On Mindful Speech


by Ven. Jinmyo Renge osho

Originally published in the eMirror, Volume 5, issue 25, Friday, June 22, 2001


Question: "What is functional talking?"

Somewhat of an Answer: "Functional talking" is a term we sometimes use to describe "mindfulness of speech”, recognizing and addressing context instead of drifting into content.

In some Zen centres and monasteries there is a rule of silence.  In others, there is an encouragement of social conversation because it helps to bind people to the "community".  A rule of silence is a bit trouble prone.  We still need to get information back and forth; it can lead to scrawling notes to each other saying: "Where are the cleaning cloths?" "First floor." "Where on the first floor?" And so on.  As for social conversation and binding people as "community", Roshi and the Practice Council do not want people to practice as his students for any other reason than that they recognize the truth of Dharma and the need for zazen.  As a Middle Way between suppressing speech and falling into streams of chattiness, we use "functional talking", speaking in a way that is practical and useful.

We are asked to apply this when we are in the monastery, interacting with Sangha members, or when we are exchanging email with one another.  It doesn't require becoming stiff or overly formal with each other, but rather, that we say what we mean and mean what we say.  For instance, perhaps one has been assigned the samu (caretaking) task in the monastery of sweeping the Dining Hall floor.  It would of course be sensible to ask, "Where is the broom?" But it would not be functional talking to free-associate and launch into a story about how as a kid, mom used a corn broom and used to chase the cat with it.  Even if it seemed to be a highly amusing story, it just isn't relevant to the task and your purpose of practising.  In the context of samu, telling an amusing story to another student is like tickling them or kicking them in the back of the head while they are doing zazen.  Teachers and practice advisors might often relate humorously with students but this is a matter of finding ways to bring students out into the moment, rather than distracting oneself and others.

We tend to drift into associations about everything we see or hear.  Even a sensation can trigger the memory of an event that might have occurred ten years ago.  And often we find our own stories so entertaining that we feel compelled to convey them to people around us.  While interacting with Sangha members, particularly during a formal practice period, such as a sitting, retreat, or a Dharma Assembly, one should be practicing, feeling the tongue against teeth, the breath becoming sound, and expressing oneself clearly.

Students at Dainen-ji often hear it said that the Zen Community is not a social organization.  We interact with each other for one purpose – to do this practice and realize the Transmission of the Buddhas and Awakened Ancestors.  So before or after a sitting, it is important to recognize and release the ways in which we ordinarily propagate discursiveness as it comes up and our compulsion to add these to the general clutter of conversation.  There should be little to no talking in the hallways, changing areas, and cloak room.  We can just sit, walk, and stand with each other, without words.

However, small groups of students will often congeal together to chat about matters that really have nothing to do with our purpose for coming together.  It would be best for all of us to discuss these things outside of the monastery, or meet elsewhere to do so.

Dainen-ji is a Zen monastery with perhaps one of the subtlest and masterful of Zen Teachers in permanent residence.  Our responsibility (our response to having been accepted as his students) is to actualize what is presented as fully as we can, in each moment.  And so for senior students it is very noticeable when students become so engaged in conversation with each other that they lose all sense of where they are and what is going on around them.  For monks this is particularly true, and whether in the building or elsewhere, they have committed themselves to be mindful of speech, to take care of words and meanings.  For this reason, if you meet a monk on the street, or perhaps in a shop, they will seldom say more than a few words and then will go about what they need to do.  Which is to practice and to support the practice of others, such as yourself.

Practicing mindfulness of speech helps us to sift through the vast number of thoughts that can come up about any given subject to select only those that are relevant to the matter at hand.  Again, this certainly doesn't mean that one has to become stiff or edit every sentence as they form in one's mind.  In fact, what we need to learn to do is to just relax within the forms and use them to embody our practice of this moment of opening.  We really just need to keep things as simple and as clear as possible.

 

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