Right Speech

Speech – as well as written words - can have enormous consequences. Speech can break lives, create friends, create enemies, start wars, end wars. Right Speech has four components: abstaining from false speech; abstaining from slanderous speech; abstaining from harsh speech; and abstaining from idle chatter.

This has both a negative and a positive aspect. The negative aspect is abstaining from lying, the positive side speaking the truth. The determinative factor is the intention to deceive. If one speaks something false believing it to be true the intention to deceive is absent ... read more of The Divisions of Right Speech ...