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When we say something that nourishes us and uplifts the people around us, we are feeding love and compassion. When we speak and act in a way that causes tension and anger, we are nourishing violence and suffering.
We all hunger for love, but we don’t know how to generate love in order to feed ourselves with it. When we’re empty, we use technology to try to dissipate the feeling of loneliness, but it doesn’t work. We have the Internet, e-mail, video conferencing, texting and posting, apps, letters, and cell phones. We have everything. And yet it’s not at all certain that we have improved our communication.
You believe that having your phone helps you to communicate. But if the content of your speech is not authentic, talking or texting on a device doesn’t mean you’re communicating with another person.
Nonthinking is a very important practice. Of course, thinking and talking can be productive too, especially when our minds and feelings are clear. But a lot of our thinking is caught up in dwelling on the past, trying to control the future, generating misperceptions, and worrying about what others are thinking.
It’s much more important to keep your mindfulness with you than to keep your mobile phone. You think that you’re safe when carrying your phone. But the truth is that mindfulness will do much more than a phone to protect you, to help you suffer less, and to improve your communication.
I am listening to this person with only one purpose: to give this person a chance to suffer less.
When other people don’t know how to handle their suffering, they become its victim. If you imbibe their judgment, fear, and anger, you become its second victim. But if you can listen deeply, understanding that what they are saying is coming from
suffering, then you are protected by your compassion. You only want to help them suffer less. You don’t blame or judge them anymore.
The words we say are nourishment. We can use words that will nourish ourselves and nourish another person. What you say, what you write, should convey only compassion and understanding. Your words can inspire confidence and openness in another person. Generosity can be practiced wonderfully with loving speech.
Here are the four bodhisattva guidelines of the Ten Bodhisattva Trainings for Right Speech: 1. Tell the truth. Don’t lie or turn the truth upside down. 2. Don’t exaggerate. 3. Be consistent. This means no double-talk: speaking about something in one way to one person and
in an opposite way to another for selfish or manipulative reasons. 4. Use peaceful language. Don’t use insulting or violent words, cruel speech, verbal abuse, or condemnation.
There are those who verbally abuse people and make them suffer, and then say, “I’m only telling the truth.” But they tell the “truth” in a violent and attacking way. Sometimes it can even cause the other person to feel great suffering.
No matter how expensive the things you buy for someone else, they’re not as precious as your true presence. That wonderful presence is fresh, solid, free, and calm, and you offer it to your loved ones to increase their happiness and your own happiness. “I am here for you.”
You can’t take the other person out of you. You can’t take yourself out of others. The suffering still continues. So the question is not whether you will stay together or not; the question is whether you can focus on trying to understand each other using compassionate speech and deep listening, no matter what the outcome.
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.
We can speak of our practice in terms of energy because mindfulness is a kind of energy. When we bring our energies together, they are increased a thousandfold. The whole can be much, much
greater than the sum of its parts. Systematic change can’t be achieved without the energy of community. If you want to save the planet, if you want to transform society, you need a strong community. Technology is not enough. Without mindfulness, technology can be more destructive than constructive. When we speak about creating a sustainable environment or a more just society, we usually speak of physical action or technological advances as the means to achieve these goals. But we forget about the element of a connected community. Without that, we can’t do anything at all.
Every time we communicate, we either produce more compassion, love, and harmony or we produce more suffering and violence.
Our communication is what we put out into the world and what remains after we have left it. In this way, our communication is our karma. The Sanskrit word karma means “action,” and it refers not just to bodily action but to what we express with our bodies, our words, and our thoughts and intentions.
I promise to do my best to refrain from saying things or doing things that make you suffer.
“What you just said hurt me. I would like to look deeply into it, and I would like you to also look deeply into it. Let’s make an appointment for sometime later in the week to look at it together.”
Saying, “there is a cake in the refrigerator” really means: “Please, let’s not make each other suffer anymore.” Hearing these words, the person will understand. Hopefully, he or she will look at you and say, “That’s right. I’ll go and get the cake.”
