Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I enjoyed a lovely museum visit with my friend today.  We saw beautiful paintings, had a nice lunch outside among sculptures, then browsed the gift shop, finding amazing design kitchen items, books, scarves, cards and other fascinating items.  The fun was in our talking about them.  Our enthusiasm was matched by our determination to enjoy them in the moment and not covet them.  It was enough that they existed and we admired them.  I love that kind of talk.  Sharing our feelings and impressions, and leaving the museum feeling saturated with beauty.

This friend and I have such a good time talking.  Now I have the visit to remember and the images in my mind of gorgeous art and color and feeling.  What a good thing to stuff myself full of!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday our daughter, my husband and I walked the dogs around a lake.  We indulged in conversation about the wedding, pleased with how it went and how friendly everyone was.  This kind of speech builds the memories that will become the event over time.  We were happy just remembering such a joyous day.  It was sunny and warm, people were jogging and chatting and feeding the ducks.  The entire atmosphere fed our pleasure.  Speech that is not informational but expresses feelings is a treasure.

The day before I'd gone with a friend to see a delightful documentary, "Seymour, an Introduction", directed by Ethan Hawke.  The film brought such pleasure to both of us.  This is a film to honor a gentle man, a teacher, who's love for music transfers to everyone he meets.  This indeed is right speech:  to find the Buddha in the ordinary life of a man invisible to most.  His joy in teaching is evident in the movie, and the combination of exquisite music, wise observations and getting to know this stranger better is a delight.  The film inspires.  There are so many giving people in this world, affecting deeply those they touch, and it reminds us of this, and also that even we might be one of them.  It takes practice:  right effort.  If we try to tell ourselves we don't matter, this film dispells that idea.  We do matter, even our everyday ordinary actions, and we are influenced greatly by such actions by others.  The one teacher who helped us through school, the aunt who shone like a beacon in a dark family, the words of a writer that guided us when no one else was willing:  these are the gifts of life, and we should  be awake to their presence as well as our opportunity to inspire in our own small way.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I read a book recently about police.  It is a mystery, but very well written:  "Whites" by Richard Price.  A line in it struck me about how we spend our lives reworking our first twenty years.  I think for a lot of us there is truth in this.  We continue to react in situations as we did when we were children, and we can't see the patterning.  Part of what therapy does is highlight these crucial incidents and feelings to make us aware of them so we can work with them, see if they are still appropriate, or even useful.

So I propose a question about right speech:  How did we speak and how were we spoken to in our first twenty years?  It might be very revealing.  I know I hid my feelings from my parents, because theirs were so dramatic and volatile that I felt my emotions drowned out in theirs.  I also know the humor in the family often ridiculed others and was hurtful.  We sometimes teased my mother, and when I got in my twenties I vowed never to be sarcastic about anyone like that again.  I decided to curb my nasty tongue.  Gossip bothered me, too.  Seeing my mother and her friends, I swore I'd never be that mean, but unconsciously I repeated that pattern until I began practicing Buddhism.  Then I took a long time to think through what was well intentioned, if I was talking with someone about a third party, and what was going to hurt.  I haven't got the formula entirely figured out, even at my advanced age, but I'm on alert.

Manners were prevalent in our era, and I never talked back to my parents or said I hated them or smart mouthed.  I'm glad I had that training, as my kids are careful with others that way as well.  We don't name call.

I could explore much more, but I throw it out to you.  Look back and see if there are threads tied to your ankles from way back when.  One snip might make you able to fly!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had my little surgery yesterday, and experienced a level of pain afterward that I can't remember before.  I had a rough night, but am better.  The hardest thing is somehow to take off the bandage and look at the wound.  I quickly covered it back up after washing it.  And last night, as I was not sleeping, I thought of my mother and the incredible pain she must have had after her surgery for a brain tumor and then later after colon cancer surgery.  I don't remember her complaining.  The first time I was 14 and my brother 11, and we were told by my parents that it was very serious and she might not survive, but it just seemed surreal to me.  She looked horrible when she returned from the hospital on Christmas Eve, but I have no idea how much pain she was in.  The second surgery happened when I was a young mother, and again, I don't remember her complaining.  She protected me, as I protect my grown kids.  And in our family, whining was a cardinal sin.  I have no idea what the proper right speech is, then and now, for such situations.  I assume my mom told her sisters and friends how scared she was.  She didn't use me as a confidante.

And now I do the same.  I talk about fears with my husband, friends and therapist.  I whine, but discretely.  I find myself being extra cheerful and polite to the doctors and nurses.  I don't complain.  I want them to like me.  I can see my behavior clearly, but don't really know an alternative.  My mother did the same.  Now my father, when he was seriously ill during the later part of his life, got angry and demanded relief from his doctors.  They probably dreaded seeing him.  Did he receive better care or worse?  Does it matter?  He bulldozed his way through the world, and he could be both maddening and adorable.  My mother was the quiet stoic, and I wonder if that reflects gender roles.  I'm forcing myself to speak up more these days and be my own advocate.  And the surgery with this doctor is a result of me deciding I didn't want my dermatologist doing the surgery, and I gathered information from friends and asked for the referral.  I was brave.  And I feel it was the right decision.  I can't have surgery with someone because I don't want them to feel rejected.  As the Buddha says, be your own protector.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, my husband and I saw an art exhibit from Scotland.  There were gorgeous paintings by Boticelli, Monet, Degas, Vuillard, Rembrandt, Bonnard and others.  We did the audio tour, and so a voice was in our heads speaking rightly about the great beauty before us.  Specific details were focused on, rather than sweeping statements.  Sometimes biographical information was described.  The narrators cleverly did not attempt to sum up a work of art, but guided us gently to points they found interesting to themselves.

At lunch, we looked through the catalogue, and many of the prints could not capture the color and intensity at all.  It was disappointing but not surprising.  Describing an experience after the fact is difficult, and sometimes at the time not possible at all.  It feels like all the senses are assaulted at once, not just vision.  How the daubs of paint can convey so much emotion and complexity is a mystery and a miracle. 

Capturing experience in words is challenging.  Yet most people have the urge to share the intensity.  Forgiving ourselves for falling short is a start at showing good intention, no matter how unsatisfying the outcome.  Rather than being frustrated, we can be calm in the face of such encounters with great art, and allow the feelings to wash over us without labeling them.  Labeling diminishes.  It's the experience of absolute joy:  it can not be expressed properly or even shared.  But it's an act of love to try.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband is very worried about having his tooth pulled today.  I'm listening, but not saying much, because there is nothing more to say and his anxiety is something so a part of him that I have no ability to soothe him.  But part of him thinks I do.  He wants to be rescued, when he's like this.  I'd love to if I'd ever in my life had any success with rescuing.  It's tempting to lecture, reassure, be logical, any number of useless things.  But then he gets angry with me, because he's so angry at himself and his neediness.  Instead, I respect that this is his issue, and he'll get through it in his own way.  His own way involves lots of suffering, but he knows what I would do, if it were me.  I'd attempt to separate the unnecessary suffering from the natural fear and talk myself down.  I'd deep breathe and reassure myself that it will soon be over and I can ask for pain medication.  He will maybe avail himself of these tools.  Or not.

I seem to be talking a lot about not talking.  Speech is about when to open your mouth, what comes out of it and when to keep it zipped.  This is the keeping it zipped kind of situation.  I'm hanging around physically until he leaves for the dentist; I'm available.  I'm willing to listen.  There are no wise words for him.  I'm wise to know that, after almost 41 years of marriage.  I'm the body in the room witnessing his suffering.  That's the best I can do.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today my teacher talked about sitting in silence.  He feels the world is on the cusp of another paradigm shift, and could either become an enlightened age or intensify in violence.  It's up to us to pray for peace and healing, and the best prayer is silence.  He didn't clarify, but I'm thinking prayers with words can go wrong:  they can become selfish, or label, or see people as bad or good.  But sitting in silence, looking inward, we begin to understand and accept ourselves, both our light and dark sides.  If we find the space and time, we begin to witness our thoughts, and see our concepts and beliefs as sometimes alienating, separating us from other beings.  Our compassion and love can be freed to grow and affect our behavior.

All our devices, the cell phones, TVs, Ipads and video games bombard us with overstimulation and simplification and distraction.  Our thinking becomes the product of other input, not our own reasoning process.  Silence allows us to listen to our inner voice, our instincts, and observe our minds and what flows through them. 

Yesterday, I was thinking that right speech requires honing the skill of right listening, but today I see it also is encouraged by right silence:  centering ourselves for reflection and contemplation.  Then we have our inner Jimney Cricket to guide us toward right living.