Having a spiritual practice isn’t easy. It requires a desire for peace and clarity, effort, continuation/persistence and reflection to see if we are on the path. A recent psychological study on how we achieve mastery found that children who were given a test using progressively larger font sizes did not improve their test scores despite their prediction that increasing font size would make a difference. But those who were given tests with a more difficult font to read did improve their scores. The conclusion of the study was that while doing something easy leads to confidence, mastery is achieved as a result of some struggle and difficulty.
Do you see my point here? Don’t give up just because things seem difficult. You are on the path to mastery. Confidence comes along for the ride.
Most spiritual traditions agree on one thing- Ego/selfishness causes suffering for our self and for others. So why are there so many disagreements between traditions (religions if you prefer that term)? It’s because they started talking about the truth they all experienced. Once we begin talking about something we progressively remove our self from the basic idea which often cannot be adequately communicated with words.
In the beautiful story about Buddha’s awakening you may recall that after awakening to the Four Noble Truths of our Existential angst (suffering)- it’s existence, it’s cause/origin, it’s cessation, and the path to cessation of suffering, the Buddha sat for seven days after which he decided not to say anything. He felt that these truths could not be communicated and that people would not understand them. The story goes on to describe a Brahma god who discovered this and believed the world would be lost if Siddhartha Gautama didn’t teach these truths. He tried to convince Buddha to teach saying that while it was true that many, many people wouldn’t understand, there would be a few that would understand. Buddha considered this but realized these very few would figure these truths out without his help. The Brahma gods were perplexed so they tried one more argument. They said that while it was true that a few would awaken with or without Buddha’s help and the vast numbers would never awaken no matter what Buddha said but they then proposed that there could be just a few with “a little dust in their eyes” that would understand if they were taught. This appeal to logic convinced Buddha to teach these truths which he did for 45 years until his death in a small dusty town in Northern India. These teachings continue today for those with a little dust in their eyes.
Buddha taught without the promise of achieving bliss. In fact his simple message was that the end of the path of practice is “no misery”. What if he had promised bliss? Maybe we would get attached to bliss. But getting attached to “no misery” seems hard to imagine. We can’t get too hooked on “no misery”? So this helps us.
Part of a spiritual practice is watching what we say. The Path Factor of Right (harmonious) Speech is the first of the ethical path factor of harmonious speech, action and livelihood. It is first perhaps because it is so important. The speech we engage in is not only our speech to others but our internal speech to our self. If we cultivate harsh internal speaking it will form a habit that extends to others when we verbally speak. Harmonious speech is speech that is kind, gentle, and not harsh, is truthful, and not divisive. It is spoken at the appropriate time and place. This all requires mindfulness.
In a short Sutta Buddha spoke to his son Rahula and directed him to be mindful of what he (Rahula) was about to say even before he said the words. He was instructed to be mindful of what he was saying while he was in the act of speaking. And finally he told Rahula to reflect on what he had said after he had spoken. Choosing our words carefully before we speak leads to harmonious speech if done with kindness and compassion. While we are speaking there is still time to stop talking if what we are saying is hurtful, untimely, divisive, or harsh. And after we have spoken we should reflect and make amends if have spoken in an unkind or harsh manner.
These practices take great effort. See if you can watch (be mindful) of what you say while you are saying it. This exercise requires us to Slow………….. Down …………… Our…………..Speech. Not in a way that is exaggerated but just enough to be reflective during our speech.
Can you practice this difficult exercise during this month? It’s difficult but that’s how we achieve mastery!
May you be well, happy and peaceful!
Floyd
