dear friends,
What we say and how we say it matters, the schoolyard sticks-and-stones rhyme notwithstanding. We’re social creatures. Even if we don’t necessarily like to communicate, we all must do so from time to time. And for most of us, that “from time to time” is a daily if not hourly occurrence. So, putting a little thought and effort into how we communicate is probably time well spent. We all know what it feels like when we’re in the flow of good communication. I suspect we all know someone who is very good at it. You know, that friend who can put anyone at ease, make a difficult conversation flow, and knows when to stop talking and listen?
Yeah, I want to be more like that, too.
The Buddhists have the helpful concept of Sammā Vācā, aka Right Speech, which is usually defined by its four abstentions: abstaining from false speech, slanderous speech, harsh or divisive speech, and idle chatter. If we flip those descriptors into positive statements, we get a pretty nice thumbnail for what skillful communication looks like: it’s honest, accurate, gentle and necessary.
Had the Buddha lived in the 21st century instead of the 6th or 5th BCE, I think “Right Speech” would be called “Right Communication” because we now interact with each other through images as much as we do through language. Shifts in our modes of communication, though, doesn’t alter the underlying principles. And gentleness is one of the easiest ways I’ve found to remind myself how to communicate skillfully. The moment I can drop into sensing what it means to be gentle — with the subject of what I’m communicating, with the person or people I’m communicating with, and with myself — the right sentiment and words tend to become clear. The things that don’t matter and often get in the way of skillful communication (things like anger, frustration, resentment and striving or grasping) naturally drop away.
If you’re keen to try it for yourself, here’s my practice. It’s simple, but not necessarily easy. What makes it challenging for me is that you have to be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Don’t be discouraged if it takes some time. I still find it challenging, but I can promise that it gets easier with practice.
(1) Check Your Intention. When your intention is clear and clean, it’s pretty hard for your communication to go completely off the rails. The tricky part with intention is that most of the time we humans have many intentions. Here’s a thought experiment: You need to respond to a group text and you want to (1) be nice, (2) make it clear that you disagree with the suggested plan, and (3) respond to a snarky remark someone else just made. Dr. Rick Hanson, renowned neuropsychologist and mindfulness expert, addresses the reality of multi-intentioned human experience with the analogy of horses pulling a wagon. I think that analogy is helpful here: Not every single horse in the team needs to have scrupulously clean intentions, but the lead horse does. The way it works for me is that once I’ve identified all of my intentions (as many as I can, anyway), I focus on the one (or ones) that meet(s) the right speech criteria. In other words, I focus on the intentions that align with right communication: Is my intention aligned with honesty, accuracy, gentleness? It is necessary to communicate this idea right now? It’s not complicated, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy … at least it’s not for me.
(2) Check Your Vibe. Vibe comprises all the non-verbals that go along with your words. If there are no words because you’re communicating via image or non-verbal sounds, it’s everything. Vibe includes things like tone, colors, volume, intensity, emotional quality. Think of a person talking to a beloved pet and swapping out “you’re such a good boy, Bingo, such a good boy” with “garbledeegook, Bingo, garbledeegook” in the same friendly tone, Bingo will still wag his tail. You get the idea. Making sure that all the things that make up your vibe are (mostly) aligned with the principles of skillful communication is a very good way to make sure that what you want to communicate will be received in the way you intend.
(3) Check Your Language. Somewhat counterintuitively, the last step is to think about the actual words. Before adopting this practice, my tendency was to obsess about word smithing at step one, but I’ve found that it’s very easy to craft reasonable-sounding, pretty and persuasive words that don’t meet a single characteristic of right speech. But, once you’re resting in a place with good intentions and your vibe is clean, your word choice flows pretty easily. And even when the words don’t come out exactly how you want them, too, when the first two steps are skillful, you have already created an energy that can be trusted. And trust, the key to all human connection, really is the most important thing we can cultivate when we communicate.
That’s it for now! I wish you a great week ahead and best of luck to all of you who add a little gentleness to your communication tool box.
warmly,
alison
