buddha said Right Speech entails “Abstaining from lying, abstaining from divisive speech, abstaining from abusive speech, abstaining from idle chatter.” Buddhist teachers as you to wonder whether something you are about to say is true, and whether it is useful.

When we lie, we damage the bond between people. If you lie people don’t know who you are. Our interactions with one another are founded on steady ground between us. It’s strongest when I know you are telling me truth as far as you can, and I’m telling you truth. Lying makes us all sick, the one who lies, and the one who is lied to. We live in a culture of speech. All around us is talking. We read emails and ads and we watch TV and we talk to one another. Almost all ads are lies; almost all TV is lies of one sort or another. To say you will do something and then not follow through is a lie. I’m guilty of that one. Doing what you say you will do makes more happiness and less suffering. To find someone who speaks the truth to us is a treasure. To be a person who speaks the truth will make you a treasure.

Let me say something here. Buddhist teacher Eric Kolvig points out that the Buddha didn’t say “if you lie, you’re a bad person.” Buddhism is not a path of morality, of good and bad. It is a path of noticing, becoming aware. Instead of “good” and “bad,” there is “harmful, increasing the suffering in the world,” and “not harmful,” increasing peace in the world.” Everyone wants to be happy. Almost everyone. The eight-fold path: right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration, is the way to freedom from suffering, to peace of mind and happiness. If you notice yourself lying, don’t beat yourself up, don’t wallow in the delicious drama of being a bad person, just notice and gently wonder “What would this situation be like if I were to speak more truthfully?” One of my teachers, Wendy Palmer, writes that Wondering is so much more effective than trying.

Abstaining from “divisive speech” is the next element of right speech. What is that? It’s anything that drives a wedge between us. If I gossip about her (over there) to you (over there) even if it’s true, then you know something about her that she doesn’t know you know, and you have to not let her know that you know it. If the connection between the two of you is like a road, it becomes difficult to travel a road with that big a boulder sitting in the middle of it. In one of the books I read this week, Rabbi Stephen Wylen says we shouldn’t say things that lower another in the estimation of one with whom you are speaking, unless you are giving a factual warning about someone to prevent harm or loss, and you do that with doubt, like “I don’t know if this person has changed, but he was abusive to his last wife, so you may want to keep your guard up for a while if you go out with him.” In our congregational behavioral covenant, we agree to “limit disagreements to the individuals or groups directly involved.” This prevents divisive talking as folks gather support in the wider community for their side of a conflict. We have seen so much divisive speech in this cycle, categorizing groups of people and painting them as criminal, lazy, stupid, weak. We look at each other and are almost repulsed “HOW could they be so…?” Anything that turns it into “us” and “them” is divisive. We wil hardly ever succeed in including everyone when we say “us,” but we can wonder what the world would be if we did that.

It could be that just talking about someone who isn’t there can be divisive. The Buddhist teachers I read all talked about becoming mindful of talking about an absent third party. Not that it’s always harmful, but it often is, so it’s an interesting exercise to become aware of doing it.

Other teachers say talking about one another builds community. We drop interesting tidbits about other people that help others see how amazing they are.

The third element in the Buddha’s teaching about right speech is that we refrain from abusive speech. It makes us sick to heap abuse on other people, and it’s likely that we talk to ourselves that same way. That makes us sick for sure. So many hear abusive speech as children, and it sticks in your heart and begins to shout at you in your own voice. When people speak to you abusively, it tells you much more about them than it does about you. They are hurting, they are poisoned, and they can’t even see you clearly, much less speak to you in a way that is about you.

Sometimes we are tempted to tell the truth in a way that is abusive — just to let someone have it. Even when what we’re saying is true, if we using the truth as a weapon against someone, it can do harm. Hard truths should be said in love. Gently. With respect. With the willingness for the hard truths about yourself to be told as well.

The last element of Right Speech, according to the Buddha’s teaching is abstaining from “”Idle chatter.” Well, like they say, “Now you’ve quit preachin’ and gone to meddlin.” I read a story about a man who decided he wouldn’t speak if it weren’t necessary, and he was silent for the next thirteen years. That made me mad. How do you decide what’s necessary? Telling your partner you love them every day at least once is necessary, in my opinion. It’s not a situation where you can say “Honey, I told you I love you when we got together and I’ll let you know if anything changes.” Asking someone how their day was is relationship strengthening. Is it necessary? Maybe that silent man wasn’t in any relationship. Maybe he didn’t even have a dog, or a friend. How do you decide what’s “idle chatter?” Humph. Well, I know it when I hear it.

The Talmud says God spoke to the tongue and said “all the other parts of the body I have made standing up, but you I have made lying down, and I have built walls around you.” The word is powerful. It can create and it can destroy. Choose to create. Your inner wisdom will guide you. Silence

The wise man in the teaching story said he had decided never again to utter an unnecessary word. He was silent for the next twelve years. The story didn’t say what persuaded the wise man to break his silence. I think that would have been important information. When the story was done, I felt mad. Yes, mad. I do understand the beauty and the power of silence. In conversations with clients, with my children, with parishioners, I stay silent sometimes as a way to give them space to figure things out on their own, and oftentimes they do. In my office I have a carved wooden mask of a woman’s face, and she is holding one finger up to her lips. She reminds me to say less. Sometimes that works.

Why did the teaching story make me so mad? I guess because it was teaching that you shouldn’t say unnecessary words. What makes a word necessary? I have done couples counseling for nearly twenty years now, and silence does as much damage to a relationship as hard words. Sweet words strengthen the bond between people. We need to hear that we are loved, that we look good, that we did a great job, that we are appreciated. Those are necessary words. I have known people who starved to death emotionally in relationships where their partners didn’t believe in saying unnecessary words. Some folks think the only thing talking is good for is to exchange information or to give advice. You say, “talk to me about your day,” and they say “It’s nothing you haven’t heard before. No new information.” You say “Tell me how you feel.” and they answer, “It wouldn’t do any good. It wouldn’t fix the situation.”

Stories that families tell carry history and identity. Stories friends tell to one another, on one another, create bonds and memories that can support a life when it’s sagging. I was on the phone with my sister last night. Our beloved friend Pat Jobe visited them last month in Texas; he and his seven year old son spent the day. Now, Pat’s a talker, and so is his boy, and so is my brother in law. My sisters children are now telling Pat stories, imitating his voice as they remember lines from his stories. Their family was fed by the lack of silence. They have enough to go on now for months, just from that one day. They tell his stories back to me. One day at a party he was telling a woman that he was jealous of Charles Burgin because “Charles is better looking than me, richer than me, he’s more successful than me and he’s funnier than me.” The woman said “Oh, Pat, he’s not funnier than you.” Last night on the phone my sister had to give the receiver to her eight year old daughter so she could deliver the punch line to me. Her little girl voice said, in a dead-on Forest City NC accent. “OH Pat, he’s not FUNNIER than you!”

I want to say to that silent wise man: “Mr. wise man, I hope you are not in a relationship, and I hope you don’t have any children, and I hope you don’t have any friends, because, if you are, shame on you for not thinking it necessary every day to say “I love you,” or “How are you?” or “Tell me your day.” I hope you live in a hermitage far away from folks who need you or love you, maybe with one very understanding cat and I hope you pat her.

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