The Buddha's Guidelines To Proper Speech
The Buddha spoke about the importance of speech and its power. He had a lot to say about what kinds of speech we should use, and when. In this post, you'll find out how to make good use of your words, in order to create happiness for yourself and others. You're going to learn how to avoid harmful speech while using kind words with power.
This post will teach you the basics of speaking well: what Speech is; what it can do; how it's used under different circumstances; and much more! It also has quotes from The Buddha on proper speech, so that you can remember them when life gets tough.
In Buddhism, speech is something we use to communicate with others and to express ourselves. It's also used for certain actions and intentions, like singing, telling jokes, or merely gossiping.
There are different types of speech:
Good Speech: Speech that is kind and helpful. This is speech that promotes happiness. These kinds of words can relieve suffering if they're spoken in a way that's intended to be beneficial by the speaker.
Bad Speech: Thoughts that are harmful and unskillful in the moment they arise. This is the kind of speech that causes you and others a lot of suffering. It's even more harmful because it usually happens without our consciously thinking about it. Bad speech is said to have three kinds:
1) To relate and spread stories that are untrue, hurtful, or harmful. For example, this kind of speech can include rumors about others; lies; gossip; backbiting; criticism; arguments, fighting words, or whatever else you find that can hurt someone on purpose.
2) Speech that's forceful or rude. For example, this includes shouting, swearing, angry words or yelling; yelling to the point that it's harmful; or any other harsh words.
3) Speech that is un-skillful and useless. This is kind of like wasting people's time when you talk about pointless things; or meaningless conversations that are a waste of time.
How To Use Speech To Help Yourself And Others:
1) Use Good Speech To Relieve Suffering: Sometimes people are suffering from anxiety or depression and don't know how to deal with it. By using positive speech, we can help them feel better about themselves and their lives by saying uplifting things that improve their moods.
2) Use Good Speech To Create Happiness: We can create happiness in others by saying things that make them feel positive or happy. Speaking well is a skill we can develop to help ourselves and others feel better about themselves.
3) Avoid Bad Speech: We should avoid using harmful language and avoid negative speech, especially when it causes suffering in others. This is because it makes people unhappy and causes trouble that leads to further suffering. It's best to stop the cycle of misery by not using bad speech in the first place!
What Happens When You Speak With Your Mouth: In Buddhism, there are two main benefits from our saying words with our mouths. The first one is obvious; when we speak, we're making noise. The second one is kind of mind boggling. When we speak, particle waves are created that are connected to our speech. These particles are used by the mind and body to create things like our personalities, health, and even our emotions.
What Happens When You Speak With Your Mind: It's easy for most of us to understand how our mouths make sound when we say words. We can hear them with our ears and see their effect on others' moods and feelings. However, the power of our minds isn't as easily understood. Every thought in your head creates a particle wave in the universe that affects your mind, body and emotions.
These mind particles are the same as the ones produced by speaking with our mouths. This means that when we speak with our minds, we're using the same particle waves to affect things in our state of being. These particles' impacts can be seen and felt.
Buddhism teaches us that there are three main benefits to speaking well and one negative effect for bad speech:
Benefits Of Using Good Speech: When you use good speech, the effects include: your mind becomes clear; your body feels lighter; you feel and look happier; habit patterns in others change for the better; and your karma changes for the better. You also find yourself surrounded by others who support you and focus on helping you be happy.
Negative Effects Of Using Bad Speech: When you use bad speech, the negative effects include: your mind becomes dull; you may feel heavy in your body; you feel and look sad, depressed or anxious; habit patterns in others change for the worse; and your karma changes for the worse. You also find yourself surrounded by others who gossip about you and try to bring you down.
Ultimately, it's up to us: what we say and do is up to us. We choose our words based on our intentions. This means that every time we speak, we're creating happiness or suffering in our lives and others' as well. We can use our words to make ourselves and others happy, or we can use them to create suffering for ourselves and for others.
So, how would you like to speak? Do you want these benefits? Or do you want the negative effects of using bad speech?
This is why we have to learn how to speak well: so we can use our words carefully and wisely. This means that we have to understand what constitutes good speech in the first place.
What Is Good Speech?
Let's start by looking at what good speech is not: It's not talking about yourself or talking about others. We can call this kind of "selfish" speech. Talking about ourselves and others isn't a good thing. The Buddha taught that the true purpose of speech should be to make things better for yourself and others. Otherwise, it should be avoided as best we can at all times.
It's also important to avoid choosing any words that are inflammatory, offensive, or harmful in that moment. This kind of speech creates suffering all around us and gives rise to negative karma with no benefit.
Some things that are never appropriate for speaking include the following:
1) Speaking about past events that are clearly in the past and may be painful to remember. We can use our words to make things better for ourselves and others by not bringing up these events.
2) Speaking disparagingly about people due to an internal desire, prejudice or ignorance. We can't speak with good intent when we criticize other people because it causes suffering in them and us. Metta meditation is a way of practicing good speech that's free of discrimination between people based on their appearances, behavior, race or gender; it does not seek personal gain during speech or silence at all times.
Conclusion On The Importance Of Good Speech And How To Use Speech:
I hope that this article has opened your eyes to the ways that we can practice good speech to affect ourselves, others and the world in a positive way. We all have to choose how we're going to use our words every day.
The Buddha's teachings are so important because they help us find happiness in all areas of our lives. This article was just a small overview of how we can use his teachings and apply them in our lives today.