Buddha Taught Me to Control My Speech

        

 

“In our times, communication techniques have become very sophisticated. It takes no time at all to send news to the other side of the planet. But at the same time, communication between individuals has become difficult. Fathers cannot talk to sons and daughters. Husbands cannot talk to wives, nor partners to partners. Communication is blocked.” (Nahn, Thich. The heart of the Buddha's teaching: transforming suffering into peace, joy & liberation: the four noble truths, the noble eightfold path, and other basic Buddhist teachings. New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Print.

            In recent years, with the use of computers, cell phones, and other technologies, people have become very distant from one another. Right speech tells us that there are four ways in order to “speak correctly”. The first is to speak truthfully. The second is not being two-faced (acting one way towards one person and another way to someone different). Not speaking or acting cruelly is the third and finally the last was that people should not over embellish their stories. When I was reading over these, I felt that they were basic rules to follow, tell the truth, don’t be two-faced, be nice and do not lie. However when it came to a time and place where I had to actually act on these, it became much harder. I felt that it was hard not to tell someone a white lie to not hurt their feelings, or if I got mad at something I would curse and say something hurtful, it does not matter whether it was intentional to say something to hurt someone, majority of the time people do not realize that what they are saying can be cruel. People can be “joking” with one another and cause another pain. I have seen this many times in my life. Since many of my friends are minorities, people would often be kidding with them about stereotypes, and usually they would joke around with them back. However, there was a few times when someone they were not friendly with would say something, and the backlash was often graphic.

            “Speech is the way for our thinking to express itself out loud. Our thoughts are no longer our private possessions.”  People think that when they state their opinions, people are not going to react to them. However, this is when right speech should be taken most seriously. When people become emotionally charged, they speak without thinking. While it may be what they actually is the truth, it can often be mean, and not how they had intended for it to be said. In these situations (and in fishing stories), is when I have heard of over embellishment. Driven by the urge to be right, or correct, (I am often guilty of this) people will turn stories around to make themselves seem like the victim. Embellishment is defined as, “to make a story more interesting or entertaining by adding extra details, esp. ones that are not true”.