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Loving Speech Is an Art
The Path of Ten Wholesome Actions is the path of ten types of right action, comprising ten precepts divided into three groups:
- The three precepts of the body are not killing, not stealing, and not engaging in sexual misconduct.
- The four precepts of speech are not speaking falsely (lying), not speaking frivolously (embellishing), not speaking with a double tongue (speaking with two tongues), and not speaking harshly (speaking cruel words).
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The three precepts of the mind are not craving, not being angry, and not being deluded.
Among these, the karma of speech plays an important role because words can cause suffering or create happiness. The practice of Right Speech requires skillfulness to speak the truth with compassion, combined with the practice of deep listening in order to deeply understand the pain and suffering of others, thereby bringing about reconciliation in the family and society.
Meta-ethics poses fundamental questions about the semantics and ontological ground of the concepts of good, evil, right, and wrong. In order not to be caught in words or conventional designations, the tradition of Buddhist psychology proposes the contemplation of the Four Inquiries, consisting of four methods of investigation:
- Name (designation).
- Meaning or Thing (the actual object).
- Self-nature (essence).
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Designation (the establishment of names).
Through this, the practitioner recognizes the non-duality of Buddha and living beings, seeing the Buddha right in their breath and steps, rather than as a separate reality outside of living beings. All phenomena are conventional designations that rely on one another to manifest, just as a sitting mat is made of non-sitting mat elements.
The nature of all things is emptiness (śūnyatā), transcending pairs of opposites such as being and non-being, birth and death. In Eastern thought, the Dao is considered the mother of heaven and earth, silent and traveling everywhere without tiring. With the insight of non-discriminatory wisdom, the subject and object of cognition rely on each other to manifest together, like the view that heaven and earth are born together with me, and all things and I are one. The Zen spirit of not relying on words and letters helps the practitioner approach the truth without being caught in language, using wisdom to see self-nature and attain true liberation from the labyrinths of words.
