Joe ~ Speech is such a huge part of our daily experience, and often its motive is to cause divisiveness or harm to others. So to practice right speech, we need to pay attention to our motives. That's not easy. There are very few of us - if any - who have perfectly pure motivation. So when we look at our motivation, it takes a lot of clarity and honesty, sometimes even courage. But if we are willing to be open and honest about the mix of motivations behind our speech and our actions, then we can choose the motives which are most wholesome and act from those, and let the others go.
Jack ~ Life inherently entails suffering. There is gain and loss, praise and blame, joy and sorrow, birth and death, sweet and sour, and light and dark, and our existence as human beings is interwoven with these opposites. We suffer if we get the idea that this isn't supposed to happen to us. Life entails difficulty and conflict at times, and that's not the problem. The real issue is how we respond. Adversity is an invitation to lean into what feels stuck, to bring the tools of mindfulness and compassion to the suffering that we have right now. In the light of mindful attention, they dissolve and we become free.
