Dharmette: Right Speech (2 of 5) Useful.

And this week I'm exploring the five forms of right speech or five ways of considering our speech.

So there are speeches of well-formed, beneficial.

It's kind of the five criteria, the self-audit that we can do to know whether it's okay to say what we're going to say.

So the five are put under the acronym audit since it's a kind of way of checking in with ourselves.

And so is it accurate? Is it true? Is it useful? That's today.

What's the disposition that we have when we speak? Do we have a good disposition, good attitude? And is it, what's the impact of what we're doing? What's the impact on ourselves, the impact on others? And what is, is it timely? Is it the right time to speak? So these four, these five criteria.

So today it's, is it useful? And for this, it's important to have some sense of purpose.

Why are we speaking? What purpose do we have? And what I'd like to propose is that's always a good question because there are layers of purpose for speech.

There might be the most obvious one we have, you know, the most overt one, the one that everyone can see.

But in fact, there are layers of purpose underneath that that are operating.

Something as innocent as someone on the street asks you for direction for a place that you know where it is.

And so you're happy to give them directions.

And so you point them down the street where they have to go.

And so what purpose did you speak to them? Because they asked.

Because you were able to offer them direction.

But if you start looking below the surface of that, you might find that there was some feeling of fear, anxiety, that maybe you didn't know the stranger, so you wanted to speak quickly and briefly to get out of there.

Or maybe there was a layer of wanting to impress the person.

The person seemed very nice, attractive, interesting to you.

And so you were interested in saying it in a way that cast a good light on yourself.

So it's a good impression you make for them.

And so you were speaking not just to give them directions, but to make an impression.

Maybe you wanted to show them how clever you are, that you knew the kind of shortcut and you really wanted them to see, wow, you really know.

So there might be different purposes.

And so with what purpose are we speaking? And with what purpose is it for the other people? Is it useful to speak? Some people want to get something done, talk about a difficult topic, work out a disagreement.

But the other person has a migraine and it's not useful to try to talk to them then.