by Rev. Kathleen McTigue, February 1, 2004
Jack Kornfield's last sentence is where I want to begin: "If we understand community as a place to mature our practice of steadiness, patience, and compassion, to become conscious, together with others, then we have the fertile soil for awakening." Whether the spiritual community we choose is a monastery or a synagogue, a church or a Buddhist temple, the underlying reason for putting ourselves inside its circle is the same. We don't all speak the same language of awakening or enlightenment. But we do, I think, have a common yearning to see more clearly who we are, and to discern more sharply the meaning of our lives and how we can be useful in the small part of the world we call home.
It's within this spiritual community of ours that we try to practice waking up. It's here that we try to become more conscious, and to help each other nurse along the little glimmers we see inside ourselves that give a hint of our own best offerings to the world. There are a lot of dimensions to that work, but this morning the one I want to look at most closely is what is called, in Buddhist terms, "right speech".
When the teachings of the Buddha were passed along, there were a number of precepts for living a wholesome life that the Buddha himself was said to have laid out. They include the injunctions to right intention, right practice, right speech, right action and right livelihood. Those are short, pithy little labels with so much condensed into them that they sound almost like the simple, massive instruction, "be good!" But they're useful in that they turn us carefully in all the most important directions for minding what we do and paying attention to what we bring to each other.
The words from our mouths are one of the most important things we bring to each other. Because we are social animals, a huge amount of our life's energy is spent engaging with one another. We do it in all kinds of ways -- by touch and gesture, by glance, by simple presence, through common labor; sometimes we engage through violence or hostility. But the most constant way we engage each other is through language, whether spoken or written. Our words have enormous power. They link us to each other or divide us, bind us in intimacy or open enormous rifts between us. They enlighten us, sadden us, teach us, entertain us, wake us up to worlds of possibility.
Most of us can remember at least one time in childhood when we came to a parent in tears over something cruel a friend had said to us, only to be chided with the words, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". They meant well in saying that to us -- they meant, 'Buck up! Don't let it get to you!' But the statement itself can be a little crazy-making because it isn't true. Even as little kids we knew that what someone said to us could hurt us, sometimes much more deeply than a visible bruise.
The great Jewish teacher Abraham Joshua Heschel said that words are sacred, because it was through words that God brought the world into existence. "Let there be light", said God, and then there was light, and on through the ancient Hebrew account of creation: speaking out the separation of land from sea, the creation of plants and animals and so on. First there was the word, and then came the reality. A survivor of the Holocaust, Heschel often pointed out that that wrenching chapter of human history didn't begin with the building of crematoria, and Hitler did not come to power with tanks and guns. It all began with the uttering of words, with defamation and propaganda. "Words create worlds", he used to say.
Words create worlds. And yet we give so little thought to the power held in our speech, in what we say, when we say it, and how. We think about our speech when it's something public we're preparing for, because when we're asked to do something in front of a group we feel as though something is at stake. But something is always at stake, in this power of language we take so much for granted. We should think about it more often. How shall we speak to one another? How do we want our words to affect another person, to be received, to make a difference?
Buddhist teacher Joseph Goldstein writes, "Because speech is so predominant in our lives, and because our words are so consequential, learning the art of skillful communication needs to be a significant aspect of our [spiritual] practice. The Buddha emphasized the importance of this when he included right speech as a distinct part of the path to awakening. Although there is great elaboration of right speech in the texts, it all condenses into two general principles: Is it true? Is it useful?"
If we're trying to become more conscious of the words we speak and their impact on others, our effort begins with those two questions. Is it true? Is it useful? To adopt those questions as guidelines for ourselves instantly creates a spiritual practice that is incredibly simple, and extraordinarily difficult. Because as it turns out, it isn't an easy thing to answer either question. For instance, we know with reasonable certainty whether the thing we're about to say is an out and out lie. But as with so much in our complicated, nuanced lives together, there lots of layers of truth and falsehood.
We are almost all given to exaggeration, for instance -- was the guy who cut me off on the freeway really going a hundred miles an hour? Or does it just make him look a little more clearly like the bad guy? When I'm complaining about how tired I am, did I really work a fifteen hour day and then hardly sleep at all? Or am I also playing for sympathy, or feeding my ever-so-slight tendency toward martyrdom?
Most of our exaggerations are pretty innocent. But when we notice how often they enter our speech, we can see why the injunction to honesty is harder than it seems at first. And there are other shadings away from truth besides embellishments. We all know the little lies we tell when we let ourselves skate on the surface with each other, unwilling to dig into the vulnerability that the truth reveals. Sometimes that little lie is in the common question we ask each other, 'How are you?', when we're not really paying attention and don't really want to know.
I came across a cartoon recently that showed two men greeting each other. The first one says, "Hey, Mike! How the heck are ya?" and the second one, smiling just as jovially, says, "Hi, Phil! Do you want the 10-minute truth or the 5-second lie?' Phil says, 'I'm in a hurry, so you'd better lie.', and Mike says, 'Gosh, I'm fine! Never better! Thanks for asking!'
Sometimes we slide toward dishonesty out of laziness, or inattention; we speak before our brain is really in gear, or just because we're slipping into chatter mode and we're not paying attention. Sometimes we lie to each other out of avoidance: we're afraid that the real truth will make someone angry or defensive or hostile to us, and it just doesn't seem to be worth the trouble. Sometimes we lie because we're trying to preserve an image of ourselves: we lie about something we've done that we're ashamed of, even when we know that it's by coming clean that we can move on.
One of the best examples of this temptation was one shared with me eight or nine years ago by my friend and colleague Dan O'Neill, who has since died of cancer. Years before I knew him in seminary, Dan had realized he had a drinking problem and had entered Alcoholics Anonymous. But at some point in his ministry he decided the problem wasn't really all that serious and that it was an overreaction on his part to give up alcohol altogether. He was perfectly capable, he told himself, of drinking in moderation like so many other people he knew. And then one night during the summer he got picked up by the police and charged with driving under the influence. In California the immediate penalty for a first offense was a six-month suspension of his driver's license.
When I saw Dan at General Assembly in June of that year, this episode was only a few weeks behind him and his congregation still knew nothing about it. He was on study leave, and still had several weeks to go before he would have to re-engage with the congregation. He was agitated and deeply ashamed, and in trying to protect himself he was beginning to think of elaborate ways he could explain to the congregation a decision not to drive, so that he wouldn't have to reveal the truth. He thought he might tell them that he was going to start biking everywhere for exercise, or that his environmental concerns made him want to give up the car.
Dan was one of the most spiritually evolved people I've ever known, and it didn't take him very long to confront himself with the temptation to lie. Within a few weeks he had called together his governing board, and soon after that from the pulpit he shared the truth with his congregation, directly and with complete honesty. As he might have known from the beginning if his fear and shame hadn't blinded him, the congregation embraced him with understanding and blessed him with their love and support through his climb back onto the wagon.
One of the things that episode showed me with great clarity is the way in which honesty is the path to intimacy. The reverse is true to the same degree: a decision to deceive ourselves or someone else, even in small ways, is a movement away from community. Whatever rationale we give ourselves for our lie, it will create distance between us and the ones we lie to, and will widen the gap between who we are and who we strive to be. The word "integrity" comes from the same root as our words "untouched" and "intact". Truth-telling helps us keep ourselves intact.
But truth-telling is only half of the practice of right speech. The other half is the question, Is it useful? Like the question about honesty, this one is trickier than it seems at first. Useful to whom, and in what way? It might be completely truthful to tell someone everything you think about him, but in what way would that honesty be useful? In the practice of right speech, honesty is always tempered by compassion. This doesn't mean that we'll avoid telling a truth simply because it might be hurtful; it means that we will weigh the need for truth-telling carefully, and then choose our words with even greater care so that the truth can be spoken in love.
One of the most common ways we miss the boat on this one is through talking about each other instead of to each other. When we talk about each other, what we say might be true, at least as far as expressing our opinion about someone else; but most of the time when we're talking about someone who isn't present, we're on the slippery slope toward gossip. The scene from the old musical Music Man that gave rise to the 'Pick a Little, Talk a Little' song we heard this morning is of course an extreme portrait, and if that were always what gossip looked like most of us could smugly exempt ourselves.
But talking about each other is an incredibly pervasive habit. Some of the time it's necessary, like when we're trying to convey a need on someone's behalf or sorting out our feelings or perspective in preparation for sharing what's on our mind with that person, where it belongs. But a lot of the time it's extra -- a layer of chatter, an easy way to have something to talk about, a subtle fishing expedition for information. If we asked ourselves, "Is it useful?" in the split second before we spoke, a lot of that talk about other people would fall into silence.
It's an interesting exercise: choose a day, and first thing in the morning try making a commitment to watch your speech so closely that you notice before you speak whether or not you're speaking about someone else. And if you are, try out the question, 'Is it useful?' Or try a different question that might be easier to answer, though it might make you cringe: 'Why am I saying this?' Why are you saying this? Are you really trying to help? Passing on useful information? Or trying to impress, somehow? Feeling a little mean? Getting in a subtle dig?
Beneath a lot of our speech about other people is genuine concern or affection. But below some of it lurks the squirmy little underside of our psyches that we'd rather not look at very closely if we can help it. A lot of what that underside is busy with is judgment: judging people around us, judging people we live with, people in our community, even judging strangers, people we pass on the street. It happens so constantly that it's like a background noise. But it really isn't helpful. And noticing our judging, shining the light of our own awareness there, is an enormous step toward deeper compassion.
The Catholic monk and writer Thomas Merton said, "Saints are what they are not because of their sanctity but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everyone else." Maybe some little hints of that warm and generous vision can be ours even when we're not saints.
One of my current favorite poems is one written by William Stafford, called "A Ritual to Read to Each Other":
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider --
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give -- yes, or no, or maybe --
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
"The darkness around us is deep". There are so many lies that are told in the world we live in -- big lies, little lies, direct lies from the government or from corporations, indirect lies by omission or innuendo, lies embedded in the way we live, like the one that leads us to think the more things we own the happier we'll be, or the one that tells us we can consume all we want, endlessly and forever. The darkness around us is indeed deep. We who choose to walk together in a religious community should remember that a part of our purpose here is to learn better how to shine our lights in that darkness. What we need from each other isn't perfection, which is lucky since we're so unlikely to get it. What we need is very simple, and always within reach: truthfulness, and compassion, and the willingness to keep walking together. As Jack Kornfield writes, "We judge each other so quickly, yet know so little about what another carries in his or her heart…The sloppy, angry, inconvenient, hurried, difficult Buddhas around us can teach us steadiness, equanimity and compassion. We are the grist for one another's mill." AMEN.