Right Speaking

One of the paths I return to again and again is the Buddha’s Eight Fold Path because it seems to catapult me up to the High Road and wake me up from sleep-walking in everydayness. This path is also known as the Middle Path for it avoids the extremes of self denial and self indulgence that most religions demand. The eight paths are: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

Right Speaking is the mini-path I’m choosing to concentrate on for the next six months because I believe that our words shape our experiences. If I’m mindful and aware of what I’m saying (creating), my life always improves. If you will equate the act of speaking to ‘mothering’ and equate your thoughts to ‘children’, a whole new approach to speech comes forward. The fact is you birth your thoughts into existence in every moment and they become the children of your thinking. You will discover with great delight that you will reap many rewards from nurturing your offspring. You will become Midwife to your fulfilled life.

Right speaking is not quite as easy as you might first imagine and one of the hardest tasks of right speaking includes eliminating ‘wrong’ or negative speaking. Negative speaking includes gossip, judgment (of self and others), swearing, talking incessantly about nonsensical things (that empty headed babble that goes on over cell phones), telling lies (little white ones and other colors too), speaking when it’s time to be listening, and remaining silent when you should speak out. The last one just might be the hardest. These negative speaking habits are easy to fall into and very difficult to shake, but it can be done with intention and awareness, two of the keys to enlightenment. It’s also helpful to mingle with others who have rejected neagative speaking.

To practice right speaking you can begin by monitoring your words. You’ll be amazed at what you are ‘birthing’ with casual talk. As you discover a ‘wrong’ word, stop, change that word to a ‘right’ word and move on. At first, you’ll feel very tongue-tied for a week or so as you learn this new skill, but you’ll be thrilled at how your world begins to shift and shape into a world you enjoy and are happy in as you speak with mindfulness. New experiences, people, and opportunities are drawn toward the positive energy of right speaking. The heaviness of guilt that is a partner to wrong speaking will give way to a lightness that makes all things new. This is mothering, birthing and child-rearing at its most metaphysical. And 2007, the year of change, is the perfect time to open the gate and walk on the Wisdom Path of Right Speaking. Journey Well.