The following talk was given at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.

Please visit our website at audiodharma.org.

So hello on this Monday as we begin a new five-part series.

And the topic for this week is conventionally, or normally it would be called,

why speech, right speech.

And a few things in directory words about this.

One is that in the time of the Buddha, the ways people communicated with each other

was only through speech, maybe through gesture as well, they're bought.

But there was no writing to speak of, there was no certainly no other forms of communication,

no telephones, no email.

And so speech was the center of the focus for how to communicate wisely.

I suspect that if the Buddha was alive today, he would call this wise communication rather than wise speech.

Because his teachings apply also to, you know, would apply to all the ways in which we communicate to each other.

And now we have so many different ways that are more than just speech.

The email, for example, is an important example of how to learn, how to communicate wisely.

And overall this year of 2023, the orientation around these 7am, 730 teachings is support for working with the difficulties and challenges of life.

And maybe all of Buddhism is that, so it doesn't need to be said.

But that's kind of what the focus is.

And so learning how to communicate in conflict, communicate when things are challenging, is really a crucial skill to learn to be in conflict, be in challenges in a useful way, in a productive way, in a way that causes less harm.

To communicate so we don't make a situation worse, ideally we make the situation better.

And just that is, I think, a powerful principle.

The simple principle of, or instructions, don't make it worse.

...