Page 67 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

There are many other correlations of body, speech, and mind,
for instance with the three kayas, or 'personalities' of the

Buddha, but this is not the time to go into them. At the moment
we are concerned with just one point: that the throat centre,
representing speech, lies between the head and the heart

centres. The head, or head centre, represents not only body but
also, in another set of correlations, the intellect or

understanding, while the heart, or heart centre, represents the
feelings and emotions. That speech, at the throat centre, comes
in between, means that speech shares the nature of both.

Speech gives expression both to the head and the heart. With
speech we communicate both our thoughts and our emotions.

As with ordinary speech, so also with Perfect Speech. Perfect
Speech simultaneously represents or manifests Perfect Vision,
which corresponds to intellectual understanding without being

identical with it, and Perfect Emotion, which corresponds on its
own plane to our emotional life. Very briefly and simply, through

Perfect Speech we give expression both to Wisdom and to Love
and Compassion. In broad terms, Perfect Speech represents the
transformation of the speech principle, or principle of

communication, by Perfect Vision and Perfect Emotion.

In Buddhist texts, Perfect Speech is usually described as speech
which is truthful, which is affectionate, which is helpful, and
which promotes concord, harmony, and unity. Similarly, wrong

speech, or imperfect speech, is described in precisely opposite
terms as speech which is untruthful, harsh, harmful, and which

promotes discord, disharmony and disunity.

Most Buddhist expositions of Perfect Speech or Right Speech, as

it is usually termed, especially the modern ones, are rather

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