Latest / Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast / It matters how you speak

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It matters how you speak · Buddhistisches Tor Berlin Podcast

• 0:10
  So very warm welcome, especially warm welcome if it's your first
• 0:14
  time here to Buddhisticious tour.
• 0:18
  Yeah. So today I wanted to talk about
• 0:21
  speech in Buddhism communication mainly because it's a huge area
• 0:28
  of Buddhism that maybe is not immediately apparent.
• 0:31
  We're fairly familiar with the importance of your body, your
• 0:37
  mind, but Buddhism in Buddhism, speech is probably more
• 0:42
  important than well, I'm imagining it'll be more
• 0:45
  important than most of us realise.
• 0:47
  So. Well, yeah, I, I in the WhatsApp
• 0:53
  group this week, I posted an image for this class which was,
• 0:57
  I think it's from medieval Japan of a St. called Kriya.
• 1:01
  And there's, it's based in Kyoto, in, in Japan.
• 1:06
  And the, it's, it's a statue. And it's quite an extraordinary
• 1:11
  statue. He's there with his staff and
• 1:15
  his mouth is open. And there's these figures coming
• 1:18
  out of his mouth. And these, these figures,
• 1:21
  they're like solidifications. They're like representations of
• 1:24
  a mantra, you know, So these figures are Amitabha.
• 1:27
  And I thought in a way it says it all, the usual thing an image
• 1:31
  says 1000 words. You could just look at that
• 1:33
  image and it would give you some sense perhaps of how Buddhism
• 1:38
  treats speech, you know, treats speech or something
• 1:42
  extraordinarily, extraordinarily important, you know.
• 1:46
  So this figure I, it's a fantastic image.
• 1:48
  And a friend of mine, Aloka, he made a line drawing of this
• 1:52
  image which I saw years ago. And I thought, wow, I've never
• 1:54
  seen anything like it. It's like someone with their
• 1:57
  mouth open and these kind of figures coming out of their
• 1:59
  mouth from medieval ages, kind of giving you a sense of, of the
• 2:03
  power of words and your speech. And it's like magic, like
• 2:08
  literal magic. It comes out of your mouth and
• 2:12
  it changes the world around you and you create a world around
• 2:15
  you with your speech. So that like the usual cliched
• 2:20
  example, if I said something like whatever you do, do not
• 2:24
  think of a pink elephant skateboarding, don't think about
• 2:28
  a pink head up and then it's there, isn't it?
• 2:29
  Well, I hope so. Maybe not a failed experiment,
• 2:33
  but anyway, you get the idea. Yeah.
• 2:38
  So speech in Buddhism is a fundamental training area.
• 2:41
  It's a, it's a, it's a really important area of training and
• 2:44
  probably the main working ground for most of us that are
• 2:48
  practising. It's very difficult.
• 2:51
  And yeah, once it's out, it's gone.
• 2:56
  You know, that horrible feeling when you said something, it's
• 2:58
  gone and you're trying to pull it back in, but it's already in
• 3:02
  someone's ears and then someone else's ears.
• 3:04
  And you're like, Oh no. And it creates a whole thing.
• 3:07
  This is a bad, on a bad day. It creates a whole kind of thing
• 3:10
  you're going to have to deal with for weeks, maybe months.
• 3:13
  On the positive side, something you say something beautiful and
• 3:16
  it's timed and it's kind and it kind of lifts the whole
• 3:19
  atmosphere. It changes the whole atmosphere.
• 3:23
  So in kind of on the, on the basic.
• 3:28
  Well, not basic Buddhism, Yeah, basic Buddhism, the Noble
• 3:30
  Eightfold Path. There's a whole part of that
• 3:35
  path, one of those 8 paths, 1 of the 8 bits of this path is
• 3:39
  devoted to speech. Yeah.
• 3:41
  So speech is given a real big importance.
• 3:44
  Also, it's kind of interesting that different traditions and
• 3:48
  different religions have different ways of, I don't know
• 3:51
  about analysing us, but breaking the human being down into its
• 3:55
  parts, you know, spirit, soul, all these kind of things.
• 3:59
  In Buddhism, it's body, speech and mind.
• 4:02
  Yeah, which is quite astonishing.
• 4:04
  I I think it's one of these things that if you've been
• 4:06
  practicing Buddhism, Buddhism for quite a long time, it just
• 4:09
  becomes normal and goes over your head.
• 4:11
  But that's quite something. It's basically giving the same
• 4:14
  emphasis, and in training as well, the same emphasis, the
• 4:19
  same importance as what you do with your body.
• 4:23
  Yeah, as what you do with your mind.
• 4:30
  And if you think about all the things, if you think about all
• 4:31
  the things you can do with your mind, you know, you can imagine
• 4:35
  something which you'll fulfil. You can dream, you can
• 4:40
  visualise, you can create in a world.
• 4:42
  You have your own right now, you're in your own particular
• 4:45
  atmosphere which no one else shares.
• 4:46
  You know, I hope it's a good one, but maybe it's not.
• 4:48
  Doesn't matter. But your your your mind.
• 4:51
  This is a big deal. What's going on right now?
• 4:54
  The kind of world you're living in.
• 4:55
  Yeah. Also your body.
• 4:57
  Yeah. You can paint things.
• 4:59
  You can build something like this.
• 5:01
  You can cook. I don't know.
• 5:04
  You can hold hands. You can clap for someone where
• 5:06
  they do a performance. You can fly a plane.
• 5:11
  You can punch someone in the face.
• 5:13
  You can strangle someone. You can murder someone.
• 5:16
  You can save someone with surgery and Buddhism saying your
• 5:21
  speech is on the same level of importance as that.
• 5:25
  That's quite something. So in a way, it's worth asking
• 5:31
  why, Because it's not random. The Buddha didn't just randomly
• 5:33
  come up or didn't kind of randomly just have this idea
• 5:37
  that speech was super important. It obviously came out of an
• 5:40
  observation or seeing how things were, you know, So like I say, I
• 5:47
  think speech is literal magic. You, you say something and you
• 5:51
  evoke something in people. And there's countless examples
• 5:54
  in history of where it's gone wrong en masse, where you say
• 5:59
  things and you get, you can almost hypnotize people and also
• 6:03
  where it's gone, right? So like this statue, for
• 6:06
  example, this figure, this mantra coming out of this, this,
• 6:10
  this. Well, he's classified as a St.
• 6:12
  and they see him as a St. What's coming out of his mouth
• 6:15
  is having a profoundly positive and transformative effect on
• 6:19
  people. He's an interesting character.
• 6:22
  He was said to be around. There was plagues, earthquakes,
• 6:25
  wars, all kind of madness going on in medieval Japan when he was
• 6:29
  around. And he, he was like, said to be
• 6:33
  really helping people, you know, And it's interesting that his
• 6:36
  speech is at the forefront of that.
• 6:38
  It's not necessarily. I mean, I'm sure he's doing
• 6:40
  actions by what's coming out this person's mouth.
• 6:42
  It's changing people's lives. So speech is important because I
• 6:49
  mean, when you, when we stop to, well, when we have the time to
• 6:52
  stop to think about it, we're creating our own world.
• 6:56
  Something comes out of our mouth.
• 6:58
  We've created a whole situation for ourselves, for good or for
• 7:01
  worse. We've also changed other
• 7:03
  people's minds. You know, something comes out of
• 7:05
  our mouth. It's then in their mind and you,
• 7:08
  you're literally generating a world every day by what comes
• 7:11
  out of your mouth, which is why, again, Buddhism places such a
• 7:14
  huge weight on speech, you know, I mean, in a way, these days
• 7:21
  it's kind of countercultural, isn't it?
• 7:23
  Because we're just submerged with words and Oh my God, no.
• 7:30
  Why? It's just taxing, isn't it?
• 7:31
  It's exhausting the amount of kind of information and words
• 7:34
  that would like just poured into our mind.
• 7:38
  It's hard work. I think it creates a real strain
• 7:40
  mentally on us that so when you when you really, if you take
• 7:45
  speech as being something precious, well, yeah, it's kind
• 7:49
  of counter cultural. So yeah, well, if we're going to
• 7:55
  practice Buddhism, then we have to take our speech really
• 7:59
  seriously. And I think in a way it becomes
• 8:02
  like an empowerment. You know, it becomes like you
• 8:05
  create, like I say, you create a world around you and there's all
• 8:08
  sorts of these days, all sorts of techniques and kind of quick
• 8:12
  fixes and courses you can do. And in the weekend you can do
• 8:15
  this. And in a week and if you pay
• 8:17
  this much, blah, blah, blah. I think the long game is, well,
• 8:21
  Buddhism operates on the long game.
• 8:22
  And I think that's why it actually works.
• 8:24
  And it's sustained itself over 2 1/2 thousand years because it
• 8:28
  actually works. And it's not glamorous
• 8:32
  necessarily and sexy and all this.
• 8:33
  But working, getting to grips with your speech, I would say is
• 8:37
  an absolute fundamental. Yeah.
• 8:39
  And I think the reason we, a lot of people struggle is because
• 8:42
  it's so difficult. It's a really, really difficult
• 8:45
  area, but it's really important. So in Buddhism, there's in the
• 8:54
  noble, in the Noble Eightfold Path, there's what's called
• 8:57
  samyak varchar, which basically means varchar is speech.
• 9:01
  And samyak is something like thorough, integral, perfect.
• 9:07
  Yeah. So you have something, there's
• 9:08
  something you're aiming for. You're aiming for a state of
• 9:14
  perfect speech and that you could say that singular state is
• 9:18
  broken down into four areas. Yeah.
• 9:20
  So your speech has to be truthful.
• 9:23
  It has to be kind, has to be helpful, you know, not just
• 9:29
  babbling nonsense, which we all do.
• 9:33
  And it's basically bringing about harmony between people.
• 9:37
  Yeah. So you're not.
• 9:38
  It's not. You're not gossiping.
• 9:40
  You're not stabbing people in the back when they're not there.
• 9:42
  So you have these four things. Yeah, basically not lying, not
• 9:47
  talking harshly, not talking nonsense and not stabbing people
• 9:53
  in the back. Yeah.
• 9:55
  So, yeah, well, the first one speaking the truth, what is that
• 10:01
  not obviously it's not lying. Yeah.
• 10:05
  And I guess the effect of lying is multiple, isn't it?
• 10:11
  You. You, you distort things for
• 10:14
  other people. People don't really know where
• 10:15
  the where the land lies. So they're a bit confused.
• 10:19
  You also confuse yourself in the long run.
• 10:21
  I have very dear friends of mine.
• 10:22
  Well, a dear friend of mine that just lies a lot.
• 10:29
  Yeah. Or just bends things slightly
• 10:32
  out of shape. And the result is now he gets
• 10:35
  confused. He can't because someone say, Oh
• 10:37
  yeah, duh, duh, duh, duh. And he'll be like, oh, yeah,
• 10:40
  well, I can't remember if it was a lie or if it was true.
• 10:44
  So we, and I think especially as one gets older, as in with my
• 10:47
  friend, it can be a bit disorientating.
• 10:52
  You don't quite know what's true or not, and neither does anyone
• 10:54
  else. And it's not like it's a you've
• 10:57
  necessarily come from a bad place.
• 11:00
  You just wanted to make your life easier.
• 11:01
  Maybe you wanted to make other people's lives easier as well.
• 11:04
  You know, you wanted to kind of clear a path.
• 11:05
  But I'll just tell this thing. I've done it plenty myself.
• 11:10
  And it's very painful, isn't it, when you, when you get yourself
• 11:12
  into a situation where you think, oh, this will be easy,
• 11:14
  I'll just say this now. Oh, now I'm here and the next
• 11:17
  person's there and you have to say, oh, and you have to lie
• 11:19
  there and you've got to build up all your lies to try and keep it
• 11:22
  coherent. So lying's exhausting.
• 11:24
  Yeah. I guess it's also to do with
• 11:31
  exaggeration. We all like to tell a big story,
• 11:33
  don't we? And like, don't know if you've
• 11:35
  ever had that, but you've got a story that's quite good.
• 11:37
  And when you tell it, you'll you think it's quite a good story,
• 11:42
  but then you think, why don't I make it a bit better?
• 11:44
  And you, you just like add a, it just goes a bit extra.
• 11:49
  And at that point you can tell you've kind of lost them as
• 11:51
  well. It's weird.
• 11:53
  The whole atmosphere kind of goes a bit.
• 11:56
  It could have been just like a good story, like, oh, you're
• 11:58
  interesting and you wanted to make it like, wow.
• 12:01
  And you just lost the IT just you can tell.
• 12:04
  You can kind of tell something's going on.
• 12:06
  That's it's just, yeah. So, you know, exaggeration.
• 12:11
  But then, you know, the then the question is why do we lie?
• 12:15
  It's been interesting. I've been looking at this with a
• 12:16
  study group I'm in at the moment.
• 12:18
  It's a it's a it's a hot button topic when you get into speech
• 12:22
  precepts. But yeah.
• 12:23
  So why do we lie? I mean, usually it's because
• 12:26
  we're scared of a response. You know, we want we, yeah,
• 12:32
  maybe we're a bit scared of what's going to come back if we
• 12:34
  tell the truth. And that requires a bit of
• 12:36
  courage. We want our own way, don't we?
• 12:42
  So we want things to go well for us.
• 12:44
  So we just do whatever we're going to do to make it go our
• 12:46
  way. So we lie in that respect.
• 12:49
  But it's corrupting, isn't it? Not to sound like some
• 12:55
  puritanical well, really this is Buddhist centre anyway.
• 12:58
  Not that we're puritanical, but it's corrupting you corrupt
• 13:02
  yourself. And it was really interesting.
• 13:04
  I was listening to, Oh well, watching and listening a
• 13:07
  fantastic podcast with this guy from London who'd been in jail
• 13:13
  for 25 years. Like he went in when he was I
• 13:15
  think in his early 20s for like gang related crimes and just got
• 13:20
  into a cycle of violence in prison as can happen.
• 13:23
  So you go in for two years and you end up there for 25 years.
• 13:26
  And he converted to Islam in, in, in jail.
• 13:30
  And he said, he kept saying this thing, which it seems like it
• 13:35
  had transformed him, you know, by you can tell after two hours
• 13:38
  of watching someone, you think, oh, this person's kind of like
• 13:40
  really turned their life around. You kept saying this thing.
• 13:43
  He was just about to exaggerate or just about to deviate or bend
• 13:48
  the truth a bit. And he'd stop himself and just
• 13:50
  say this sentence, which was we speak the truth, even if it's
• 13:53
  against us. I really like that.
• 13:56
  I thought, wow, that's fantastic.
• 13:57
  We speak the truth even if it's against us.
• 14:00
  Yeah. I was really struck and I felt
• 14:01
  like he purified himself by keeping doing that.
• 14:04
  And then other people, I would imagine, start to, well, start
• 14:08
  to trust him. Yeah.
• 14:10
  So it's in a way, it's a kind of a way of redeeming your
• 14:13
  character as well. You know, if you're consistent
• 14:16
  just like that, we speak the truth even if it's against us.
• 14:19
  Yeah. So that was good.
• 14:25
  Yeah. And also, to be fair as well, I
• 14:27
  think sometimes speaking the truth is quite rare because in
• 14:30
  order, as they say, in order to speak the truth, you have to
• 14:32
  know the truth yourself. What I mean, that's almost
• 14:36
  impossible, isn't it? But in terms of your own, it
• 14:39
  means having a sense of what's actually at least for oneself,
• 14:43
  what's actually going on for you.
• 14:44
  You know, in order to at least be true to yourself, you have to
• 14:48
  have enough space to know what's going on for you, you know?
• 14:52
  So that's truthful speech. The second one is kind speech.
• 15:02
  So what kind? What is what is kind speech?
• 15:05
  Not, you know, it's kind of obvious, but I would say on one
• 15:09
  level, it's like super crude speech combined with maybe some
• 15:15
  kind of aggression. It's it's funny, I was thinking
• 15:17
  about this morning. Maybe it's a bit different in
• 15:19
  Germany, but in the UK there's a whole class distinction as well.
• 15:22
  So I have AI had a friend of mine who was in and out of jail
• 15:27
  and crime stuff and I was living in this monastery type place and
• 15:34
  I went to meet him in London after not seeing him for a long
• 15:37
  time. And we sat in this restaurant.
• 15:41
  He's he was he's half Jamaican. It's Jamaican restaurant really
• 15:44
  nice. And but then he just started
• 15:46
  talking and it was so crude, like about women, about
• 15:51
  violence, about I was like, this is so I can't be friends with
• 15:55
  this guy anymore. It was too much.
• 15:58
  It was just too much. It was like harsh, like super
• 16:03
  like violent language. And I just thought, I can't, I
• 16:06
  can't do this, which it was sad. It made me sad, if I'm honest.
• 16:09
  But there's not much you can do about that.
• 16:12
  But maybe we're not doing that. Maybe we're not like super
• 16:15
  swearing and like nasty. I do you look like nice people.
• 16:19
  You're probably not doing that. But what we do, I think
• 16:23
  generally, is like this super sharp, critical, harsh language,
• 16:27
  right? It comes out, doesn't it?
• 16:30
  And the result of that is just you end up without any friends.
• 16:33
  Nobody wants to be around someone like that.
• 16:35
  If you're kind of cutting into people, it's brutal, isn't it?
• 16:42
  Yeah. I think I used to wear that as a
• 16:43
  badge of honour. You know, I think I was like,
• 16:45
  yeah, I'm a truth teller. I'd go around like telling my
• 16:49
  truth to people in a kind of, yeah, like I'm brave, but it's
• 16:56
  it misses the kindly speech part.
• 16:58
  If it's not done with an awareness of the person you're
• 17:01
  talking to, it just becomes nasty.
• 17:05
  And yeah, anyway, so that's that's that's I would say that's
• 17:13
  kind of unkind speech, harsh speech, but I think there's more
• 17:17
  to it as well. It's, it's also also not, it can
• 17:20
  dress itself up as pity, you know, like you see someone who
• 17:24
  you think's not doing as well as you, and it's like, oh, you're,
• 17:28
  you're kind of like you're up here in your mind.
• 17:30
  You're fine. You're, you're killing it.
• 17:32
  Yeah. And this, your friend is like,
• 17:34
  it's really struggling. And there's a kind of like, you
• 17:37
  know, this horrible thing that happens where you get pattered
• 17:39
  on the head and someone's like, oh, poor you, you'll be all
• 17:43
  right. And just like, it's horrible.
• 17:46
  So, yeah, pity I think is something to look out for.
• 17:50
  It kind of dresses itself up as kind speech and compassion.
• 17:52
  But really it's about you being OK and then being not OK.
• 17:57
  Yeah. So what is kind speech?
• 18:01
  I think kind speech for me, I just, I, I kind of felt like
• 18:06
  it's, it's a huge topic, but it's, it has something for me to
• 18:10
  do with putting people at their ease as well.
• 18:12
  You know, like the way you talk to somebody, you put them in
• 18:17
  their ease. Well, you're aware of them for a
• 18:20
  start. It's not just what you want from
• 18:22
  them, you know, So when you're talking to someone, you're just,
• 18:26
  you're just enjoying their company.
• 18:28
  Like, well, like an example of this, we went to the Humboldt
• 18:31
  forum to look at the Buddhas and there's a few of us from the
• 18:35
  foundation year. And I was in one of the other
• 18:37
  rooms and Aleda Ratner came in and he was just like, they're
• 18:40
  amazing. These people are so amazing.
• 18:42
  They're so enthusiastic that I just thought this is fantastic.
• 18:47
  It was like really for me, I was thinking about, I thought it was
• 18:50
  an exemplification of what I'm talking about.
• 18:52
  Just like you're aware of people, you're rejoicing people,
• 18:56
  you see them and you're like, this is amazing.
• 18:59
  And you can express it as well. You know, I think one of the
• 19:03
  good things for me at least, about becoming part of a
• 19:05
  tradition like this is like there's a culture, you know, you
• 19:08
  step into a particular culture and a tradition, it has its own
• 19:10
  kind of cultural norms. And in this tradition, in
• 19:13
  Buddhism, rejoicing in people's merit and expressing it is a
• 19:16
  cultural norm. It's like, in the beginning,
• 19:19
  it's quite shocking. Like in when I was first coming
• 19:22
  along, I'd see someone stand up and say, let me tell you all
• 19:25
  about my friend. Not all the time, but like on a
• 19:27
  special occasion. And they'd be able to talk for 5
• 19:29
  minutes. Like, not some best man's speech
• 19:31
  where you're like, yeah, then he vomited and he fell down the
• 19:33
  stairs and some stupid, do you know what I mean?
• 19:35
  Like an actual, like, real, like, no, no holds barred.
• 19:42
  You know, the kind of thing you might say at someone's funeral,
• 19:44
  but only they're alive. Yeah.
• 19:46
  And that's amazing. Yeah.
• 19:49
  And it creates an atmosphere. Yeah.
• 19:53
  So I, I thought in a certain sense, it's interesting, isn't
• 19:56
  it? Like kind speech, if you're
• 19:58
  going to put someone at ease with your speech so that they
• 20:02
  feel good and comfortable, you have to be at your ease as well,
• 20:09
  which is. I thought that's quite a big
• 20:11
  thing then, you know, you and, and I think to be at ease, like
• 20:14
  really at ease has a certain level of it's something to do
• 20:18
  with insight. It's something to do with like I
• 20:21
  think real, that real relaxation of your body and really being at
• 20:28
  ease is that is an expression of insight into the nature of
• 20:33
  reality. You're not haunted by things.
• 20:35
  You're not totally confused. You know, there's a kind of
• 20:38
  you're there, you're present, you're clear and you can relax.
• 20:41
  And it's interesting. There's in terms of sculptures,
• 20:43
  there's there's depictions of certain, let's just call them
• 20:47
  Buddhas, bodhisattvas that are in the, we saw one on Thursday
• 20:51
  in Humboldt Forum. But they're in the in the
• 20:53
  posture of royal ease. Yeah, they're not kind of
• 20:55
  upright meditate. They've kind of got one leg up.
• 20:58
  They look so relaxed. So they're just like, they
• 21:02
  couldn't be more relaxed. Yeah, but they're not sleeping.
• 21:05
  They're they're fully alert, but they're just relaxed.
• 21:07
  They're at ease and somehow it communicates A kindness as a
• 21:10
  sort of, there's some, but it's like got power to it, you know.
• 21:14
  So, yeah, so you put putting people at their ease.
• 21:18
  I think kind speech again is not wanting something from them.
• 21:21
  You don't want them to be a certain way.
• 21:24
  Again, the rejoicing thing, you see some people or you see
• 21:26
  somebody just interested in them for their sake.
• 21:30
  They're just like, like when you're looking at nature, you
• 21:34
  don't want, you can't drag a sunset out and I want something
• 21:38
  from it or do something with a tree.
• 21:40
  And it's the same with your friend or someone you know, you
• 21:42
  just like, there's a yeah. I would say kind speech is also
• 21:50
  encouraging speech. I've heard it said that in a
• 21:52
  certain sense, that's the main, the main aspect of kind speech
• 21:58
  is really encouraging speech. You know, like our own teacher
• 22:02
  Sanger actually says people are so negative, aren't they?
• 22:04
  You know, you say some kind of thing about some dream you have
• 22:07
  or something you want to do. And it's quite funny how he says
• 22:10
  it, but it's true. They're like, they just pour
• 22:12
  cold water all over it and they're really negative about
• 22:14
  it. It's like the opposite of that,
• 22:16
  isn't it? It's just like seeing where
• 22:19
  seeing what some seeing who someone actually is and what
• 22:21
  they want to do with themselves and just backing that, you know,
• 22:27
  we all make mistakes. We're all going to find our own
• 22:28
  way. But you see someone doing
• 22:29
  something you just like you're backing that.
• 22:34
  I think, yeah, my, I've been lucky like that.
• 22:36
  I think it's funny because you can get used to a, again, you
• 22:39
  can get used to a certain culture and get used to a
• 22:40
  certain group of people. But I would say like though the
• 22:45
  person that ordained me, one of my teachers amongst other people
• 22:50
  have just been relentlessly encouraging with me, absolutely
• 22:54
  relentless for like decades. It's just like mind blowing to
• 22:57
  me. And then I think it's something
• 23:01
  you, you pick up yourself and then you can hand on again as a
• 23:03
  culture, you know, it's like a, it's just like a becomes second
• 23:07
  nature after a while. And I think that's all in a
• 23:11
  certain sense, all you need sometimes, isn't it?
• 23:13
  You just need encouragement, telling people they've done
• 23:17
  something good when they've done something good.
• 23:19
  You know, I will say 1 caveat to this, which I've done myself, is
• 23:27
  kind of about manipulation where you kind of you encourage what
• 23:30
  you like. You know, you're kind of like,
• 23:33
  oh, you're amazing, you're doing exactly what I want, you're
• 23:36
  amazing. You know, and then they start
• 23:38
  doing something a bit different. You're like, that's not so
• 23:40
  amazing, you know? So it's just to be aware.
• 23:44
  It's not. Yeah.
• 23:45
  Just to be aware. Why you, are you really praising
• 23:48
  them because you want them to flourish?
• 23:49
  Or is it because you want to angle them in a direction?
• 23:54
  Yeah, yeah. Another thing I think with that
• 23:57
  is, is this whole tradition that we have here is like rejoicing
• 24:00
  in people's merits. Like I say, like you learn to,
• 24:05
  it's like a training. You learn, you learn to observe
• 24:07
  people and you learn to look for their good qualities.
• 24:11
  Not some nonsense. Oh, you're just amazing.
• 24:15
  The end, you know, but like details, like what is amazing
• 24:18
  about this person? And you take time to sit down,
• 24:21
  you think about them and you tell them, like, for example,
• 24:25
  this week, Annaleigh sent me a text saying, oh, these people
• 24:29
  were all rejoicing in your merit out of the blue.
• 24:32
  I was in such a bad mood. I was kind of sitting in my
• 24:34
  flat, like grumpy. And I've got this text just
• 24:37
  saying, oh, such and such said something really nice about you.
• 24:39
  And this person agreed. I was like, that's amazing.
• 24:42
  This is an amazing text to receive.
• 24:44
  So yeah, thank you for that. And in a in a way, I think in a
• 24:49
  certain sense as well, if you're not rejoicing in other people's
• 24:52
  merit, you have to ask yourself why.
• 24:54
  Yeah. It's a bit sad, isn't it?
• 24:55
  When we're in that state where we can't, it's painful.
• 24:58
  When you're in that state where you can't, just can't get it out
• 25:01
  of your mouth. You can't see the good in some,
• 25:02
  you can't rejoice in them. Yeah.
• 25:05
  Why? Why is that?
• 25:06
  It's quite a, for me, it's quite a serious question.
• 25:08
  When I'm in that state, I think something's gone quite wrong,
• 25:12
  you know, all wrong. I'm just not in a good state.
• 25:15
  OK. So that's kind speech.
• 25:18
  So we have truthful speech. We have kind speech #3 we have
• 25:22
  helpful speech. Yeah.
• 25:24
  So what is it not? You could go in for hours,
• 25:28
  couldn't you, About what's not helpful?
• 25:31
  I mean, what's not helpful is trying to fix somebody that's
• 25:34
  definitely not helpful. Yeah.
• 25:35
  So you know what it's like. We've all done it.
• 25:39
  We try and help someone and they're just, they're like, and
• 25:42
  you're like, you need to do this.
• 25:44
  You need to do that. It is.
• 25:46
  Forget it. Yeah.
• 25:49
  What's not helpful, I think is also justifying, like violence
• 25:52
  and anger. That's not particularly helpful,
• 25:53
  is it? When someone's already in that
• 25:55
  state and you kind of think, yeah, get them going.
• 26:02
  Complaining speech is not helpful.
• 26:05
  I've said it before, but I had a very helpful experience once,
• 26:08
  God, over 20 years ago, and I was helping a friend of mine who
• 26:11
  got me into Buddhism do some building work.
• 26:15
  And he, I was just moaning. I was moaning and moaning and
• 26:19
  complaining. And then the woman said, oh,
• 26:21
  could you move the chest of jaws into this room?
• 26:25
  And she went out and I said to him, Oh my God, who just moved
• 26:27
  the and he just cut and he's dead and just said, you know
• 26:30
  what, you're really depressing me and walked out.
• 26:33
  But OK, so that was intense. So I was moaning, I was shocked,
• 26:40
  I was stunned. This is unbelievable, but I was
• 26:44
  moaning relentlessly. But I would say that was helpful
• 26:47
  speech as well. So the flip side, that was
• 26:49
  helpful speech. And sometimes you snap, don't
• 26:50
  you? Like a friend of ours, Amy, she
• 26:54
  was great. I have.
• 26:56
  I don't know if I've done it talking today, but sometimes
• 26:58
  I'll say something that might even be quite good.
• 27:01
  And at the end I'll say, oh, anyway, yeah, as if it actually
• 27:04
  is not, then forget it. Like, it's like you pull
• 27:06
  yourself down in front of people.
• 27:07
  I don't want to sound good. And I did that quite a few
• 27:11
  times. And she came up to me outside
• 27:14
  and was really angry and she said, can't you just stop saying
• 27:17
  anyway, it was really good what you're saying.
• 27:19
  Why do you keep saying anyway? You like dragging yourself down?
• 27:22
  I was like, Oh my God. So but that was really helpful
• 27:25
  as well. So it's not always just like
• 27:28
  softly, softly. But I I would say one has to be
• 27:33
  this sort of stuff is like salt, isn't it?
• 27:35
  It's like a pinch of salt. You're not going around telling
• 27:38
  people like, that's not helpful. What else is helpful?
• 27:45
  Speech, Things that are helpful, like I don't know how to train
• 27:50
  for something. Obviously, you know this.
• 27:52
  You do. I'm sure everyone's doing this
• 27:54
  all the time. How to, how to not blow all your
• 27:57
  money, how to be healthy. It's all helpful, isn't it?
• 28:02
  That's good. Yeah.
• 28:06
  All right, so that's helpful speech.
• 28:09
  So we've got truthful speech, kind speech, helpful speech,
• 28:12
  just to remind us they're not necessary.
• 28:14
  They're not like distinctive qualities.
• 28:17
  They'll kind of emerge out of a certain state of consciousness.
• 28:20
  There'll be a certain state of consciousness you're in that
• 28:23
  will manifest itself in these ways where you will just speak
• 28:26
  truthfully, kindly and helpfully.
• 28:28
  Yeah. But there's a fourth part, which
• 28:31
  is harmonious speech, which is especially important, I would
• 28:34
  say for us Buddhists, you know, because Buddhism is places a
• 28:38
  huge emphasis on, on what we call sanga or community, you
• 28:42
  know, and it's one of the actually, it's one of the big no
• 28:47
  Nos bad things in Buddhism. The Buddha was very clear about
• 28:51
  this. If you pull people apart within
• 28:54
  a community, like actively, I don't know if it's the same as
• 28:57
  killing your mother and your father, but it's kind of it's
• 29:00
  not, is it? No, it's not thank you.
• 29:01
  But it's it's it's bad. It's really bad.
• 29:07
  Yeah. It scares them in the.
• 29:10
  It's up with them. Oh, it is.
• 29:13
  OK. You were shaking your head.
• 29:16
  OK, so there you go. So killing your mother, killing
• 29:18
  your father and then destroying your community by stabbing
• 29:21
  people in the back and trying to pull people apart.
• 29:24
  It's like a super serious thing, isn't it?
• 29:26
  It's so difficult to get a vibrant, beautiful kind of
• 29:30
  genuine community together. Yeah.
• 29:31
  It takes decades and decades and decades, and you can ruin one
• 29:35
  quickly by just allowing that kind of speech into a place
• 29:40
  where you end up, like, with partisan behaviour.
• 29:43
  And it's toxic. Yeah.
• 29:46
  It's like pouring sewage into this place or into any
• 29:50
  community. Yeah, Yeah, it can happen up.
• 29:56
  And the problem with Buddhism or with Buddhists is we can, we're
• 29:59
  quite good sometimes at dressing things up in kind of our
• 30:02
  language and our kind of framework.
• 30:04
  So it can come across as like, you know, concern.
• 30:07
  I've heard that a lot. It's hilarious.
• 30:08
  Like I'm really concerned about this person because.
• 30:11
  And then they'll just stab them in the back and you're just
• 30:13
  like, you're really concerned. Yeah.
• 30:15
  It's for their good, though. It's for their good.
• 30:17
  Yeah, of course. You know, so we do it.
• 30:20
  I've done it. It's shameful.
• 30:22
  I've done it more times than I don't.
• 30:23
  I don't think this is true. I don't think I've done it in
• 30:27
  recent times, which is good. I was, I really, I had enough of
• 30:31
  myself. I thought I was so fed up with
• 30:33
  myself at one point, I thought if I cannot get a grip in my
• 30:36
  mouth, it's like, this is disaster, honestly.
• 30:39
  So I think I'm much better. But it's possible.
• 30:42
  And it's horrible. And we do it in such kind of
• 30:44
  nice ways in Buddhism, you know, but it can have an effect where
• 30:47
  you end up feeling like you're stuck in a village, you know,
• 30:51
  this gossip fest and you're just like, everyone's talking about
• 30:54
  other people and you just think, I've got to get out of this
• 30:56
  place, you know? So just don't do it.
• 31:01
  Don't do it. Yeah.
• 31:05
  Anyway, I want to say more, but it's basically we, we can dress
• 31:07
  up our kind of ill will with with wisdom.
• 31:11
  You know, we're trying to kind of bring more awareness to the
• 31:14
  situation and blah, blah, blah. So it's unpleasant and toxic.
• 31:24
  So what's the opposite? The opposite is everything I've
• 31:26
  been talking about, as well as basically rejoicing in people
• 31:29
  when, you know, like, it's so depressing.
• 31:31
  Like, before I get to a good bit, a while back, I was with a
• 31:34
  good friend of mine, and he was like, yeah, I was talking to a
• 31:37
  such and such person. He didn't tell me who it was,
• 31:40
  thankfully. I think I knew who it was, but
• 31:41
  it doesn't matter. But.
• 31:42
  And I was saying, you're like this and you're like that.
• 31:44
  And they said, yeah, but it won't last.
• 31:46
  And he's really like this. And it really sank my vibe.
• 31:49
  Like I just felt like torpedoed, you know, I was like God, you
• 31:54
  know, the opposite is a bit like this whole thing getting a text
• 31:57
  message from someone saying ah, such and such, said you're
• 32:00
  amazing, You know, I don't mean like that, but you did something
• 32:03
  really good. That's not what I mean, you know
• 32:05
  what I'm saying? Like you do something genuinely
• 32:07
  nice or good and someone sees that genuinely, they're not
• 32:10
  trying to be nice to you. That brings people together.
• 32:14
  And I think that's one of the reasons it's such a kind of
• 32:17
  emphasised area in this tradition and in Buddhism, but
• 32:19
  especially in this tradition of like seeing the good in
• 32:22
  somebody, but actually saying it, not just keeping it to
• 32:25
  yourself. Let them know you know, and also
• 32:28
  let them know someone else said something good about them.
• 32:30
  Because it's always nicer to get a good someone saying something
• 32:34
  good about you from someone else, Then it's clean.
• 32:37
  It's almost you just because they're not in your business
• 32:39
  like trying to be nice to you think there's no weird stuff
• 32:42
  going on. They're just just clean.
• 32:43
  Someone says something good and you're going to tell this other
• 32:45
  person what this other person said and before you know it,
• 32:47
  you've got a very nice atmosphere.
• 32:49
  It's the literal opposite of poisoning the water with, like,
• 32:52
  nasty slander. Yeah.
• 32:55
  So, yeah, I mean, saying that sometimes you do need to vent
• 33:00
  someone. Just like I had it the other
• 33:02
  day. I got really annoyed with
• 33:05
  someone. They were doing my absolute head
• 33:07
  in. Yeah.
• 33:08
  And I've got a good friend of mine who a lot of you know,
• 33:10
  Padmasagra and he's great. I just, I went off.
• 33:15
  I just lost it. I was like, there's and he
• 33:18
  didn't say, oh, you're supposed to be a Buddhist, aren't you?
• 33:21
  Like, you know, and which people do and then you learn not to do
• 33:26
  that. But he didn't do any of that.
• 33:29
  He was just like listening. He even joined in a bit in a
• 33:32
  good way. But then when I'd calm down, it
• 33:37
  was almost like, you know, you vent so much that you hear your
• 33:39
  own voice and you go, OK, that's enough.
• 33:43
  And he's not joining in. He's not like trying to get me
• 33:46
  extra, you know, it's more just like it's gone.
• 33:50
  And it's like he's he's happy with that and he hasn't added to
• 33:53
  it. And I know that I wasn't great
• 33:56
  to say that, but it got it off my chest.
• 33:59
  And then I said something good about this other person.
• 34:00
  And then he was like, yeah, he rejoiced about this person.
• 34:03
  Yeah. So it's like sometimes you need
• 34:05
  to vent, you know, sometimes within a community as well, you
• 34:09
  do need to talk about other people to other people because
• 34:12
  we are in a community. Yeah, not always easy because
• 34:19
  your first instinct is to find someone else who also doesn't
• 34:22
  like this person. Yeah, I see.
• 34:23
  Like, yeah, I was just thinking, I was a bit concerned.
• 34:27
  Oh, I'm concerned as well. And then you're just there like
• 34:29
  concerned for like 2 hours and you're there just like, yeah,
• 34:33
  that was dirty. Yeah.
• 34:35
  So it's like try and maybe try and find someone who actually
• 34:39
  likes this person. And, you know, there's there's
• 34:43
  this person that you don't like, and then you think, oh, this
• 34:47
  person actually really likes this person.
• 34:49
  Let me tell this person about the things that are kind of,
• 34:53
  this doesn't always work because then sometimes you'll get
• 34:55
  clicked around the head by this person.
• 34:56
  But it can it can just help you from kind of indulging.
• 35:00
  Yeah. So, yeah.
• 35:05
  So I think perfect speech or getting a hold of 1's speech is
• 35:09
  not a trivial thing at all. And that's why Buddhism tells
• 35:11
  you it's not a trivial thing. It tells you that it's you're as
• 35:15
  important as what you do with your body.
• 35:16
  It's as important as the food you eat.
• 35:18
  This is as important as exercise, health.
• 35:21
  It's as important as what's going on in your mind, your
• 35:24
  dreams, your intelligence. Yeah.
• 35:26
  What's coming out of your mouth is defining your world.
• 35:29
  It's it also speech is a feedback loop, isn't it?
• 35:33
  Yeah. It's like, like I said, it comes
• 35:35
  out and you get this feedback loop going all the time.
• 35:38
  And the problem is it's very difficult because it comes out.
• 35:41
  You say something difficult or bad that's comes out or negative
• 35:45
  and you've got the feedback and then you have to, then there may
• 35:48
  be another difficult bad thing comes out and you can get stuck
• 35:51
  in a kind of shell of kind of dealing with all this.
• 35:54
  So it takes time to start working on your speech, which is
• 35:58
  why it's quite good to have it as a training principle.
• 36:00
  You know, the rest of Buddhism is the same.
• 36:02
  It's like you don't, there's not the 10 commandments.
• 36:04
  There's no stone tablets from the Buddha saying, oh, you did
• 36:07
  some bad speech there. You're going straight to hell.
• 36:10
  The Buddhist, it's very, very different.
• 36:12
  It's a training principle. It's a bit like you just learn.
• 36:16
  And so if you in a in an environment like this, you could
• 36:18
  say it's a training environment. Yeah.
• 36:20
  It's not like you're being dogmatic and beating each other
• 36:23
  up. And I can't believe you said
• 36:24
  that you're such a bad person. You know, you're not a real
• 36:27
  Buddhist. It's more like I flopped it
• 36:29
  again. Yeah, I said some something
• 36:31
  stupid, but it's OK, you know, because the intention is to try
• 36:36
  again. And so that's it.
• 36:39
  When someone, when, when you hear, when you, when, when
• 36:42
  someone's doing it, you've got to be kind to them as well and
• 36:44
  just say whatever, you know it, it happens.
• 36:48
  And also, I guess 1 needs to learn how to apologise quickly.
• 36:51
  That's what they say. It's like, I quite find that
• 36:54
  quite interesting. Like I was really struck by this
• 36:57
  a long time ago listening to a talk by Sangu Rechta about one
• 37:01
  of them. I think it's like one of the
• 37:02
  marks of a bodhisattva or nearing of an advanced
• 37:07
  practitioner, you might say is they just don't, they know they
• 37:10
  apologise more or less instantaneously.
• 37:14
  I find it so inspiring. It's like, OK, you make a
• 37:16
  mistake, but the, the, the time gap between making that, making
• 37:21
  that mistake and then apologising gets less and less
• 37:23
  and less to the point where, yeah, maybe eventually it
• 37:26
  doesn't even come out of your mouth.
• 37:28
  You know, you're on top of your, you're on top of it.
• 37:30
  You're, you're clear, you've had enough mindfulness and enough
• 37:33
  positive emotion that it's not even doesn't even get out of
• 37:35
  your mouth in the 1st place. Yeah.
• 37:37
  But before that, if it does jump out of your mouth, then the
• 37:41
  apology becomes the time between that happening and the apology
• 37:44
  is less and less. Yeah.
• 37:46
  And that's something you one can clearly train in.
• 37:48
  Yeah. I feel like I've definitely been
• 37:51
  trying that to get closer to that.
• 37:53
  And I think like with all these precepts, whether it's to do
• 37:59
  with speech, whether it's to do with action or your mind, in a
• 38:02
  way, they're all you're. You're strengthening yourself.
• 38:05
  You know, you're it's you're strengthening your character in
• 38:08
  a sense, and developing A backbone, someone that you
• 38:11
  actually can look in the mirror and just think that's all right.
• 38:15
  Yeah, you're all right. You're you're a good person, You
• 38:19
  know, So again, they're not to beat oneself up with one, with
• 38:23
  one's failings. They're more just like, well,
• 38:28
  according to Buddhism, something you take seriously in the sense
• 38:31
  that it will shape your life whether you like it or not,
• 38:34
  whether you agree with all this or not, it doesn't or any you
• 38:37
  think it's such a boring talk and whatever, it doesn't matter.
• 38:39
  It's like your speech will shape and craft your life.
• 38:44
  So the, the only question then is whether you get on top of
• 38:46
  that and engage with it. You know, we're devoted to so
• 38:49
  many other things, aren't we? We're devoted to making money.
• 38:51
  We're devoted to our work. We're devoted to all kind of
• 38:54
  things that we pour our time and energy into.
• 38:57
  But speech is very much worth our time and energy.
• 39:01
  So, yeah, it's something one does actively.
• 39:06
  And yeah, it requires courage. And maybe it requires people
• 39:11
  that also take it seriously and having a little training,
• 39:16
  training partner, so to speak. Yeah.
• 39:20
  And it's something you can experiment with.
• 39:22
  Maybe if this morning has rung any bells, you could try, You
• 39:27
  know, it could be your friends, It could be your family.
• 39:29
  I know people that have. Really transform their
• 39:31
  relationship with their parents, for example, by actually just
• 39:35
  stopping for a minute and looking at their parents as
• 39:37
  individuals and not just like parents and thinking, oh, what's
• 39:42
  my mother? Oh, my mother's got these
• 39:43
  amazing qualities. And actually telling them, you
• 39:46
  know, I have to say, I think that's one of the things that
• 39:49
  that changed things for my, for my mum and my dad.
• 39:51
  Initially they were a bit like, probably not so happy, if I'm
• 39:55
  honest, that I was practicing Buddhism.
• 39:57
  Yeah, I think my mother especially, she'd much prefer
• 39:59
  that I was on the whole, make a lot of money.
• 40:02
  Children. Da, da, da, da, da, da.
• 40:04
  Yeah. But I think when she came to
• 40:06
  feel like, oh, I actually saw her and was rejoicing in her, in
• 40:10
  her actual qualities, made a huge difference.
• 40:12
  Yeah. And I know other people have had
• 40:14
  the same thing. So maybe it's a little thing for
• 40:16
  this week. Maybe your best friend or your
• 40:19
  parents, maybe look at some good things in them and actually tell
• 40:22
  them. Just tell them what's good about
• 40:25
  them. Yeah.