When we start to practice insight meditation, there is nothing to distract us from our own past. The mind very quickly begins to reflect on what we have done and how those things have affected us and those around us. If those effects have been negative, the mind will become fixated on this, and once this happens, it is difficult to dislodge it. By contrast, if our past actions have not had negative results, the mind has a much softer approach to this and so it will be easier to acknowledge our memories.
Due to this fact, one of the most significant determining factors of whether we succeed in meditation is what kind of foundation we have built for ourselves with our actions, including our words. This post is mainly about speech as I discuss right action in other posts. Right speech is not hard to define. It is speech that is true, kind and useful. A tendency for counter-productive speech can be a major hindrance to our meditation practice. Lies, divisive speech and gossip are not only harmful to our community because of the inter-personal difficulties they cause but they are also harmful to one who engages in them. Doing so causes regret to arise in the mind and the worse the mistake, the harder it is to acknowledge.
There are so many ways that we can use speech positively to improve our lives and the lives of those around us that it is unnecessary to engage in wrong speech. If we find that our speech needs improvement, it can be helpful to reflect on whether we’re spending our time efficiently enough. Wrong speech tends to creep in when we are bored or lazy. The Buddhist approach to wrong speech would be to make a mental note once we realize we have made a mistake and use that as encouragement to become more productive instead.
Rather than engaging in criticism of one’s self or of other people’s speech, we can learn by acknowledging wrong speech to identify the times in our lives where we are not very busy and could make better use of time. In fact, this can be a perfect demonstration to us that we do in fact have time for meditation, and maybe even a meditation retreat.
This way an unfortunate mistake can become the catalyst for a positive endeavor. Happiness may be more accessible to us than we think.