A Buddhist's Diary March 17th 2009

I wrote about the Eightfold Path earlier. The path purports to show the way to leave suffering. Unfortunately the word 'right' is the prefix to all eight ways. 'Right' is a word that can mean very different things to different minds. What is 'right' speech? For some it could be speech that glorifies a certain toothpaste. I think the thing to do is to apply the precepts 'do good, do no harm, do good for others' to the ways of the path. Even here though, 'good' can be interpreted very differently in various situations.
There was an English philosopher who said that 'do as you would be done by' is also not an acceptable way of living because it carries the implication that we can assume that others want the same thing for themselves as we do. Mostly this may be true, but not always. This philosopher said that it is better to 'do as the other would be done by'. How can we be so arrogant as to think that we can know this? By believing what the other claims to be his wish?

My feeling about this is that one should avoid physical hurt to others (and one's self), and to make a strong effort to do no mental hurt. (Right speech again!). Compassionate quietness looks like the way to go, but damn that quietness is hard to do!