Right Speech

And what is right speech?

"Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, and from idle chatter: This is called right speech."

Right Speech constitutes the first active principle of ethical conduct in the eightfold path.

The importance of speech in the context of ethics seems obvious: words can break or save lives, make enemies or friends, start war or create peace.

Buddha explained right speech as follows: To abstain from false speech, especially not to tell deliberate lies and not to speak deceitfully.

To abstain from slanderous speech and not to use words maliciously against others.

To abstain from harsh words that offend or hurt others.

To abstain from idle chatter that lacks purpose or depth.

This means to tell the truth, to speak friendly, warm, and gently and to talk only when necessary.

Speech that is: noble, taintless, supramundance.

The desisting from the four kinds of verbal misconduct, the abstaining, refraining, abstinence from them in one whose mind is noble, whose mind is taintless, who posses the noble path and is developing the noble path: that is right speech that is noble... a factor of the path. Shakyamuni Buddha

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