Wise Livelihood

In the Buddha’s day, the role each person played in the marketplace -- their occupation and where they put their money -- was easy to gauge. Today our local employer and our local market both draw from and perhaps cater to complex and often hidden international market, and we provide each other with an amazing array of services unheard of 2500 years ago.

But we each have a moral compass within us, that when ignored causes a feeling of being off-kilter. This moral compass guides us quite admirably when we slow down and pay attention to it. It lets us know when we are causing pain by the way we make our living and by how we invest and spend our money, for example.

A fellow Toastmaster named Olga gave a speech last week that moved me, especially when she said that she had previously pursued a career that made her feel ‘I lost my North’. Fortunately she heeded her inner moral compass, and changed careers. She is now working in the public sector for the good of the community. She is not a Buddhist as far as I know, but that moral compass lives in her without ever having learned about Wise Livelihood. And it lives in each of us.

So the Buddha was not the source of all wisdom. That universal wisdom is accessible to each of us if we quiet down and pay attention. And that’s what the Buddha advised, and that’s what we continue to practice through meditation. But the Buddha also provided a wonderful and comprehensive structure for us to look at what otherwise might feel like a morass of moral complexity: The Eightfold Path. Wise Livelihood is one of those eight, and the final one we will explore.

Remember our Cooking Pot Analogy. 
Wise Livelihood, like Wise Speech and Wise Action arises naturally like steam out of the pot full of Wise Mindfulness, stirred by the spoon of Wise Concentration (practices such as meditation). The cooking pot itself is Wise View, wherein we see the dharma, the true nature of things such as the nature of impermanence and our inherent interconnection with all life (no separate self) and how we cause suffering. But the steam only arises if the flame under the pot is constant, sparked by the match of Wise Intention (to be present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation and to be compassionate with ourselves and all beings). The flame won’t be constant and the pot won’t stand without the logs burning under it being well laid and balanced, and that is Wise Effort -- neither striving doggedly nor lazing and procrastinating.

When we find that our actions, words or livelihood do not seem very wise at all, we can look at our intention, our effort, our view, our degree of mindfulness, our meditation practice, to see why the wise 'steam' isn't rising. It's a very useful tool.

So here we are at Wise Livelihood. Since our sangha is mostly retired, or wisely employed, we will focus more on this investment/spending aspect of Wise Livelihood. (The Buddha’s list of unskillful career moves is at the end of this post.) Wise Livelihood is the overall impact of our engagement in the marketplace, not just what we do for a living. Why? Because money has the power to create jobs in one area or take them away in another, so the way we invest or spend affects the ways in which others make their living. We are not only concerned with our individual happiness, but with the happiness of all beings. This doesn’t mean we proselytize or tell others how to live or make their living, but it does mean that we try not to create unwise jobs through our marketplace demands.

Do you know your impact on the marketplace? Where your money is invested? Who is producing the goods you are buying? Under what conditions?

Bargain hunting is a valued activity by most of us who have had challenges in making ends meet. It is considered a high virtue, and sometimes a sport. But if we make purchases based solely on price, we may negatively impact people to whom, if we met in person, we would practice kindness. We rarely know for certain the answers to all the wise questions we might ask, but so often we don’t even try to find out if this garment we wear so intimately next to our skin was made by someone who suffered from unhealthy working conditions or whose pay was so minimal that they couldn’t feed themselves and their families. When we think through the choice, that bargain doesn’t seem like such a bargain anymore, does it?

We’re not going to throw out what we have, but we might set an intention to make more informed choices the next time we are shopping.

Of course, it’s not just our clothing but the food we eat, the vehicles we drive, the energy we purchase to heat our homes, as well as a myriad of other choices we make when we pull out our wallet and interact in the massive and intricate web of the marketplace. How are our choices affecting the planet and its inhabitants?

To live out our paired intentions of awareness and kindness we need to look at the policies and behavior of not just the makers of the products but the sellers of the products. When we shop at a store that pays such low wages that it’s employees are eligible for government food stamps, we are giving tacit approval of those policies. Is this wise?

If we buy produce that has been sprayed, we may be concerned for our own health, but have we given any thought to the workers in the fields who have their hands and faces exposed to this toxicity for so many hours per week? And what about the wild creatures and the earth itself, the water that runs off from a polluted field and pollutes the water, that 1% of the earth’s water that is fresh? Lots to consider. Buying organic becomes a way to send metta to all beings, not just a way to stay healthy in our own bodies.

If we invest in companies, or in funds that invest in companies, do we simply look at the numbers? Or can we look a little closer and see what we are giving tacit approval to by our investment. Clearly, a mutual fund that invests in companies that potentially cause harm is not a fund a Wise Livelihood investor wants to fund. To invest wisely, we look at the impact of putting funds and therefore power into the hands of people who are not aligned with our intentions. Through the practice of mindfulness we are becoming increasingly mindful that all beings are deserving of respect, kindness and compassion; that all beings are interconnected, all part of the same web of processes. Our consciousness rests in the sensations of this body at this time, but it is not in isolation. It is in interaction always, in every decision, every movement, every purchase and every investment.

Perhaps you have felt badly about buying or investing in something. These bad feelings are clues that your decision is out of alignment with your deepest intentions and understanding of the nature of things. When this happens, when we notice it, it is an opportunity to slow down, notice, look more closely at what is really going on here. But so often we don’t bother. We just feel bad. We just create suffering for ourselves as we continue to create suffering for others.

All of this may run counter to all we have ever learned about being smart in the marketplace. But in the process of buying and selling, sometimes it’s our ease and happiness that gets sold.

As you might expect, we had a lively discussion in class about Wise Livelihood, especially around the difficulty of obtaining accurate information to make informed choices. As an example, one of the students in class had recently been to El Salvador where she said she was allowed into an area called a free zone, where manufacturers, employing Salvadorans, created goods that they labeled ‘Made in the USA’.

This is not an entirely new scheme. In the 1950’s ‘Made in the USA’ could mean the product was made in a town in Japan with the name of Usa! So it is indeed very challenging to do the right thing when our labels contain insufficient and, as in this case, erroneous information.

Yet we do what we can to live in a way that doesn’t cause our inner moral compass to lose its north. That’s going to be different for each of us. But in this process of coming to understand how we fall into the morass of misery, it’s quite useful to acknowledge that sometimes it’s how we blind ourselves to our powerful impact on the world in all kinds of ways, big and small.

Powerful? Yes! Remember the power of the choice by many people around the world to divest from South African stocks, and the role that played in ending Apartheid? We are powerful! Make these choices count, and let us ‘find our North.’

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End Note (excerpted from Access to Insight’s extensive text and commentary on Buddhist teachings. http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bodhi/waytoend.html#ch4)

“The Buddha mentions five specific kinds of livelihood which bring harm to others and are therefore to be avoided: dealing in weapons, in living beings (including raising animals for slaughter as well as slave trade and prostitution), in meat production and butchery, in poisons, and in intoxicants (AN 5:177). He further names several dishonest means of gaining wealth which fall under wrong livelihood: practicing deceit, treachery, soothsaying, trickery, and usury (MN 117). Obviously any occupation that requires violation of right speech and right action is a wrong form of livelihood, but other occupations, such as selling weapons or intoxicants, may not violate those factors and yet be wrong because of their consequences for others.”

Live the Questions -- an experiential exercise

The beginning of a new year is a great time to do a little inner questioning and reflection. In Buddhism, the most useful ongoing question is ‘How do I live in relationship to this situation?’ The most useless is ‘Why me?’ But there are lots of other useful questions to pose, and we’ll be exploring them here today. Do this when you have the time to really enjoy this process without a deadline.

If we stay with our intentions to be present in this moment, anchored in physical sensation, and to be kind to ourselves as we do this inner work, we can ask the questions and attend the answers that well up from within in a way that gives them a spacious, safe place to land.

This is a process that takes all the kindness we can develop within ourselves. These answers have been there all along, have probably tried to make themselves known in a myriad of ways, but may have been met with harshness, a blank stare, a rude retort, a judgment, or a ready excuse.

As we do this process, we want to be aware of the automatic responses that arise, the ones that deflect or pose to protect us. There’s no need to make them wrong. We can let them sit at the table but not be the only voice. We can listen more deeply. The universal wisdom -- that we all have access to but don’t hear until we are present and peaceful -- is the quietest voice in the room, the one with no sense of urgency, no agenda, no judgment, just an open, earnest, fearless, loving ease. By learning to meditate and quiet down the stringent inner aspects of our endlessly problem-solving selves, we avail ourselves of this wise voice.

As you look over the questions that follow, you might find that some bring up answers and others don’t resonate. That’s fine. They are all portals to the same inner wisdom, so go with whatever calls you. But notice if you are afraid of a question. The one that causes discomfort is also one you want to spend more time with. Be kind, stay present, ask again.

It is valuable to write down your answers, so grab a pen and paper or bring up a Word document before you begin. You’ll be glad later that you gave yourself this gift of exploration, and it’s good to have a written record to revisit.

Please meditate before doing this exercise. If you have not meditated before, here are basic meditation instructions. Again, do this process when you can give it as much time as it takes without any deadline. It won’t work very well if you feel rushed.

Take each question and spend some time with it before moving on to the next. Don’t read ahead as that takes away from the power of the process.

The Questions

How might I lighten my load? OR What can I take off my plate?

What am I assuming about life that might be in error?

How is this assumption weighing me down?

Is there some external circumstance that I am blaming for my current state of mind?

Where am I struggling?

What am I clinging to that isn’t supporting me, just causing more pain?

What am I trying to prove? And whom am I trying to prove it to?

What am I trying to hide? And whom am I hiding it from?

What am I afraid of?

What is the simplest and clearest expression of my love, my gratitude, my joy?

After you’ve written down your answers, take some time, now or later, to look back over what you have written, and notice the language you use as you answer questions. Wherever you find words like ‘should’, ‘must’, ‘have to’, ‘need to’, that’s a valuable clue to go deeper into the process. These kinds of words come from murky motivations. As always, we are looking to let what we say and do arise from our deep intentions to be present and compassionate with ourselves and others. Discovering our motivations is extremely valuable. Don’t toss them out. Look more deeply. Find the fear.

In this process you will undoubtedly discover something you hadn’t realized. But this is just the beginning. A potent question can take us on a wondrous journey of self-discovery. If one of these questions was particularly meaningful, write it down on a little piece of paper and carry it with you over the coming days, weeks, months. Take it out from time to time and pose the question again. Noodle it! Use the question as a frame to look at life for a while. Question assumptions you hear yourself making in different situations. Ask ‘Is this true? How do I know this is true?’ This is a great way to clear old unquestioned thoughts that have been cluttering up the brain attic!

In class at Spirit Rock one day many years ago, teacher Mark Coleman posed a question that sent me on a months-long journey. He asked, ‘What is it that’s holding you in bondage?’

If this question speaks to you, feel free to use it. At first it seemed such an odd question. Of course I’m not in bondage! The very idea! But that question stayed with me, and I had a series of incremental aha moments that revealed exactly what was holding me in bondage. Isn’t it strange how even in a life that is free of external imprisonment, we can cage ourselves?

You might find that the answer to one question might create another question in its wake. For example, when I realized that what was holding me in bondage was ‘my habitual nature’, that brought up a question about why I was so habitual. Another weeks-long journey of inquiry and noticing. Then an insight where I recognized an erroneous belief within me: I believed that if I did things in the same way every day then things were under control and nothing would change. But having said that, having brought the belief to light, I could easily see how it was not true. Habits do not ultimately protect me from whatever change I fear. It was a very freeing experience, that exploration. I felt an influx of joy and renewed energy.

Did it solve all the challenges in my life? Of course not. The answers we find create more space, free up more energy to live more in the present and with more compassion. But there is no place to get to, no perfect state. And thinking there is the perfect answer somewhere is a sure path of misery. When we say, aha, I’ve arrived! Nirvana! Then we immediately dig in and determine that it will last. Grasping and clinging: The Buddha’s description of suffering.

One of the wisest things we can do is live with the question, to love the question itself, as Rilke said in his Letters to a Young Poet:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

[Read more Rilke quotes]

Learning how to live with the unknown within ourselves and in the world is a great gift. And having a question is a way of being actively engaged in that unknown. The answers come, usually with more questions on their tails, but it’s the questions themselves that provide the riches.

Giving ourselves the time we need to quiet down, listen in and ask meaningful questions is a journey alive with richness. By doing so we learn how to live in a way that brings more joy and less suffering to all beings, including ourselves.

Please comment below. I would love to get feedback on how this process was for you.

'Tis the season...

Happy Solstice! In this time of deepest darkness, all about us nature is quieting down, settling in, and going dormant. Meanwhile many of us are busier than ever, adding even more to our social calendar and to do list.

Whether we celebrate Christmas or not, most women can relate to the sense of wanting to create a happy experience for our families and/or friends. There is a frenzied quality in the air that some find harrowing and others find delightful. I remember my mother always saved some shopping to do on Christmas Eve, just to be out in the hustle bustle of it all.

It is definitely busier in the streets around the holidays. People are more distracted and do even less wise actions when driving.

I've been very conscious of making sure I drive safely, but the sense of overwhelm comes out in different ways. Yesterday I left my purse behind at a meeting as I was off to another meeting. Forgetting a purse for a woman is rare. Our bodies just don’t feel right walking out a door without it. But -- what are the chances? -- just the night before a friend left my house without her purse! What are the chances of that? Pretty good during this time of year it seems.

How do we stay mindful this time of year? We center in, reset our intentions to be present and compassionate. We pause, we slow down, we sense in, we breathe.

The theme of my local Toastmasters club meeting yesterday was (what are the chances?) ‘Inhale, Exhale’ -- such a great theme. But did I pause to notice my inhalation and notice my exhalation? Did I hear the message? No! My mind was caught up in the task of taking meeting minutes, of being sure the guest next to me understood what was going on, and peripherally sensing the limited number of shopping days before Christmas. Sometimes we are just so caught up in planning and worrying that we forget what it is to really live, to really be here, to really feel that aliveness.

Yesterday morning I received an email from my Ohio friend Marita. We know each other from winters spent in Mexico, but we stay connected throughout the year because she’s a talented photographer who sends out group emails of her adventures wherever she is. This is the first year she has been stuck in Ohio, in the deepest coldest winter they've had in quite awhile. She’s no fan of the cold, and has always made a point to be in warmer climes. In fact, until now she didn't even own a decent pair of winter boots. But yesterday’s email started this way:

“Frequent snowfall this month has opened a window into a new world for me.  A natural world in which the Who - What - When - Where of wildlife is revealed like magic.

“Reading tracks in snow can be intriguing.  Am I the first human on this trail today?  That dog is not on a leash!  Which direction did they go?  These footprints were made last night, then covered by a fine dusting of snow this morning.  How many deer were passing through?  Was that a squirrel?  No a rabbit.“

Her words were such an inspiration to me. When we let go of what we wish things would be like and begin to notice what is happening in this moment, magic happens. In this moment, whatever this moment holds, there is always something of value.

Again my mother comes to mind. She was of the generation that followed her husband’s career without question, and so she made homes in many different places. Once the home was set up and the children situated in school, she set about to establish herself in her new community. She found people with shared interests, did volunteer work for peace, one time became a realtor, one time got her college degree in marine biology and started a Greek restaurant. She was an amazing woman in part because of her ability to make the best of every situation. Now she didn't pretend it was easy to make the transition, just as Marita’s emails from a week ago were a tad grumpier than this inspiring one. But in both cases, these women accepted what is happening in the moment, and instead of clinging to some alternative reality or criticizing this one, they found a way to discover what is it about this time and place, exactly as it is, that they could enjoy, engage in and maybe even love.

So often in life we think that something outside ourselves needs to happen for us to be happy. But this is simply not the case. For my friend in Ohio, for my mother in her many new homes, for us in this season that sometimes feels like a steamroller, we all have choices in the way we relate to what is going on in our lives.

If we can let go of wishing for things to be other than they are, if we can befriend what is happening in this moment, we are not 'settling'. We are simply not relying on external circumstances to create our happiness.

So let’s give ourselves the gift of mindfulness this season: When things get scrambled, let's pause, inhale, exhale, reset our intentions to be present, anchored in physical sensation, and to be compassionate with ourselves and others, especially when we feel overwhelmed, exhausted or sad. Let's send metta, loving-kindness, as a healing balm for what ails us and what ails the world: May you be well, may you be happy, may you be at ease, may you be at peace. In this way we sense our deep connection with all life as we breathe ease and joy. 'Tis the season!

Wise Speech -- Poetry & Meditation

I couldn't end our exploration of the use of words without visiting poetry, for poetry is the natural outpouring of the meditative mind, a mind that is present, clear, fearless and filled with tenderness for all life.

I am fortunate to be a member of an ongoing class at the College of Marin called ‘The Poetic Pilgrimage.’ Together, under the tutelage of Prartho Sereno and Catlyn Fendler, we read selected poets, both current and ancient, and then are given prompts to inspire and free us to hear the words that rise up within us and to write poems ourselves. We are training our minds to notice.

Likewise, in meditation practice, we are training our minds to notice whatever arises: the physical experience of being, what we see, hear, smell, touch, taste with our senses, our inner commentary, the judging of that inner commentary. And we do metta practice, sending universal loving-kindness to whatever arises -- to others and to ourselves. And in that process, over time, we find we soften, mellow, sweeten, deepen, lighten, and are enriched by this ongoing being.

“All I was doing was breathing” is a poem title by Mirabai, a 15th century north Indian poet who considered herself married to the god Krishna.

All we are doing as we meditate is breathing. Or more accurately, noting the breath, because there is no effort in the breathing. As we rest in the simple state of being, we create a space for compassion, gratitude, appreciation, joy and generosity to well up within us.

When we spend time in this kind of loving silence, the words that rise up eventually are words of inquiry, fearless clarity, wonder, gratitude and praise. These by definition are poetry. Let’s look at each of them:

INQUIRY

Poetry is often a journey of inquiry, experienced in a state of wonder, the state we are in on a meditation retreat, more and more as each day goes by.

Here is a quote that was recently shared by the poet Sophie Cabot Black in an interview in The New Yorker: “For me, the act of writing comes out of query. Each image turns to the next with its question and gets answered. Or with its answer it gets questioned. Poetry is my way to understand what is difficult. How one thing can be explained through another—is to get closer, to unhide what feels hidden..”

Both poetry and meditation deeply notice of what is present in this moment, in the world around us and in the thoughts and emotions that traverse through our consciousness.

FEARLESS CLARITY

Poetry is not afraid to explore in a compassionate way that which is bitter, difficult or ungainly. Poetry unmasks, dissolves obscuring filters, and sees with fresh tender eyes.

As it happened, in meditation class last Thursday, our weekly reading of our Pocket Pema Chodron focused exactly on this. (We read these brief chapters, after meditation and before the dharma talk, in sequential order without regard to the dharma topic. Usually they lend some extra dimension to the discussion, and in some cases, like this, the reading could not be more aligned if I had purposely chosen it.) It was Chapter 44, titled ‘Gloriousness and Wretchedness’. Pema says there is value in both the gloriousness and wretchedness of our life experience. One inspires us and the other softens us.

Just so, poets are fearless in the face of what is. They do no go for the gore but if it is part of the experience of a moment they will not shy away from telling what is true. Those difficult encounters, told with tender perception, awaken the poet and the reader to a deeper, softer understanding of the nature of life. (How different this is from the addictive quality of some writing, where misery and suffering are used for entertainment and confirmation of a limited fear-based world view.)

WONDER

The more we meditate, the more we let go of the need to know definitive answers because we recognize that to live in the wonder is the gift itself. To incessantly be seeking out answers is just part of that useless activity of shoring up our defenses, wanting control, wanting solid ground to stand on.

One of my favorite retreat experiences was the realization that I don’t know. All these assumptions I make about myself and the world around me are totally for convenience. I remember how I looked at the concrete under my feet during walking meditation, and I realized I knew nothing about most of it -- only a small portion of it was exposed, and I didn’t really know all that much about that!

I suppose it could have been scary to discover I don’t know, but in fact it was liberating. It was delightful. Contained within it was the realization that all the struggles we make to know everything are exercises in futility that we can just release. This is not to say that we should give up the pursuit of knowledge, but we can enjoy the process a lot more if we do it with awe and wonder, rather than a driving need to uncover, expose, conquer and claim.

This famous advice from Rainer Maria Rilke, in his Letters to A Young Poet says it all:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

PRAISE & GRATITUDE

So much of poetry is written at a moment when the poet is simply looking out the window at an ordinary day and seeing the gift of this life.

There is a Buddhist saying that to be born into human life is as rare as a turtle surfacing within a circle the size of a life preserver floating in the vast ocean. Scientifically this is certainly true for us. Think of all the causes and conditions of all our ancestors that had to happen in order for us to have this chance to be here. The mind boggles!

The mind at rest, not striving, not in fear, can recognize the gift. On a silent meditation retreat, by day 4 the faces of retreatants glow with gratitude. Awakening to ‘this, just this...ah, bliss’ is simply a recognition of the gift that is this life, regardless of the causes and conditions. Any human, in any condition, even the most horrendous, can experience this joy. It is not purchased, it does not come with possessions or comfort. It comes from within, from awakening. We wish for all beings to be fed, housed, clothed and cared for. And hopefully we take wise action to help make that so. But even in the midst of great challenges, we can awaken to great joy and sing praises and feel gratitude, not for things but for the gift of being alive in this moment.

Let me share with you these links to some of the poems we have read together.

Pablo Neruda ‘Poetry’

Mary Oliver ‘The Journey’

Paul Hostovsky ‘Be Mine’

Wise Speech - Our Words Matter

You can see from our past two discussions that Wise Speech is not just about talking. It’s also about developing a comfort with a quality of loving silence and developing the skill of really listening to others.

Many Americans among blog followers had the opportunity to test these skills last Thursday on Thanksgiving with family and friends. How did it go? What did you notice? If you found yourself in the hot water of the sea of misunderstanding, don’t despair. Take notes! That was the test run. Chances are you have more social gatherings ahead!

One student reported that her Thanksgiving was so joyful because she spent more time resting in silence and less time thinking she needed to speak.

A friend recently reminded me that I once said that it’s helpful to consider ‘My mouth is an altar.’ The mouth, that place where speech is formed, can be treated as an altar where we lay down words in a thoughtful and sacred way. What words would we put on the altar? What words would be desecration of the honored trusting space between any two people? See if this is a helpful way to think about it for you.

Wise Speech is one of the aspects of the Eightfold Path, and so works with the other aspects. What is the relationship between them?

If we look at our cooking pot analogy, you'll see I have drawn Wise Speech (and Wise Action and Wise Livelihood) as steam rising up from the pot of Wise View and its contents of Wise Mindfulness stirred by Wise Concentration.

This makes Wise Speech and the others seem rather effortless. If all the others are in place, then these three arise. Is this true? Could be, but how often are all the others in place? When we find that we have spoken unwisely, or have a strong impulse to do so, we can look back to our intentions, our effort, our view, whether we're being mindful, and these other aspects provide us with insight into how unskillful language came about. This is really practical and useful!

One student noticed a striving quality to her efforts to connect with a friend, and a resulting difficulty with composing an email to her. This is such skillful noticing.

We can apply the same questions we have been working with throughout our investigation: What is my intention here? Do I have an agenda? Or am I truly coming from my intentions to be present in this moment and to be compassionate with myself and others? Then we can look at effort and the rest.

But there are a few more traditional questions we can ask about anything we have said, written or want to say or write:

• Is it true?
• Is it kind?
• Is it timely?

Let’s go through these three questions in a little more depth.

Is it true?

This question can create a spaciousness and balance of thinking that feels like fresh air. Even if it gets us to alter our wording from statement of fact to an ‘I think that...’ opinion, it helps to make our speech wiser. But the question opens us to re-examining thoughts and beliefs that may never have been looked at before. If we haven’t really looked at it, how can we speak it as if it is truth? Are we simply parroting what we have heard? Where did we hear it? Is this a source we know to be trustworthy? How do we know that?

‘Is it true?’ is the beginning of our exploration. It behooves us to keep the exploration going, to examine assumptions, to question everything. But for most of us the idea of questioning what we believe to be true is threatening in some way. Why? Because we believe we are what we think, what we believe, what we hold to be true.

This brings us back to Wise View and to the Five Aggregates we explored earlier in the year, that led us to understand that there is no separate self we need to defend or shore up. When we can sense our deep connection with all that is, how this human being life we are experiencing is impermanent, a fleeting conjunction of particles, a perceived segment of a much larger system of processes, and that our consciousness enables us to experience life in this moment as this seemingly-separate being with a skin-encased body, a name and other identifiers, then we can explore a simple question like ‘Is this true?’ with great freedom and curiosity. Because nothing in the answer threatens our being.

Is it kind?

What did the Buddha mean by this question? Is he suggesting that we should always be nice, don’t make a fuss, put up and shut up? Loving-kindness not about making nice in order to maintain some status quo. Instead it is rooted in a deep sense of loving kindness and compassion. So we ask whether we are speaking from Wise Intention or is there some murky motivation here?

Are we saying something nice to appease or are we expressing truth with an understanding of the power of words to wound or heal, to cut down or inspire, to create antagonism or collaboration. We cannot understand the power of our words if we perceive ourselves to be powerless.

The most powerful words in the world come from our parents. As children we craved approval and love, and were tuned into even the slightest hint of a tone of disapproval or dismissal.And we were aware when the words we craved remained unsaid. As adults we would do well to see our parents, whether alive or not, as mere humans prone to error like all others, with no instruction manual and little of what we now call emotional intelligence, and probably more than their share of challenges. We can divest the power we have given them without turning our backs on them. We don’t make ourselves impervious to their barbs by creating armor. Instead we recognize their torment and suffering, and feel compassion. May they be well. May they be happy. May they be at ease. May they be at peace.

What does this have to do with our own ability to speak wisely. If we are parents, it reminds us that these words we use which we may not even think about -- that may be throw-away words as far as we’re concerned, which come from a person who feels rather powerless perhaps, and certainly not capable of any real harm -- are in fact received by our children, even adult children, as more powerful and thus more painful than we can imagine. Perhaps we have raised children who are well-balanced and capable, but we cannot assume that even they are not still in need of our approval and attuned to read more into what we say than we may have intended. So be aware!

Whomever we are talking to, loving-kindness is an absence of the need to prove anything, correct or remake anyone. Kindness is not about satisfying our innate curiosity by asking nosy questions, but about taking an interest, and letting the other person take the lead in the conversation. Loving-kindness is universal, so our words are equally kind to everyone we encounter.

Is it timely?

What we have to say might be true, and it might be kind but maybe it's an awkward moment to say it. For example, it might be true and kind to say “I love you’ to someone, but not in the middle of a business meeting. Or it might be true and kind to have a real heart to heart with someone, but not while they are in the middle of preparing a big dinner. Knowing when is the right moment comes from being attuned to the silence, being fully in the moment, and allowing the words to be a response to a spell of skillful listening. The right time reveals itself.

Pitfalls

Since we are in festive season, a time when we often have so many social gatherings and succumb to unskillful speech so easily, let's explore a few typical pitfalls we might encounter:

Drinking. Some of us rely on drinking to get us through social awkwardness, but that release of inhibitions is really just a release of good judgment. If you can’t drink in moderation, don’t drink. If you drink to calm nerves, then find more skillful ways to address that concern -- self-inquiry, looking at the patterns of thought that keep you in fear; and practice, such as joining Toastmasters to get past the nerves.

Wit. Some of us so much want to entertain that we would prefer to be clever even if it cuts. Focusing on listening helps to remind us this is not a stage, we are not doing a routine.

Gossip. Getting together with people who share common bonds with others often ends up by discussing those not present in a familiar but not always loving way. Wise Speech doesn’t talk about people, period. Their stories are not ours to tell. The answer to questions about absent family or friends is, ‘Oh yes, it’s too bad they couldn’t be here. But maybe you can get in touch with them to catch up.’ Of course that family member might not appreciate you referring people to them, so a vague ‘Oh they’re just fine. Thanks for asking.’ might suffice. This is difficult, especially for women who gather together to solve the problems of the world, or at least their immediate family members, and find relief from worry by hearing the stories of other people’s relatives who are even more dysfunctional. There is also a way in which families weave a valued and supportive mythology that has benefits that the Buddha might question, but that the elders of 'the clan' seem to have a biological imperative to weave and share. That aside, gossip usually leaves us feeling a sullied. Try a period of not talking in the third person and see if it doesn't free you! As for supportive sharing of experience, there’s no harm in using stories, just keep the people involved anonymous.

Generalizations, stereotypes. Without giving our words much thought we may find ourselves repeating things we have heard without question, or we might extrapolate a single incident into a judgment about a whole group of people. This is not skillful, since these statements by their nature are neither true nor kind.

Desire to ‘be ourselves’. We have this idea that being free to say whatever comes into our heads is desirable. That anything else is censorship. Why? Do we feel entitled to move our bodies anywhere in space regardless of whether someone is already there? No. When it comes to action and to speech, we are in community.

We may imagine a person -- a friend or lover -- with whom we can totally ‘be ourselves’, as in we can mindlessly blurt out whatever pops up. This only works if we have a set of disposable friends, whose feelings don’t matter to us. You might be able to think of a friend or two who you can be thoughtless in your speech and they don’t mind, but this only means that this is the kind of abuse they were raised with, and they interpret that as intimacy. We seek intimacy and sometimes rude cutting words make us feel at home. You might recognize that in someone you know, or in yourself. It isn't wise or loving to continue that abuse.

Secrets as intimacy. Shared knowledge feels like a bond, but building a separate fortress for two or a few is clinging to fortress mentality, just letting the ‘special’ people in. The only people who want in, however, are those who are trapped in believing themselves to be special and separate, in need of constant reassurance and admiration. Healthy relationships are built on a deeply shared sense of connection with all life and respect.

Did you recognize any of these traps in your experience? Or others I haven’t covered here?

You are not alone! These are challenging and it's good to remember that this is all a practice. We all just do the best we can. All of these skills we develop are in order to reduce suffering for ourselves and others, and create loving-kindness, compassion and joy.