Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night I felt I floundered a bit when I was sewing with our younger son's girlfriend.  She and I have tried several baby gift projects.  The last time it was quilts and this time it's an owl pillow.  I'd lost the pattern so I'd drawn one on parchment paper, and as she worked on cutting and sewing, I realized I'd done a terrible job and also didn't know how much to redo or if I should tell her we should start all over. 

How to be encouraging while constantly adjusting the owl?  I had no instinct for the balance.  I'm a retired teacher, sure, but nobody would ever hire me to teach sewing.  And I'm not so good at following directions or stating the steps to follow.  I felt lost.

I wrote her an email this morning apologizing, and she denied she'd been frustrated.  She said she thought she would pull apart and resew or make a new pattern herself.  She is so completely kind that I'm not sure I believe her about the frustrating part, but I realize that what she described is sewing:  you try it, it doesn't look right, there's too much material or too little, the sides aren't the same, and you redo and redo until you are satisfied with what you're looking at.  I wanted to protect her, but she IS learning a lot by the old standby:  trial and error.

I'm glad I apologized.  I'm sure that was right speech.  I just wish I'd had some right speech flowing last night when I was trying to help!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

For me right speech includes what I write, as I am so oriented towards expressing myself in writing.  Yesterday I wrote the beginning of something new and it felt so good.  I was telling about a visit to India 15 years ago to visit my daughter, and the funny things that happened during the visit.  It's liberating to be writing something new, and I'm not sure why.  I deepest aspiration was always to be a writer.  As a child I kept diaries and wrote poetry.  There has never been a time in my life when I wasn't at least writing in a journal.  In my twenties I wrote poetry, and was part of a poetry collective.  When a friend died I wrote a book about the experience and my attempts to "save" her.  In my thirties and forties I tried my hand at novels and a memoir.  I've usually been in a writer's group, and I've done workshops, retreats, writer's conferences. 

I feel at home writing, whereas with speaking aloud there is an accompanying anxiety at times, and a judgmental voice in my head criticizing what I say.  I over analyze and over inflate the importance of what I say.  My comfort zone is pen and paper, well keyboard and computer.  In my group, I often forget my fellow writers feel more at home speaking than writing.  I guess the habit of writing has relaxed me about what I write.  Habit, both in my Buddhist practice and in my daily writing habit, gives me a sense of peace.  So much so that perhaps I need to be carefully awake instead of drowsy and slumped when I write or meditate.  But mostly, the joy of both practices keeps me fully engaged.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It was my turn to facilitate our writing group last night, and I'd emailed the agenda, and thought I HAD IT ALL UNDER CONTROL, and then one of our members didn't want to go along with a plan and I saw all this junk arise in my mind:  she doesn't like me, she's angry, she is going to back out, she will quit the group and so will everyone else, oh my god.  As we all listened to her objections, I flashed on me as a bulldozer, a shiny red one, an image which I don't find flattering.  We ended up working out a better understanding of the plan, and are going to revisit it next week when we meet, but for me it was a wake up call:

I am in control of nothing.
Things that seem easy to me might be terrifying to others and vice versa.
I want to be liked, but disagreement doesn't mean I'm not liked.  Everybody's different.
If I can't persuade others to my plan, I need to proceed on my own.
I'm often not as persuasive as I imagine.
Listen much, much more than talk.
The plan doesn't really matter, it's just an idea.  No doubt something better will come along.

Ah, the mind.  The ego.  The delusion.  IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ME.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We really were delightfully surprised yesterday by the opera we saw:  "Sweeney Todd" by Stephen Sondheim.  The music was wonderful, the opera well cast and the voices perfect.  The acting was even terrific.  I had tears in my eyes at the end and my husband said he had chills up his spine.  Opera is wonderful speech for emotion, and the suffering of Sweeney was elevated to universality by the singer.  Yes, he was a murderer, but because he'd gone mad from the loss of his wife and daughter.  Mrs. Lovett had no excuse, but she was Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth.

I adore opera.  It transcends it's lyrics, whether they are sublime or ridiculous, because of the music.  Simple words become profound with the right musical setting.  As teenagers, when we're at our most hormonal and filled with a spin cycle of emotions, only our favorite songs speak for us.  We play a CD over and over and let the emotions be sopped up in the song.  I remember sighing to Elvis' "Love me Tender' and the Everly Brothers "All I have to do is Dream".  Later, Bruce Springsteen's "Down to the River" and "I'm on Fire" sent shivers up and down my body. 

Now my emotions mainly get engaged in opera and classical music, but the other day I listened to a Sam Cooke disc and it brought me back to sock hops and sweaty hands and dancing with a boy with dimples.  Ah.  Shortcut to being a turbulent teen again without undergoing the suffering involved.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was chatting with a friend on the phone this morning and we covered a bunch of topics, including weddings, quilt shows and her granddaughter's birthday party later today.  We will see each other tomorrow night, but it will be at a writing group, where there won't be time for chitchat. 

Chitchat is right speech.  Not meaningful, not important, but satisfying, like birds chirping for joy.  We were comparing and contrasting wedding stories, not to harm, but openly and curiously, to discuss how tricky weddings can be and how something seems to fall through the cracks no matter how diligent we are.  So we were noticing there is no such thing as a perfect wedding, forgiving ourselves for lapses and goofs.  The talk was a kind of support for each other and also an affirmation that we both noticed some of the same things.

Trivial is not automatically bad.  It can be a method of bring each other closer, as long as it harms no one and we are not talking about a third party behind her back.   Maybe it's blowing off steam in a harmless way as well.  There must be some good reason we feel so good after we hang up!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend has a bad flu and has texted me that she's not up to phone calls and the like.  I appreciate her boundaries, and it means I don't have to imagine some estrangement or other problem.  I'm just waiting until she contacts me.  And her text reminds me that talking to others is an EFFORT.  It requires lucidity and intention and careful choice of language.  Sure it happens without all that, but sometimes the results are disasterous.  My friend knows that she needs her wits about her to be not harmful.  Sometimes we forget the power of words and the carelessness that can get us into trouble.

When we go quiet, it might be to think something over before we speak to that person, or to figure out what it is we are feeling, or orchestrate the right speech before we actually open our mouths.  This is awareness, and it shows a profound respect for the person we are going to address.  And, as Suzuki Roshi said, "It's never to late".  Never too late to say what it has taken us a long time to formulate, or revise something we've said before and regret.  It's never too late to express gratitude or love or appreciation.  Whenever it happens, go for it. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading a fascinating book titled "NeuroTribes" about the history of autism and it's theories and treatments.  A lot of wrong speech harmed many families struggling with children who were along this spectrum of behaviors.  Now we know it is genetically programmed, but in the 1930s and beyond it was blamed on the mothers of these children, who were accused of being cold, not wanting these children, and often the treatment was to wrench the children away from their parents and put them in institutions, where most often they regressed and suffered and died.  Blame was cast without any solid research or evidence.  Doctors became famous as healers of this disease who were out for glory and financial gain.

Nowadays, autism is better understood and many people with it adapt as they grow up and find professions where they can be successful and respected.  Those who are on the more severe side of the spectrum can be helped by patience and kindness.  But the problem of being more fascinated with the presentation and puzzling it out than with seeing the child and interacting with him is still a threat.  It's the scientist vs the pediatrician.  Theories don't help patients, only engagement and seeing the patient as fully human really gains insight and healing. 

This book, though I'm only half way through, seems to be about compassion over ambition.  Where kindness wins out, the true insight into the nature of autism is revealed.