Insight 70

I've discussed elements of Right Speech in a couple of previous Insights (see Insights 14 and 58), but there's an aspect that I notice most students have trouble grasping so I want to focus on it. A major tenet of Right Speech is that with all speech you should do your best to benefit the other person and at least make sure that you do no harm.

Doing no harm sounds easy enough if you just think about yelling and put downs since most of us can manage to avoid the worst verbal abuse. However, it isn't always so clear cut. There's a Hindu teaching story that exemplifies the dilemma in an extreme circumstance: You're sitting in the woods and a deer runs by. A few moments later a hunter comes along and asks if you saw which way the deer went. You believe all life is sacred and you also know that the hunter's family has no food and will be in trouble without that deer. What truth do you tell that will do no harm?

Life often presents us with situations where the "right" thing to say is a complicated decision, though the consequences are usually far more subtle than this example. And generally the dilemma, instead of mediating between the potential benefit and harm to other people, involves mediating between what you feel would benefit you versus what might harm someone else.

Current fashion in communication suggests that any time you have a strong feeling about someone else or something they've said you have to discuss it, get it out there. Experts say that relationships need open lines of communication and it seems to get translated into "you need to say everything you think or feel." And the need to say what you think or feel stems from concern that otherwise you'll be suppressing feelings -- in danger of being in denial.

I don't disagree that communication is important and a constant practice of suppressing feelings is bad for you. But as I learned right speech and began trying to incorporate the concept of doing no harm I began to see some nuances that differ a bit from the normal conception of good communication.

I began paying attention to my reactions to things people said to me. Now, I have a history of being oblivious to such reactions until sometimes months or years later. By the time I started this "paying attention", I had gotten the gap down to more like minutes and hours but still, generally the conversation had moved on or was over by the time I felt angry or hurt or whatever, so I had some time to marshal my thoughts about what had happened and decide what to do about it. One thing I realized was that in the interest of doing no harm I didn't want to just go off on people. Over time I found that close to 100% of the time when I examined what had happened I saw that the anger was triggered by something from the past, some issue of mine, and nothing the person had said or done actually warranted the rage (or sadness or...) that I felt.

A friend of mine helped me see it more clearly . Her emotions were volatile and her temper awe-inspiring. I might see her one time when she told me about some friend who "done her wrong". If I failed to agree that this friend was bad news, she was furious with me. The next time I saw her she'd mention having lunch with the bad news friend and if I expressed surprise she turned on me for dissing her friend. The next time I'd see her she might go on a rampage because I mentioned that I think it's too bad kids aren't taught how to drive a stick shift any more or ... It became pretty clear to me that all that rage really had nothing to do with me. Once I stopped taking it personally, I could just see her being who she was and doing what she did and her anger didn't affect me.

Although I'm not so volatile, she helped me see that when I feel angry or upset by something that's been said or done the other person served as a trigger, just as I unwittingly set her off. The resolution to those triggered feelings doesn't lie in confronting the other person but in confronting the hidden issues (although a conversation about the fact that you've been triggered with an "other" who's good at right speech might help you to get at the source). In fact, from the perspective of doing no harm, I don't think it's right speech to make someone else feel bad for innocently pushing one of my buttons.*

We have a tendency to think our emotions rule us, that when sadness or despondency or anger or rage moves in we are stuck in its grip until it's over. Actually our emotional states and our reactions are choices we make.  My feeling is that there are many times when the choice each of us needs to make is to take the inner journey that leads us to find the sources of those buttons and triggers rather than make someone else suffer for our unresolved issues.

Furthermore, a "truth" that can hurt the other person or leave him/her upset or feeling unworthy is not right speech. Though there may be rare occasions when something needs to be said even if it may upset the other person, by and large the requirement to benefit or at least do no harm requires us to think twice about confrontations that are likely to disturb or distress.

I stop now to consider whether the situation is one in which something needs to be said in order to benefit the relationship in the long run or whether I'm just wanting to say something in order to satisfy my need to unload or to blame someone else for my issues. And I ask whether the other person is likely to gain anything worthwhile from a confrontation or instead feel harmed by it.

I have found that with a little time to let the heat of the moment die down and give some thought to the situation it's possible to apply the principles of right speech and figure out how to phrase my thoughts in the most beneficial/least harmful way. When you aim for benefit to the other person in the things you say, you put other peoples' welfare first. It's a stance of service. Imagine the world if everyone only spoke words that could benefit the listener.

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