What’s all the Rush about?

You don’t have to be an enlightened being to know that Rush Limbaugh is very skilled at Wrong Speech. His most recent epithet regarding a Georgetown University law student really should come as no surprise even when measured by Limbaugh’s standards. Neither should his non-apology apology. And of course, none of us would ever do or say anything like what Rush Limbaugh said or did, right?

OK sweeties, let’s take a step back for a moment and seriously contemplate this thing called speech, because as many commentators have said and written, most of our “bad karma” is created by speech, by what we say and not by what we do (although our actions create plenty of bad karma as well). And it may come as a surprise to some of you that the rationalizations Limbaugh went through in his non-apology apology are often the same rationalizations we employ when confronted with foot-in-mouth syndrome.

“What? Me as boorish as Rush Limbaugh? That’s simply not possible!” I know, some of you are shocked. But rather than look at the specifics of what Limbaugh said and how he “apologized,” let’s look at their elements and characteristics.

As mentioned in the Abhayarajakumara Sutta (MN 58) and explained in this post, there are three elements to Right Speech: (1) Whether the speech is true; (2) Whether the speech is beneficial; and (3) Whether the speech is pleasing to others.

It’s easy to see how Rush Limbaugh utterly failed on all three of these, but how easy is it for us to look at our own speech to see how it may fail as well? Granted, determining whether what we say is true is probably simple enough – or is it?

This brings to mind a mother of one of the students killed in a recent school shooting in an Ohio suburb. This mother forgives the alleged shooter despite the fact she lost her son. But she admits that she doesn’t know everything about the situation, particularly what drove a young man to take such desperate action and shoot inside a cafeteria filled with other students.

Like her, we often only know part of the truth, and that part is often what’s inside our head, colored and distorted by our mind. It’s also why the Buddha warned us that just because something is true doesn’t mean we ought to say it. There remain two other factors, whether the speech is beneficial and pleasing.

Limbaugh gave a rather pathetic excuse in his non-apology apology that he was attempting to be funny. We’ll just ignore that. Yet, his comment is very telling. How often do we find ourselves saying something that we know might be offensive, but quickly follow up with the comment, “just kidding”? And when our quip comes off lame, how often do we blame the listener for not “getting it,” and chide them for being unable to “take a joke”? I’ll be the first to admit that at times I can be thin-skinned, which is ironic given my career in editing. I have plenty of experience listening to irate people on the phone lambasting me and the publication I was working for over something that was printed. But when someone reacts to something I say in a manner that reveals that they were offended despite my intention to be playful, clever or whatever, who failed “to get it”? I suggest that it’s me, the speaker, that didn’t get it, not the listener. Which, despite this being about point 3 (is the speech pleasing to others), brings us back to point 2, whether the speech beneficial.

Determining benefit may not only be a bit onerous, but it may also be a bit unrealistic. Can’t we have a little fun? Must everything bring benefit? Well, yes, it should and it can because if we look at who benefits, as opposed to whether there is any benefit, things become more clear. Because most, if not all, of the bad karma we create is the result of actions or speech that were motivated by selfish ends.

If all I’m concerned about is how funny or sharp I appear to others, then I’m not thinking about the person I am teasing or making my comment about. I’m thinking about me. So it's perfectly acceptable to come with some quips that get people laughing or smiling at the least, provided that is my intent. But as soon as my intent is about how I will appear clever and be admired for what I say, my words will fail. I’ll be like the pretty boats in the photo with this post: nice to look at but the tide will have disappeared leaving me stranded.

Appamadavagga: Heedfulness

Things were pretty simple and straight-forward in the verses found within “The Pairs,” the first chapter of the Dhammapada. The idea that we own our outcomes is laid out pretty clearly, and with language that allows lay people to immediately grasp the lesson.

But chapter 2 of the Dhammapada – Appamadavagga: Heedfulness – comes off as a bit more esoteric. The message appears to be more directed toward the monastic community, with less overt applicability for lay people. And it’s structured around a pair of terms that may appear easy enough to understand, but which nonetheless retain some ambiguity: heedfulness and heedlessness.

The Buddha made a big deal out of “heedfulness.” In fact, I think it is safe for me to presume that no one, lay person or monastic, can progress along the path without being heedful. In the Anguttara Nikaya Book of Tens, there is the Appamada Sutta where the Buddha outlines ten examples of the importance of heedfulness. Each of these examples concludes with: “In the same way, all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness, converge in heedfulness, and heedfulness is reckoned the foremost among them.”

What’s nice about the Appamada Sutta is that the examples the Buddha outlines to emphasize the supremacy of heedfulness come from facets of everyday life; it is a lesson for lay people using real life language lay people can understand.

But if that isn’t clear enough for you, take a look at the Upajjhatthana Sutta, which starts off with this: “There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?” The five facts the Buddha outlines are the Five Recollections, also known as the Five Remembrances. These five facts the Buddha presents are central to anyone’s practice – lay person, monastic, rich or poor. And through contemplation of these five facts, we develop a keener awareness of the results of our actions through a deeper understanding of these five basic facts of our existence. Out of this practice, out of this contemplation, arises this quality the Buddha called heedfulness. Hence, being heedful of something is more than just paying attention to it, more than just noticing it or acknowledging it: Heedfulness means you are aware of it, and upon awareness you pay attention to it, and from paying attention to it, you allow it to motivate you into skillful action.

I can be aware of all the traffic in the street, but I am only heedful of that traffic when I use that awareness to wait for a pause in traffic that will allow me to cross the street without being struck by a car.

There is something very powerful in the first verse of the Appamadavagga, and that is the notion that people who pay no heed to what is occurring around them, let alone what they do, are like the walking dead.

“Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness: the path to death.
The heedful do not die.
The heedless are as if
already dead.”

That verse alone is worth repeating to yourself everyday before and after you meditate. And not inside your head; say it out loud.

Verse 25 acknowledges that this takes effort, but the effort is rewarded.

“Through initiative, heedfulness,
restraint, & self-control,
the wise would make
an island
no flood
can submerge.”

Through initiative and being heedful, we can develop the skills to keep ourselves from being distracted and distraught by all the crap that goes on around us. We are, then, like an island that will not be flooded over by this wave of chaos called the world around us. But some may read into verse 28 a sense of condescension, and perhaps even indifference:

“When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.”

There are people may read this to exemplify what some already think about those of us who follow the Theravada vehicle, and that is we are selfish and self-centered, that we would prefer to retreat from the world rather than engage within it. But this notion, to me, is another example of, as the rock band Aerosmith put it, “talk with yourself and you'll hear what you wanna know.” Let’s not forget that the next line in the song is, “gotta rise above cause below it’s only getting’ worse.”

The metaphor of the lotus flower rising out of the pits of a cesspool or swamp is instructive here, because the beauty of the lotus flower contrasted against the filth around it is what brings our attention to it. And when I encounter someone who seems to be unflustered by the world around them, someone who can move with ease within it, he or she will attract my attention. And who knows? Perhaps it will embolden me to ask, “How are you able to do that?”