Page 65 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

Speech or verbal communication is something in which in a

sense we have to engage all the time. You may take up
meditation or not, as you wish; but when it comes to speech

you have hardly any choice. Whether you like it or not, you have
to speak, you have to talk, you have to communicate. You
cannot always be silent, even if you want to, and in any case

most of us do not want to be silent — not very much of the
time, anyway. It is therefore inevitable that some consideration

should be given to this whole question of speech in any
systematic program of spiritual training and culture. Speech has
to be brought under the influence, even under the control, of

the spiritual life. Hence must it be considered and given a place.

In the West man is regarded as consisting of body and mind,
sometimes of body, soul and spirit, but in Buddhism there is a
threefold division of man into body, speech, and mind. It is one

those little things that are so ordinary we pass them over, but
its significance is very great. It means that speech is given, in

Buddhism, the same importance as mind, the same importance
as body. Body, speech and mind are a sort of co-equal trinity.

If we think about it, it is speech which distinguishes man from
the beasts. We know that birds utter cries, some monkeys have

a kind of primitive speech, and apparently dolphins can
communicate, but not quite as human beings. Speech in the full
distinctive sense seems to be the prerogative of human beings,

perhaps of angels; but we have knowledge only of human
beings.

This speech is something special, something extraordinary,
something which really does distinguish us from the rest of

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