This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. As we were chanting, I was noticing how that apprehension, that that always shows up, you know, when I'm waiting upstairs and then coming down the stairs, approaching the moment of speaking publicly, kind of evaporates as soon as I enter the room. There is something about seeing all of you, the short ritual we follow before a Dharma talk, feeling the presence of all of you, all the people behind me it's just so reassuring and it makes me think that this moment like every other moment is co-created so thank you thank you for being here welcome to beginner's mind temple special welcome to any one of you who may be new to beginner's mind temple

[01:28]

and welcome to all the beings online, probably sipping tea in their home, or being in some beautiful resort around the world and thinking, okay, why not I'll do this? It's kind of a nice fantasy to have. So I hope that the topic I thought of bringing tonight feels nourishing and speaks to us because I would like to speak about speech and a particular form of speech. I would like to speak about gossip. It's a very, very human activity, gossiping. Hopefully so.

[02:30]

I mean, it would be nice to think that dogs and cats that live in our homes cannot gossip, right? It's good not to know that. Who knows? Because if they did, who knows what they would say about their owners. The Association for Psychological Science... commissioned a study on gossip in 2019 and found that humans gossip on average 52 minutes a day. I wonder how you score against that statistics. We're kind of fortunate that sometimes we actually have silent retreats so we don't gossip at least for a day or for five or seven days and then we have some credit to kind of get up the following week.

[03:31]

The motivation to speak about gossip actually comes partly from personal experience because I had been living for or working for about 40 years in communities that are fairly contained. academic institutions, small academic institutions, and then San Francisco Science Center where gossip can flourish. And people have known each other for a long time and tend to share many things about other people. But also from a statement I came across a couple of weeks ago from Pope Francis in 2018, he gave a general address and gave this statement. Gossipers not only kill, but are like terrorists because their tongues throw a bomb and then they calmly walk away.

[04:40]

I'm going to read it again. Gossipers not only kill, but are like terrorists because their tongues throw a bomb, and then they calmly walk away. And what struck me about this statement is not only that it's very stark, but also that it seems to emphasize an impact of gossip on others. And I thought, well, there is a karmic effect also on ourselves in gossiping. And I looked through other to their Christian statements or sources, and I found that in Proverbs, King Solomon actually had a different emphasis. He says, death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it and indulge it will eat its fruit and bear the consequences of their words.

[05:49]

And so the combination of the two statements somehow gave me the sense of the 360 degree impact that gossip can have. I imagine that if I asked you whether you think that gossip is a wholesome activity, probably not. Many people would raise their hands. Gossip tends to be thought always as somewhat divisive, somewhat responding to some malicious intention. And for those of us that came from some sort of Judeo-Christian tradition, it also has the color of sin. I grew up, of course, in that tradition. I'm Italian, and I grew up in a country that, at least at that time, was mostly Catholic. And I grew up in a small city, a town that now counts more or less half a million people.

[06:59]

But when I was growing up 50, 60 years ago, it was a small town that really, really enjoyed gossiping. And I would say that gossip was really the way in which people knew about each other more than directly. Gossip was often used as a form of social control. People were afraid of being who they really were for fear of being an object of gossip. And gossip was powerful. It could prevent someone from finding a job in the town. It could prevent someone from finding a romantic relationship, friends. And so on. So it was a quite strong tool of social control, of avoiding change, maintaining the status quo, creating clubs, creating cliques, excluding others, and so on.

[08:07]

So I have a little bit of a bias, an instinctive bias, in thinking about gossip. as something negative. But in and of itself, gossip does not have to be negative. Definitions of gossip seem to go all over the place. They can be as neutral as just speaking about someone who's not present to something a bit more pungent, like speaking about others who's not present with sometimes the possibility of being unkind, untrue, and so on. The definition I like the most that seems to be most comprehensive is actually from a scholar of Christian ethics. And she says, conversation or a report about other people's personal lives.

[09:13]

No, sorry, sorry. Private, informal, some will say idle, evaluative communication about persons who are absent. I'm going to read it again, I'm sorry. Private, informal, some will say idle, evaluative communication about persons who are absent. So sometimes it's completely innocuous. If I say something like, oh, yesterday I saw Tanto Tim bowing, I don't know what's going on with him. It's not a gossip that's going to make a lot of waves because Tanto Tim bows every day a lot of times. So it's not a gossip that's going to create anything that you probably think, Lorenzo, get a life. Oh, by the way, my name is Lorenzo. I'm sorry, I forgot to say it. And I'm a resident priest here.

[10:15]

Sometimes gossips are sharing a secret, which is like an oxymoron in and of itself, right? I mean, a secret is not supposed to be shared. Sometimes gossips are really pro-social, they're really beneficial. There is a by-product of the MeToo movement in Hollywood called Whisper Network, which is a network of gossips among women in the entertainment business who kind of communicate with each other about men that in work-related situations have manifested predatory behaviors. And so fundamentally can save lives in and of itself. And we can't think of something like that as malicious, even though really it needs a lot of care because the power of the gossip can be extremely strong and can completely ruin the reputation of someone.

[11:22]

So even if it's beneficial, even if the intention is beneficial, the substance of the gossip has to be proven somehow, has to be solid enough so that it's not only based on a perception, for example. But personally, as I already said, I would tend to think of gossips as something that has some sort of a malicious, divisive intention something that is really meant to exclude, to create cliques, lobbies, and so on, especially in close communities like a monastery, for example, or the workplace. And so the big question that came to me as I thought about these themes is, how can we help ourselves? It's a very human behavior. How can we use practice or what does practice give us

[12:23]

that can be helpful to sort of become aware of when we can cause harm. And something comes to my mind about a Dharma talk that the great and beloved teacher Gilles Fronstal gave some time ago, a few years ago actually, and at the end of the Dharma talk, There was some space for questions and answers, and a student asked him something like, what does it mean for you to be a Buddhist in your everyday life? And Gil sort of smiled and could have gone totally scholarly, of course, about it, but he said, at least I tried not to make anything worse. I thought that that was a wonderful answer that sort of paraphrases the three pure precepts that we actually vow on every time we have a Bodhisattva precept ceremony.

[13:33]

Do good, not do harm, and live for the benefit of all beings. I think that these three pure precepts, at least as a background of our expressions of our communication to others could be really beneficial. Is this beneficial? Could this harm? And then reflect on whether we could actually say it in a different way or not saying it at all, and so on. But I would say that Buddhist ethics has a lot of teachings that can actually help in this regard. First, among all the Eightfold Path, that's contained in the Fourth Noble Truth, paves the way to freedom, to liberation. And the third sort of admonition or recommendation of the Eightfold Path is right speech, which in Pali is sama vaca, which has been translated, not necessarily a right speech, sama has been translated as comprehensive speech.

[14:46]

Speech that considers all possible sides of a situation rather than just right. Because, of course, if you say right, then that is wrong. For speech to qualify as right speech, speech has to have some characteristics. Has to be true. Has to be timely. has to be kind, has to be beneficial, and has to be given, has to be offered with the heart-mind of goodwill. So really, if we want to practice right speech from the Eightfold Path, every time we have the instinct to say something, we should be able to ask ourselves, is this the right time to actually say what I'm going to say? Is it kind? Is it true?

[15:47]

I mean, it's really complicated because, of course, the instinct to speech is often instantaneous. And so to go through all these characteristics of anything you're about to say can be very, very difficult. So I actually found a way to kind of approach this difficulty in a much what feels to me much more natural, perhaps, way. Nikki Mirgafore actually wrote something in The Lion's Roar in this regard. And she writes, if we are moved to lie, gossip, or speak harshly, we inquire. Am I stressed? Am I motivated by greed, ill will, desire for recognition, or fear of rejection. We reestablish our grounding through pausing.

[16:50]

Then we actively reengage with wise intention and benevolence. I'm going to read it again. If we are moved to lie, gossip, or speak harshly, we inquire, am I stressed? Am I motivated by greed, ill will, desire for recognition, or fear of rejection. We re-establish our grounding through pausing, then we actually re-engage with wise intention and benevolence. And to me, this sort of way of thinking about, of reflecting on what we're about to say, feels very different than the five characteristics of right speech, because at least in my perception, when I think about is it true, is it kind, et cetera, it's about what I'm about to say rather than about me.

[17:55]

And what Niki seems to suggest is to translate, to sort of transpose those reflections into how do you feel before you speak? Do you feel agitated? Could it be? good to actually wait a second before one says what is about to say, if that's the state of mind or heart. And I think it could prevent a lot of harm. This makes me think of a situation that actually happened to me when I was treasurer here in the accounting department. And one day I received an email that, in response to something I had asked, that really triggered me. It felt judgmental. It felt, yeah, it triggered me very much.

[18:58]

And of course, the first instinct was, this person deserves immediately a response. And so I wrote a response. sent it, and I regretted it for so long because the conversation sort of escalated more and more into stuff that had nothing to do with the point of the first email. It became offensive. It became critical, judgmental about ways we had to do things, et cetera, to the point that we both realized where it had gone and had to apologize to each other and just stop there and go back to the original email and figure out what to do about that. So later I went for Dogasan with one of our teachers and I actually asked, what do you do?

[20:00]

What do you do when you receive an email, say, and emails are terrible in that way, you know, you receive an email, that really triggers you, and you really feel like this person needs an answer right away. And this teacher said, of course it happens to them too, but he said, I write the reply right away, the way it comes, and then I save it, rather than send it. I save it, And then a couple of hours later, when I feel a little bit less agitated, I read it again. Most of it needs to be dropped. But I actually can get to a point in which I can answer in a kind, beneficial, et cetera, et cetera way. So that pausing is really important. I mean, in the last winter practice period here at City Center, the practice leader

[21:07]

of the practice period, Christina Lehner reminded us many times about this acronym WAIT. Why am I talking? And then there is a corollary to this acronym. How am I talking? And actually, I mean, she reminded us several times a week, I would say, for two and a half months. And you could actually feel the shift in the way people were talking. And that's sort of the power of reflection as one talks. And for me, it was super, super helpful because it became, as it sort of became internal, it sort of always gave me a little buffer just to ask the question, this weight would pop up in my mind, and then I could actually make a choice, rather than instinctively reacting.

[22:16]

That's very helpful, and I think that having a weight acronym as a sticker on the fridge, or on the side of the screen of the computer, maybe at the bottom of the cell phone, could be very, very helpful, at least for a while. And then it becomes sort of something more natural that we can actually simply have in ourselves. And right speech is reflected very much in four of our Bodhisattva precepts. Do not lie. Do not slander. Do not praise self at the expense of others. And do not disparage. the triple treasure. I mean, all the precepts are interdependent, of course, and speak to each other, but these four seem to be the most direct that actually help us in this way. Reb Anderson, in his book, Being Upright, which is a book on the bodhisattva precepts, calls the sixth

[23:31]

a grave precept that we chant as, I vow not to slander, as, do not, not speaking of others' faults. He writes, what is meant here by speaking of the faults of others? First of all, it is speaking of others with the intention, conscious or unconscious, to cause disrespect or disharmony between people. This phenomenon could be called slander. Here, slander means to intentionally make defamatory statements that are injurious to the reputation of another person. This is not speaking of another person's fault directly, face to face, with that person. It is speaking to others about someone's faults. There is something about our instinctive survivalist attitude about sometimes using gossip to create space, what we think is to create space for ourselves, to be able to be what we think we should be, we need to be, we want to be, and in doing that, create clubs, create a mentality of...

[24:59]

Are you in or are you out? Sort of exclusion and so on. And this contradicts also another vow we make actually here at Zen Center every morning at the beginning of our morning service when we take refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. And when we take refuge in Sangha we actually say bring in harmony to everyone free from hindrance. It's exactly the opposite of what that instinct of making a practice environment or a workplace or a family environment the way we think it should be so we can maintain continuity with ourselves. So that's a place that also can be really helpful in terms of reflections. And then in the Pali Canon, the Buddha also explicitly guides us not to tell there what one has heard. And Rabbi Anderson adds, unless we meet what we hear from others of others' faults with a carefully questioning attitude, words of criticism can poison our minds against others.

[26:18]

It isn't just the negative gossip that accomplishes the poisoning of our minds, but also our passive listening to it. We should always assume that the waves of gossip reach shores we cannot foresee. It's like the vibration of the big bell. We have no idea where they end. And so I would like to conclude, and then we can have a few minutes for questions and comments, with a story. And it's a confessional story from 16th century Rome. And it's called The Feathers and the Wind. And it's a story that centered on Saint Filippo Neri. And he was a Catholic priest, as you can imagine, who became known as the patron of laughter, but also, and I have no idea why, the patron of US Special Forces.

[27:26]

I have no idea why this guy became a patron of the U.S. Special Forces. Anyway, here is the story. A woman known for her malicious gossip and loose tongue came to St. Filippo Neri in the confessional, deeply sorry for the harm she had caused. She asked for a way to make amends. For her penance, the saint gave her a strange, highly specific instruction. She was to go to the market, purchase a chicken, and pluck its feathers one by one as she walked through the streets of Rome all the way back to the church. Confused by obedient, the woman completed the task. She returned to the saint, handed him the plucked chicken. and asked if she was now forgiven.

[28:30]

Guess what? Not quite, Saint Filippo said. Now I want you to go back and retrace your steps. Gather up every single feather you plucked and bring them back to me. The woman's heart sank. She protested, but it is impossible. The wind has scattered them in every possible direction, and they do not even know where they have gone. Looking at her gravely, the priest delivered the moral. And so it is with your malicious gossip. The words you spoke have been carried about in every direction. They have flown far beyond your reach, and you cannot recall them. You can never fully undo the damage. you have done to a person's reputation. It's a good lesson.

[29:34]

Thank you very much. So I think we have about 10 minutes, I guess, for questions and comments. How do you differentiate Good gossip and bad gossip? From what I understand, good, good gossip is fundamentally beneficial gossip. Like, for example, the Whisper Network we talked about, the intention is to be beneficial to opinions, really. Bad gossip that I would call more malicious gossip is really motivated in my mind by the intention to divide, the intention to divide and to harm.

[30:44]

But even if you have good intentions for the gossip, its impact cannot be good, is that? I'm sorry, is that again? Even if you have good intentions for the gossip, but it might not be the result. Is that something? It might not be the result. Like if you had good intentions to gossip about someone, right? And you do that with an intent to have a good result. Yeah. But that doesn't always happen. Sometimes your good intentions for the gossip doesn't result in a good result. I would say that the intention is that the discriminant there between a good and bad gossip. I would say, I mean, you can reflect as much as possible at how likely it is that that good result is going to materialize and make the best decision you can. It's very subtle, even something beneficial, I mean, potentially beneficial, like speaking about someone that had done something wonderful yesterday.

[31:54]

for example, that person might not like that to be public. And so maybe the best way to do it is to ask, would you be OK if I share that? Such a wonderful thing you did, whatever it is. So to make sure as much as you can that you're not harming, consciously or unconsciously. Thank you. Hi, Lorenzo. Thank you. You're welcome. I really love the intervention that you mentioned from the book that, and I've done this before, and I've forgotten and stopped doing it, but it is really helpful to, if I can think of it, to pause when I know I'm about to gossip and say something

[32:59]

There's a litany of questions there, but for me to just say to myself, what do I actually need right now? Why am I about to do this? What am I really needing? Because then it sort of makes the impulse to gossip more of an indicator of what do I actually need? And then I can figure out, okay, how do I get that in a better, more healthy, skillful way? Right. And it's interesting, the answers that come up, right? And it's usually like, I'm looking for connection with that person, right? Yeah, I guess that's it. Yeah, sometimes we do it to make friends, to connect, to fill the gap. You know, silence is uncomfortable for many people, and sometimes we don't know what to say, and we talk about someone else. rather than talking about ourselves.

[34:01]

Or maybe saying, I am uncomfortable with the silence, and I feel the urge to speak about someone else. And that might open up the conversation in a very different direction. And get that connection, but it's not necessarily what's needed for a connection. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not, I mean, it's a pseudo-connection, really. Right, right. My partner and I were just talking about this the other day, and it's not around gossip, but around speech. Why am I talking? Why am I talking? Because there's sometimes some discordance between me talking and talking and talking, and he doesn't really want to be talking. And so practicing that same thing, like, why am I talking? What am I looking for right now? And it's like, oh, I don't need to just keep... going like I am right now. Thank you, Ellen. Anyway.

[35:02]

Thank you. It can be used in many different ways, I guess. I'm bowing, so I'm freeing you from it. Hi, Lorenzo. Thank you. I really appreciate your talk. Good to see you. Thank you. So I come from a culture where... gossiping is a form of bonding. And I'm finding myself a lot more aware of it and just kind of discerning whether this is skillful or unskillful right now. And I've realized that I'm spending a lot more time in silence in my family. And so I'm just wondering how do you stay with that Because I'm also starting to feel a little separate, right? And so there's like this feeling of separation from the group dynamic. And so how do you be skillful, but still feel a part of what's happening?

[36:09]

Yeah. Sometimes I've heard people say, I really had the difficulty participating in this conversation. Can we talk about something else? But also that silence may actually open up an inquiry about why is there silence, right? Maybe there are things that in the family are not shared about the people themselves. And we'd rather talk about someone else than talking about ourselves. So to use it in some way as a teacher, that may be the... a skillful way to use that time, and it's wonderful that you can actually notice that and not participate if you feel like it's not skillful. I think that's a wonderful thing. Yeah, I'm trying to have compassion for it because my family's really going through a lot of grief. We just lost somebody in our immediate family, and so I know that it's a form of distraction and not really confronting, you know?

[37:20]

what it is yeah yeah so compassion obviously is a good friend there and and which doesn't necessarily imply that you have to participate if that's not what's happening for you you can still be with them and just let it fall where it falls without for example you know bringing it forward then and make it worse thank you you're welcome Thank you for one more. Hi. Thank you for the talk today. It was wonderful. Thank you. It made me think of something I heard a long time ago. And they said there's three types of people. There's people who talk about people. There's people who talk about things that happened or events.

[38:21]

And then there's people that talk about ideas. And it's like the last category that I feel like is the best kind of company. Because they're so abstract, you can really... I think that's the best form of connection with another human being is just to share your views on the world and just the nature of reality instead of... Um, you know, we, we seek to bond with others through gossiping about people, but, um, I think it's the most surface level form of connection. Thank you. Yeah, that's, that's wonderful. And, and, uh, it's, it, it still in my mind requires a little bit of what I can't remember your name. I mean, yeah, was, was, was saying earlier that it, it, it still requires a willingness to come out and somehow with your, with your own view with your own thoughts, with your own resources. That takes a little bit of courage.

[39:23]

Sometimes we choose the easier way just because that's sometimes all we can do. Again, to be compassionate and to realize how we are listening to those is important. But yeah, I agree. I mean, there is so much one can talk about. We don't need to talk about other people. But we end up often doing that. So, thank you. Anybody else? All right. I think you used the word comprehensive speech.

[40:27]

Was that a translation, was it? Is that what it was? It's a translation of sama, which we typically translate as right. Sama vaka is right speech in Pali, and sama has been translated as comprehensive. even though we typically translate it as right. How do you come to comprehensive speech? To me, the way I relate comprehensive to right speech is thinking about those five categories. And talking about the practice period that you led with the body piece, I'm curious about that as well. I do have a feeling of right speech. I'm not sure I can actually express it in words, but there is a knowing about the quality of one's speech.

[41:41]

And it's that... quality that this is my experience of course but it's that quality that makes you feel good or less good at the end of a conversation like it might not be substantive it might not that you can point the finger on what you should have not said or but you feel some unease about how you have been in that conversation Somatically, that's my impression of what comprehensive might mean. I don't know where it comes from, but it takes heart, mind to produce that feeling that might be an indicator. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your patience.

[42:42]

for your questions. May we all stop asking so much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org. and click giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:16]

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