Right or Wise Speech is one of the factors on the Buddha's Eightfold Path, and it includes a warning against harsh speech*. A new study shows the effect of harsh speech in reader comments.
Right speech, sometimes called Wise or Skillful Speech, is the first principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path to liberation from suffering. ... The importance of speech in ethical conduct is clear, Bikkhu Bodhi says in his guide to...
IDP bloggers and Journal writers love to get comments on their posts. We're all suffering and awakening together. When we share our responses, analysis, and experience, we all progress along the path together (and alone). Even sharing confusion can...
If you're my friend on Facebook, you know that I share a lot of links. I think of Facebook as a community bulletin board or an envelope of newspaper and magazines clippings that I want to send off to my friends. Here's a bunch of stuff I think is...
I have been thinking a lot about the discussions of the 8-fold path happening wednesday nights in new york. Especially relating to skillful speech, listening deeply and how that intersects with being vulnerable.
I was meditating the...
A friend of mine posted this quote by Deepak Chopra on her Facebook page the other day:
"Every thought you are thinking creates a wave that ripples through all the layers of intellect, mind, senses, and matter, spreading out in wider...
At breakfast yesterday morning, my dear friend - who is in a Twelve-Step program - explained that he'd begun working on the 8th Step. This requires that he make a list of all the persons in his life that he's harmed, and then make amends to...
"I just did something really stupid." "If I weren't always impatient, I'd be a better person." "It was my fault, I screwed it up again." "I should pay attention and not make so many mistakes." "That was a dumb thing to do."...
Looking through Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching, I found this section at the back that I had not previously read.
“Of course, you have the right to suffer, but as practitioners, you do not have the...
I talk a lot. I always have. I tried once in the third grade to be shy, because I thought the quiet kids were cool and kinda mysterious, but I failed. I’ve long since accepted that I am a talker, that's just who I am, but lately I’...
Near the end of his life, the Buddha gathered his disciples around and stood silently before them for quite some time. At one point he reached down, plucked a flower from the grass, and held it up for everyone to see. Still, he didn...
This last week I was the recipient of a group email debating the merits - or lack thereof - of using certain highly charged words. Among the questionable was "terrorist" - a word, I, in particular, find somewhat of an inflammatory...
Happy April Fools Day all! Have you had any good jokes played so far? Google TISP is a good April Fools' joke. I wrote a comment on my facebook and twitter feeds today, but then read this great article from Salon.com, My Month of No Snark.
It was pointed out to me recently that I use the phrase “they should be shot” a lot. To my ear, it’s nothing, just verbal hyperbole and rhetorical fancy meant to add some color to the conversation. Obviously, I’m not...
My play closed on Sunday. My mouth and brain did not.
As I stepped off the stage for the last time, I felt an enormous relief. The process from the start had been challenging, and the weight of the words I was carrying...
Two weeks have passed since I posted about my struggles with Right Speech, and while I certainly don’t expect things to change overnight, it has been shocking - shocking! - at just how deep the rot goes in me when it comes to...
Thannissaro Bhikku reminds us, via his own teacher, that “if you can’t control your mouth, you can’t control your mind.” I think he’s right. Nothing holds me back in my practice more than my struggles with...
