Mastering speech

I. THE USES OF SPEECH

Speech usually has two uses:

• Speech expresses the inner mind

• Speech is a means of communication.

1. SPEECH EXPRESSES THE INNER MIND

When we hear a person speak, we can learn their views, ethics, character and tastes, as well as their level and wisdom. But we study speech from the angle of the psychology of ethics not only to judge others but also to judge ourselves.

First of all, through someone's words and way of speaking, we can understand their views. For example, when we talk with them about religion, spirituality or cause and effect, they show little interest and do not argue about anything. But when they get the chance, they talk only about economics, science and technology, and we know at once that this person has no inclination toward faith or spirituality.

Or through speech we can assess another person's ethics. Usually, once we have cultivated ethics for a long time, we become sharper at perceiving and assessing others. Having made quite a few mistakes in life and knowing ourselves all too well, we need only the slightest sign from someone else to know at once what kind of person they are. But we must understand that we know not in order to criticise but in order to love and empathise. If conditions allow and the affinity is there, we can even help them get past the faults they commit. However, we must admit that when we go out to do the work of the Way, we very much need to rely on speech to assess others. In the course of communicating, thanks to speech we can size up others and the work becomes easier. That is a matter of skill in working with people, and we will explore it on another occasion. For now, we study speech only in relation to assessing ourselves. In life, there are things that, once blurted out, make us realise with a start that they were wrong words, and we reproach ourselves for saying such mistaken things. Clearly, through speech we can monitor our own minds, prevent unwholesome karma and strengthen the wholesome mind.

For example, when we hear the person opposite utter vulgar, uncultured words, two reactions may arise in us: cursing that person, or feeling sorry for them. If a curse against that person arises in our mind, we are people without ethics and without a compassionate mind. We must understand that the mind of compassion is not only for loving people when they fall into suffering, but must love them even when they are sowing bad causes. Faced with another's fault, if we become excessively irritated, even hating and cursing them, we lack compassion and create bad karma. When we have let a wrong word slip, we must feel remorse and repent to atone for our wrongdoing. If, when we look at someone's bad cause and think of their bad karmic result, we pity them more because they live without knowing cause and effect, wrongdoing and merit, then we have a compassionate mind. So through a single utterance on some matter, we can assess a person's ethics and their mind. Understanding this, we will not say cruel words.

Personality, tastes, bad habits and desires still latent in a person are also easily revealed through speech. In conversation, we often unwittingly let slip the bad things still hidden in our own minds. Precisely through those unwitting words, we can discover and get rid of bad habits and base desires that we did not know about before.

Speech also reveals a person's wisdom. Through speech, we know the level and wisdom of the person opposite. For example, when we have become a teacher, a Dharma instructor, a lecturer or an abbot, someone comes to the temple and asks: "Why have I practised for so long without progress?" How should we answer? Each person may answer in their own way, but the wise answer is: "Because of a lack of merit." This is an answer that can help the other person understand the problem and know how to practise correctly.

Merit comprises ethics and blessings. If merit is not yet sufficient, practitioners must create more by striving to cultivate ethics and doing meritorious work. However, that answer is still not deep, because everyone has their own karma. We must point out clearly what their karma is: envy, selfishness, boasting, conceit or laziness, and so on. Some people make no progress in practice because they give too little and live too narrowly. To such people we advise letting go and not clinging to material things, because material things are impermanent. Giving and helping others creates merit in the mind. Some people lack the merit of paying homage to the Buddha, so they make no progress. We advise them to try to pay homage. Some people boast, telling everyone whatever they have attained, so they lose all their merit and no longer have the virtue of discretion. Such a person also makes no progress. So we advise them to be discreet. Or some people are often envious of others and show jealousy whenever they see someone succeed, so their practice cannot progress. To this kind of person we advise not to be envious and to try to practise rejoicing in others' success, and so on.

But what matters is how, when we look at each person, we can know their karma so as to give deep and fitting advice.

Often the person asking is someone we do not know at all, yet we must see their karma at once in order to answer wisely. This is the difficulty of being a teacher. Relying only on the experience of our own practice is not enough, because there are "illnesses" others have that we do not have at all. So we need to rely on what they reveal outwardly through their speech. Of course, only when we are close to the person can we assess their character and inner mind through both their words and their actions.

In cases where the questioner has never lived close to us and we still know, it is thanks to our own practice. Because we practise well, our spirituality develops and our intuition develops, and we can know the inner minds of others. But we must understand that we know in order to teach people, not to show off. The Buddha called this the supernormal power of teaching. That is, supernormal power is used to teach, not to do strange things. It is not easy to have this, but once we have followed the Buddhist path, everyone needs a little intuition. Thanks to intuition, when people come to us, we will know how much care to give and how to treat them in order to help them untangle the karma they are carrying so heavily. We cannot always teach others, but knowing where a person's karma is heavy and advising them to focus on that point so that they can get past it more easily is also very necessary. Moreover, answering others accurately also shows the teacher's wisdom and level of practice.

With simple questions like these, we can answer by intuition to help them progress in practice.

When we are asked questions of doctrine, deeper ones, we must have very high wisdom to answer. A monk told a true story that he had encountered, and we listen to see that answering a tricky question from a lay Buddhist correctly is not a simple matter. Once, he was sitting and talking with a group of lay Buddhists, among whom was a man with very high powers of insight. He told of his level of practice, and everyone admired him. Although he was only a layperson, he had practised Yoga meditation and had a sudden awakening like a Zen practitioner. In the group, one person asked one question and another asked another, but he talked more than anyone, to show that he had special insight into Buddhism. Indeed, everything he said was very sharp. In the middle of the conversation, he suddenly turned to the monk and asked:

• Venerable! I wonder why, when I look at the faces of old men and women of seventy or eighty, I still see them as much younger than me.

That question is not easy to answer. But as soon as he finished asking, the monk sitting there answered at once: "In your previous life you practised as a long-lived immortal and lived to two or three hundred years, so an old man or woman of seventy or eighty is still a child to you." At that moment a friend of his said that his name was Nguyễn Thọ Trường. Then he disclosed: from the time he was a boy of seven or eight, he had known the practice of the immortals, and had practised Yoga and qigong with great success. He could enter concentration and keep his pulse from beating and his heart from beating. That is, his level in qigong and in the practices of the immortals was quite successful. This is also a sign that in his previous life he had succeeded in it, so now, meeting that practice again, he practised very early and very successfully. And because in his previous life he practised as a long-lived immortal, his karma now fell into his name, Nguyễn Thọ Trường.

In fact, the monk was meeting him for the first time and knew nothing of these matters, but somehow answered correctly and explained a question that had been puzzling him, which made him admire the monk greatly. From then on, his ego seemed to settle; he spoke less and listened better. An answer like that is a wise answer. Of course, it is not the only possible answer. Another person might ask a similar question, but in that case it would be not because of a longer life span but perhaps because in a previous life they were a king. For standing before a king, however young, even an old man of seventy or eighty must kneel.

So no case is quite like another, and we must find an answer that fits. In teaching and in communicating, we will face many kinds of people and many different cases. If we answer deeply, we help others have faith in the Dharma, have the right direction and be diligent both in life and in practice.

In particular, when dealing with others, we must use speech to help people believe deeply in cause and effect. For the law of cause and effect governs every aspect of life as well as practice. If we rely on it to explain things, we will make fewer mistakes. A lay Buddhist who had been a disciple of a fairly famous teacher confided to another monk: "My teacher does not go deeply into cause and effect but leans towards psychology and sociology. He usually uses arguments from social psychology to explain, but they do not suit real life when applied. When I studied cause and effect, I found it more reasonable, my mind was calmer and it was easier to accept." This was a very sincere confidence. What that lay Buddhist observed has a basis. So when we understand cause and effect deeply and use it to guide and teach, it will bring great benefit to living beings.

And so we have a rather good method of practice: always observe our words before they come out. That is mindfulness in speech. Before speaking, we must check what we are about to say. Many people, when asked something, never think but hurry to answer straight away, and so cannot control their own minds. If wisdom goes ahead of us, we will know what we should say, and which things to say first and which later, in order to avoid mistakes.

For example, when we hear someone praise a certain monk as a fine student who always gets high marks, we almost blurt out: "He probably has a personal connection with the instructor, that's why he gets high marks; what's so good about him?" But thanks to clear awareness and checking our words beforehand, we judge at once that this is a disparaging remark arising from an envious mind, and we do not say it. We know that the mind of envy is very dangerous, and those who still have it will create terrible karma later. So by assessing our words beforehand, we hold back unwholesome words and avoid creating karma. At the same time, we also know that envy is still in our minds, and we go back and prostrate to the Buddha and repent in order to overcome it.

We must absolutely not speak words of envy or criticism, but should rejoice and praise others' good qualities. When we hear someone praise another, we should be truly glad and also express our own praise and admiration. For example, hearing someone praise a very famous lecturer who has done a great deal of good for the Dharma, we rely on cause and effect and say that he must have had great merit before and many good qualities in his mind to achieve such success. Even if that person teaches only basic doctrines, nothing profound, yet is listened to and praised by many people, he must surely have some great virtue and merit. To praise in this way, our own mind must first know how to rejoice.

When we hear that others are talented and successful, we must be glad. This is something practitioners should note. In life, people have the sickness of jealousy toward one another, like roosters who hate each other's crowing. But as practitioners we must get beyond that. We may well end up doing a great deal for the Dharma, working for the Buddhist Sangha, teaching lay Buddhists, monks and nuns, and so on, but when we hear that somewhere someone teaches well, we must be truly glad. For in Buddhism, if there are many such good teachers, many beings will be liberated.

In short, we must control our speech. Whatever we want to say, we must look at it beforehand, and when we utter it, we must do so unhurriedly, slowly and calmly.

We know that speech expresses the inner mind. But there are also cases in which speech and inner mind are contrary. That is the case of speaking insincerely, also called falseness. For example, in one's heart one bitterly hates someone but pretends to say one loves them. Or one hates someone but does not dare to say so directly and then speaks ill of them behind their back. Or one has no ethics but puts on a dignified air so that everyone respects them, and so on. We practitioners should not fall into this; we need to live with letting go, hate no one, and say what we think. A true practitioner must be honest and straightforward but amiable and gentle, not crude, and not use harsh words that offend others. Speech must have kind words.

Why must a practitioner live honestly? Because if we dislike someone but keep pretending, flattering and speaking sweetly to win them over, we become contemptible people. That is the way of life of a petty person. Even worldly people who live by Confucianism, the way of the gentleman, avoid such a false way of life (with some exceptions). So as people of Buddhism, seeking the rank of a saint, we must never live by sneaking around and lying. Each of us must live truthfully, as our own heart is.

Not only does speech express the inner mind, but the voice also reveals many things. There are things we cannot recognise through the words but which the voice reveals very clearly. So when assessing a person, often we do not need to hear what they say; we need only hear what their voice is like. A person's voice usually reveals two things: merit and virtue. Merit is the cause and effect they have sown. Virtue is their character.

If we hear someone with a resonant, warm, dignified voice, we know that this is a wealthy person, even a famous one. In life, there are people who are healthy yet have weak voices. Such people usually live in poverty or die young. A person whose voice is unclear is selfish and treacherous. A person whose voice sounds harsh and unpleasant has a fierce, rough character. This person often says things that offend others. By contrast, not a few people have very gentle, very pure voices. These are people with a compassionate mind. Because it comes from compassion and love, when they speak to the person opposite, they seem to be pouring out affection. Meeting such people, we easily feel warmly toward them. Once a person has a loving mind, they have surely done much meritorious work, so these people are also wealthy, though not famous and without authority. As for a voice that is gentle but not yet pure, that is, a loving mind that has only just begun, this person may not yet be wealthy because the cause has only just been sown and the result has not yet arrived. Some people speak in a gentle voice but with an affected, wavering lilt. This is someone with an amorous, over-sentimental mind. Such a person is usually weak and lacks firm principles. In life, we see that many flirtatious, promiscuous people also have this kind of voice. Quite a few people meet with many troubles and complications in life precisely because of that sweet, soft, amorous voice.

In some cases, the voice reveals a person's character and inner mind very clearly. If we hear a voice that is both decisive and firm yet gentle, we know this is a person with both ethics and will. Many people have beautiful faces but voices that are not decisive and are weak. Such people find practice very hard. In assessing people, fortune-tellers usually hold that the voice is more important than the face. For example, a person with a beautiful face but a poor voice can still have their fortune spoiled. So each person must consciously work to improve their voice gradually.

If we pay attention, we will see that the voice also has its own "defects". Some people speak too loudly, some too fast, some stutter or mumble...

A person who speaks too fast is usually intelligent. In their brain, thoughts come out very quickly. But people who speak fast also reveal a weakness: haste and rashness. If we know we have the "defect" of speaking fast, we must practise controlling our speech before it comes out. In this way, our speech will naturally slow down. A person with a voice that is too loud usually lacks depth, often boasts and is usually a person without capability. A person who stutters or mumbles lacks merit and created bad karma in a previous life. Stuttering is when, within a sentence, a few words are repeated many times, so the sentence does not flow. People with the "defect" of stuttering usually find it hard to succeed in life.

People tell a funny story about a stutterer. When training soldiers to parachute, the instructor told them that after jumping out of the plane they should count one, two, three... up to ten and then pull the cord so the parachute opens and they drift slowly to the ground. After the jump, the instructor checked and found one man missing. It turned out he had landed "out of phase"; luckily he fell on a pile of straw and was not in danger. When asked, it turned out he had hit the ground before he had counted to ten. Then everyone realised that he stuttered: by the time he reached five or six he had repeated the numbers so many times that he pulled the cord too late.

Unlike stuttering, mumbling is when the speaker pronounces consonants indistinctly. For example, in a verse about lads who "mumble", the poet Hồ Xuân Hương wrote: A band of mumbling lads stand gazing at the bell. They say to one another: "ấy ái uông." ("thấy cái chuông" – NV)

We know that in classical Vietnamese literature Hồ Xuân Hương is famous as a woman poet of bold and original character. In writing these lines, she meant to mock young scholars whose talent was still immature, whose poetic skill still "mumbled", yet who dared to write poems teasing her.

People who stutter or mumble usually bear some karma from the past. They must repent a great deal in this life. So, on the basis of our voice, we can learn our own karma and mind in order to repent and correct ourselves.

2. SPEECH IS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION

This is the second use of speech. Before there was writing, we communicated with one another mainly through speech. From the tenth century we had Chinese characters; in the thirteenth century our forefathers created the Nôm script; and by the seventeenth century we were using the quốc ngữ script, with the Latin alphabet, as a means of recording speech. But the main means of communication between people in life is still speech. So speech plays a very important part in creating relationships between people. We must be careful in our speech in order to create good relationships. Whether we are expressing our thoughts to others, asking favours, giving instructions, persuading, greeting and so on, speech needs to have ethics. However, using speech to persuade others is very difficult.

For example, when we go out to teach and meet someone who does not yet believe in the law of cause and effect, we must use speech persuasive enough for them to believe in the principle of cause and effect. For not believing in the law of cause and effect is a great misfortune in life. Without understanding the law of cause and effect and not knowing of karmic consequences, they will commit many faults. To be persuasive, we must have sufficient reasoning and must grasp their level. Persuading people to do what they have not yet done, believe what they do not yet know, give up their old way of life, change to a new one and practise better is a very difficult task for a lecturer. This is quite different from a worldly speaker presenting a topic so that others understand it. To present something so that people understand, it is enough for the speaker to understand the matter deeply and to have a little skill in speaking. In the Way, a lecturer must not only make others understand but also persuade them to change their way of life. That power to transform others must come from one's own practice.

In communication, the speaker always has an audience. If, when talking with the person opposite or with two or three people together, we must be careful with every word, then when we turn our words into a book we must be even more careful. For we cannot picture how many readers our book will have.

There are also cases of speaking without an audience, where the speaker only mutters to themselves. Those are special cases. The speaker may have a neurological problem, or sometimes an ordinary person hates someone but does not dare to say so directly and so mutters curses alone. A petty person often has this bad trait.

The reason we must be careful with every word as we speak is that if we carelessly say something unkind and offend others, we break affection. And once affection is broken, it is truly hard to mend it as whole as before. People often say: "Every patched-up thing, however skilfully done, still shows the marks." Our grandparents also said a very apt thing: "A glass of water spilled and gathered up again will not be full." If in a moment of anger we blurt out wild, foolish words, later we will regret it, but too late. So it is best that we are careful and do not say words that are too harsh and offend others. In life, we should always remember:

"A knife wound can heal,

But words that stab leave hatred for a lifetime."

In conversation, we should praise others' good points rather than criticise and find fault. Why? Because words of criticism and fault-finding usually sadden others and cause discord. Moreover, according to the law of cause and effect, if we criticise someone for something, we will suffer the consequence and acquire the same faults. Conversely, if we praise someone's good points, we will gain those good qualities. So in communicating, let us look at others' strengths in order to praise them, and never fix only on their faults.

Another "illness" in speech worth noticing is talking too much. We must understand that the value of speech lies in our deeds. In other words, deeds are the foundation of the value of speech. Relating this to economics, we will understand it better. As we know, a circulating currency has value because of its backing. Each country usually has its own way of fixing the value of its currency. For example, some countries use gold to fix the value of the currency. They specify that one measure of gold equals, say, a hundred units. To issue eight billion units into circulation, the state treasury must hold a corresponding amount of gold in reserve. So the currency in circulation has value thanks to the gold stored in the state treasury as its foundation. Money is by no means merely a sheet of printed paper. But if at some point, because of inflation or economic difficulty, they print twenty billion units, the value of the currency falls because it lacks the backing.

Some countries fix the value of their currency by reference to a strong foreign currency abroad, such as the American dollar. They set one dollar equal to a certain amount of their own money. Likewise, the amount of money issued corresponds to the dollars they hold in reserve at the state bank. If there is inflation and they print more money, their currency will lose value.

From this economic principle, we infer that the value of speech is the same. Speech that has value is speech that has persuasive power over others. The foundation of the value of speech lies in each person's deeds. Those deeds are giving, altruism, loving and helping others wholeheartedly, treating everyone kindly, and so on. In life, there are many people who are very skilled at talking and talk a great deal but do little. Their words have no value. We do not need to talk much, but if we do everything to help others, our words will surely have value and strong persuasive power.

For example, we live a life of giving and letting go, never keeping anything for ourselves. Seeing a fellow monastic who lives selfishly, does not give generously and does not let go, we advise in a single sentence to live a life of letting go, to give generously and not keep anything for oneself. It is only a short sentence, but that person understands and changes. The power of that advice lies in our deeds of giving, in our whole life of altruism. Understanding this, we should not talk much (just as currency issued in excess loses value). Each day, we should tally how many good deeds we have done. If, balancing it out, we find we have talked more than we have done good, we will correct this by doing more than we talk the next day, so that our words do not lose value. Moreover, talking too much is also a sign of the "illness" of attachment to self, always wanting people to pay attention to us and seeing ourselves as important. A person who talks too much not only easily makes mistakes but also bothers others. This is a kind of "illness" that needs correcting. Every day, we must be conscious of repenting and correcting in order to get past it.

In life, we meet not a few people who are very fond of talking and arguing. But they are the kind who argue emptily, trying hard to persuade listeners to believe their reasoning. They are false and deceitful people whom we need to avoid. From experience, we see that people who talk a lot rarely speak truthfully. It is not by chance that a lecturer, speaking to his disciples, said: "To preach the Dharma, you must first know how to be silent." That is, the speaker must master their own words and their own mind, live without craving anything, no longer wanting others to believe them or practise as they do, and no longer see themselves as important. A person who lives like this no longer has anything to say. They persuade others through their own inner mind of practice, through their own inner letting go, not wholly through words.

In truth, being a lecturer is not about finding ways to talk a lot or talk well. In reality, so many people study to become lecturers, but the number of those whose words have value and persuasive power can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The cause is found in the fact that most of them do not practise: their lives have not been through suffering and trials; they have not trained in ethics, have not had quiet hours sitting in meditation, have not had moments of earnest prostration and repentance, and so on. If we just study a lot, take thorough notes, and then when we teach repeat to others what we have learned, we are no different from a machine. Our teachings must come out of our inner mind to be able to persuade others. If we keep telling everyone to live with forbearance but in our own mind have never practised it, never borne life's adversities with forbearance, how can those words enter the hearts of the listeners? Conversely, if they come from the heart, from our own suffering and anguish, from our own hours of diligent effort, those words will enter the minds of the listeners, transforming them and urging them to practise.

In other fields we do not claim this, but speaking about the Dharma must come from a heart that knows how to practise. The light that comes from that heart will kindle other hearts that likewise know how to practise. In this way, this practising heart lights up other hearts, forming lamps that pass from heart to heart.

The persuasive power of speech does not come from study but from the practice of cultivation: patiently paying homage to the Buddha, sitting in meditation, giving, being altruistic, and so on. So let us strive to practise, pay homage to the Buddha, sit in meditation, live altruistically and love our fellow monastics, endure adversity and throw ourselves into difficult tasks, in order to have the strength to speak valuable words of the Dharma and transform and teach so many other minds. That persuasive power is also built from the merit of volunteer service. The story of a nun who attained awakening but refused to cook, and so could not preach the Dharma, is an example. After she attained awakening, she abandoned halfway the cooking she had promised to do for three years. The Buddha appeared and said: "If you do not finish cooking for three years, you will not be able to preach the Dharma." She still did not listen and stubbornly left. Indeed, although she had attained awakening, until she died she was unable to preach the Dharma because she lacked merit. This is very strange. We should not think that we can carry over into the next life the store-consciousness we acquired in a previous life. If we are not willing to create merit, then even if we were a lecturer in a previous life, we will not be able to be one in this life.

In contrast with those who talk a lot, some people find it truly hard to utter words and cannot express their state of mind. The first cause is that they have studied and written little, so the language region of the brain has not developed. To overcome this, we must practise writing a great deal. By writing a lot, we have the chance to polish our sentences, and together with our other practices, our speech will become more persuasive. The second cause is an underdeveloped region of the brain that makes the voice halting. Such people lack merit and need to pay homage to the Buddha and repent.

In communication, we sometimes meet people whose words are imprecise because they cannot judge the listener's reaction. This is where a speaker's shrewd wisdom shows. Without even discussing whether one can persuade in front of a crowd, even in individual exchanges we notice this. After saying a sentence, we must understand how the listener reacts and whether they have understood in their mind. If we guess they have not understood, we repeat the point once more. If they have understood, we can move on to another matter. Or when we say something, we must guess whether the listener is pleased, or stung in their pride and saddened, so that we can adjust in time. When preaching the Dharma before a crowd, we must still guess the listeners' reactions however many there are. Only then will our teaching be engaging and effective.

II. THE ETHICS OF LANGUAGE

In Buddhism, the ethics of language is expressed in kind speech. Everyone must use pleasant, agreeable words that show a courteous and polite manner. A practitioner must not use crude, rough words or show contempt for others. In our speech we should always express two things: love and respect. In dealing with people younger than us, we must show love and respect, without shouting or bullying. With people older than us, we likewise express appropriate love and reverence. That love and respect shows mainly in the way we address people, or in our tone of voice and our words. We must address people clearly, fittingly and properly; our tone must be mild, polite and unhurried; our words must be clear and easy to hear.

Not only must we love and respect those younger than us, we must also protect them and make more sacrifices. We should never think that because we have practised longer, we should enjoy more privileges. That is a mistaken notion, creating a prejudice and a bad precedent in Buddhism. As the ones who practised first, who understand the Way more, who have more ethics and more endurance, we must sacrifice more for the younger ones. That is the bearing of a practitioner in Buddhism.

In particular, we must not compete in speech or show boasting. People with a competitive mind often show it in speech, wanting to outdo others, especially in doctrine. This makes us lose merit. So we should yield to one another in speech. For example, when we hear someone say something meant to show they are better than us, we should stay silent and smile. For we know that they have a competitive mind and do not want to listen to us. When they want to listen, we are ready to present our views sincerely. Only then will they admire us.

Newcomers to the practice often show boasting and competitiveness with their fellow monastics. They like to imitate the Zen masters in the exchange of Zen phrases, testing each other's experience and power of awakening by rejecting each other's words. Speaking of Zen phrases, we often mention Master Dahui. He specialised in posing questions that put others on the spot. Whoever could answer was truly good. One day a monk walked into his hut, and he asked:

• Who is it that is not a companion to the myriad things?

"The myriad things" means everything in this world: winning and losing, jealousy and hatred, love and money... Who does not keep company with those things? Of course, one who is liberated. The monk answered at once:

• The one without a face.

It was a good answer, but Master Dahui said:

• Just now someone answered as you did, and I drove him out.

Hearing this, the monk faltered at once and wondered why such a good answer should get him driven out. Seeing this, Master Dahui drove the monk out immediately. Clearly, that monk could talk the talk but had not realised it in his mind. At the first test from Master Dahui, he faltered immediately. Reading those Zen phrases, newcomers often imitate them and ask about the Way, wanting to show that they are better than others.

Another expression of the ethics of language is that we should praise more than we criticise. Before praising someone with any sentence, we must think. For an improper compliment can mean the same as criticism. But before criticising someone for anything, we must think even more. To criticise someone, we must have enough virtue. When we have great virtue, if we criticise, people do not get angry but accept it and correct themselves. If we do not have enough virtue, criticising and finding fault with others will make them angry and resentful and create a poor relationship between people.

In life as in the Way, when there is an affinity between people, every word brings joy and interest. At such times, we should speak. When we speak and others do not listen, we should never speak. The Dharma is like a tonic: in the right dose and for the right person it is beneficial; in excess or unsuited to the person, it becomes poison. This is a delicate point, and we should be careful.

Every word spreads, for good or for ill, so when speaking we must think of the consequences of our words, and weigh them and be careful before speaking. For example, when we criticise someone for something, we must think: if my criticism spreads, what will the consequences be, and how will it affect the Dharma? Or when we explain a teaching to the person opposite, we must picture whether it would benefit or harm the Dharma if that person repeated it to others. This is also a point requiring care. Zen masters often have ways of breaking a person's attachment right in front of them, but passed on through a second person, it becomes harmful.

For example, Master Deshan said: "The bodhisattvas of the ten directions are like piles of rat droppings." His attachment-breaking words may have made the person before him awaken, but spreading, those words created a wildness among those who study Zen. From then on, students of Zen liked to talk nonsense and lose merit, and no one attained realisation any more. So a single person harms who knows how many people. By contrast, the Buddha always spoke words that benefit everyone. The Buddha spoke to one person, but if it was passed on to another, those words were still beneficial, because his words were always exact.

When a lay Buddhist comes to us to ask for an answer about some matter of the Way or about a family matter, we must weigh our answer before giving it. Our advice may awaken them, but applied to someone else it may not suit and may be mistaken. We must foresee this. We must make sure that when a word is spoken, even if it spreads to others, it leaves no ill consequence. To do this, we must monitor our words carefully to avoid mistakes.

When speaking of the ethics of language, we usually encourage speaking little. However, there are times when we need to speak a great deal. That is when we courageously speak the truth to clear someone's name or defend the weak and relieve their injustices. Or sometimes we use speech to advise and teach others what is good so they avoid faults. Knowing that people are making mistakes yet not boldly stopping them, and only looking out for ourselves, means we lack responsibility toward the Dharma. Of course, once we are lecturers, we cannot speak little. Then we must speak a lot, but we must speak well and in accord with the principles of the Way for our words to have meaning. Sometimes we meet someone whose heart and mind are in tune with ours, like bosom friends meeting, and we can talk all day without tiring. But sometimes when people praise us lavishly, we become reserved and say nothing. We say this so that we understand that it is not always right to speak little; sometimes we need to speak a lot and speak forcefully.

In one sutra, the Buddha said: "In forty-five years I have not spoken a single word." That is, although he spoke all his life, the Buddha did not see himself as having said a single word. The Buddha lived in very deep concentration; he clung to nothing; whatever he said, he said for the sake of beings. That he preached for forty-five years yet still saw himself as having said nothing is entirely natural and cannot be argued. Anyone who has lived in that concentration will deeply understand what he said. Try living in purity for one day, and we will see ourselves doing a great deal yet feeling as if we have done nothing. We need to learn from the Buddha to maintain mindfulness in speech. Even while talking with people, we monitor our own minds and keep our minds pure, so that after they leave we still feel as if we had said nothing at all. That is the way, the path of the Dharma that we must follow. We may not be able to do it now, but if we train, we will surely be able to.

There are cases in which we must speak and use speech to make the atmosphere of communication more cheerful, speaking in order to liberate people. This sounds a little strange, but in truth it is often needed. For example, a lay Buddhist who has something sad going on outside comes to the temple to find some quiet. Seeing this, we invite them into the temple to pay homage to the Buddha and then invite them to the guest room for tea. They do not know what the Dharma is to talk about, so they stay silent. At that moment, if we take a little trouble, we ask what work they do, whether they often go to temples, whether they read sutras, and so on. Afterwards we can lend them a book we find good. While talking, we speak gently, kindly, unhurriedly and cheerfully, and they feel cheerful too. The next day, when they have the chance, they come to the temple again. Thanks to this, they gradually come to know the Way and develop a resolve for the Way. This is also a way of liberating people. So when it is necessary to speak to make things cheerful, that is the ethics of language, and we are not rigid. But when it is time to be silent so that everyone can recite the Buddha's name and keep the mind, we should not speak and disturb or unsettle others' minds. We need to distinguish these two cases.

In studying the lesson on mastering speech, the last thing we need to settle on is that the mind should speak more than the mouth. For example, in the community there are people whose minds love their fellow monastics immensely. From their eyes and smile to their deeds, everything expresses overflowing love for their fellow monastics, yet they speak very little. When we meet them, we understand and feel it at once. Naturally, in our minds too, we come to love them. Others talk a great deal, telling everyone they love and cherish them, but in their minds there is no love. When we meet them, we recognise it immediately too. So however skilful and soft their words and however attentive their deeds, we still feel it as bland and have no warm feeling toward them.

Living in this life, for the mind to speak more than the mouth, we must cultivate a loving mind very deeply and broadly. We must make it so that, as soon as our eyes see a person, the loving mind arises at once. People say that the compassionate mind reaches even to grass, trees and all things, and this is what is meant. Every day when we sit in meditation, we spread the loving mind to all beings. Everyone around us will feel it. Even those living in the invisible world will feel it. It is the same in life: when we go out and see strangers and in each case give rise to a mind of love, then in the unseen they respond in return. They will look at us practitioners tenderly and warmly. Conversely, if we do not give rise to a mind of love but show irritation, people will also look at us with displeasure. In their minds, sarcastic and carping thoughts about practitioners naturally arise.

This too is very strange. So let us strive to cultivate the loving mind very strongly. In the lesson on the loving mind, we spoke at length about this. When our eyes meet living beings, love should arise in us at once. All our lives, we must live like this and train ourselves like this.

One thing we need to note when studying language is that the means of communication change with the times. In the past, several thousand years ago, in the Buddha's time, people communicated with each other mainly through speech because there was no writing. One person spoke, another listened and passed it on to others. In this way, each generation handed down life experience, ideas and feelings to the next entirely by oral transmission. For a long time, literature formed, developed and was passed on in this same way, and is called folk literature. Of course, when passed on by word of mouth through memory, the original words and ideas cannot be kept intact. People call this phenomenon: "Three copies and the original is lost."

The invention of writing was a tremendous advance for human society. With writing, people communicated with one another more richly and more conveniently. At first people wrote on bamboo slips, then on dó paper (a coarse paper made from tree bark), then on silk... Writing became an important means of communication between people. Those who cannot read feel lost in society. In today's age of information explosion, illiteracy is a very great disadvantage for a person. That is why our government has a policy to eradicate illiteracy, bringing "letters" to remote areas, and introducing a programme of universal lower-secondary education for people in the districts of the city, and so on.

Today, the computer has also become a modern and important means of communication in human life. At this point, communication by computer is still new, but at some time it will come into common use. People talk by telephone, send faxes, email, chat, access information, do accounts and so on, all by computer. Anyone who does not know how to use a computer will become outdated and will be left outside society.