Mindful Speech

“If you can’t control your mouth, there’s no way you can hope to control your mind.” - Buddhist Teaching

Is being mindful of your speech simply a means to appear more attractive or become a more likable, friendly character, or does the way we speak reflect certain things about our mental activity? Can this also be used, just as we use the breath in meditation, as a tool to realign and sharpen our mind? Careless chatter may be less harmless than you think and improving it may add significantly more to your interactions and your life than you know.

In practicing mindfulness of speech there are four major categories of verbal interaction that are generally aimed to be avoided: misrepresentation of the truth, intent of creating rifts between people, intent of inflicting harm on another’s feelings, and purposeless or idle chatter.

The focus in all of the above is the intent of the speech, the motivation and reason for saying what you say, as words are only a means of transferring an idea and if we wish to use speech as a tool to sharpen the mind then we need to get to the root of ill-intended speech, the intent behind it. We need to assess why we say what we say. Being aware of the intent of our speech is how we better connect with the activity of our mind, another gateway to allows us to remove the impurities that lie deep within our egotistical mind

Not only does this practice obviously contribute immediately to your understanding and awareness of yourself but your speech will also become aligned with positive intent. This positive intent will produce far more harmonious and purposeful speech which immediately contributes to the experience of those around you with whom you interact. Your words inevitably become a gift to others and you will soon see the immense power that lies within them. This is a huge part of how we are constantly shaping our experience and an opportunity to free our actions in the present from pain and confusion in the past.

Within every one of our interactions, actions, words and thoughts lies infinite potential and opportunity. Every moment can be spent shaping a brighter experience for us and all those around us.

Let us not wait any longer.

May everyone find more of the happiness that lies within them each day,

Craig