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Right Speech in Times of War: Vital Insights from the Simile of the Saw - Ajahn Kovilo

The following talk was given by Ajahn Kovilo at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on November 03, 2023. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Right Speech in Times of War: Vital Insights from the Simile of the Saw

Introduction

Thank you, Rob. It's good to see everybody. I recognize a lot of names and some faces, but I definitely don't know a lot of you, so welcome, and thanks for coming.

When Ajahn Nisabho and I were originally approached about giving teachings, we wanted to do something on consecutive Thursdays and cover the four bases of Right Speech. Ajahn Nisabho will talk about refraining from lying and refraining from malicious speech, and I was going to do refraining from harsh speech and refraining from idle chatter. But over the last week or so, with things ramping up in Gaza and all the violence around the world, I really felt like I'd like to go a bit more specifically into what Right Speech looks like in times of war.

As a general outline for what the evening will be like, I'll speak for about half an hour to start. The evening will be sprinkled with several mini-meditations—times when I'll turn off the screen share, and we can just sit for three to five minutes together around specific themes of embodiment. This is a very useful tool when relating to speech: knowing how to come back into our bodies when we are being triggered on a cognitive level during interactions. After presenting the first half, we'll open it up to about fifteen minutes of questions. Then, we'll present the second half of the main discourse, followed by a final period for questions at the end.

Avoiding Pointless Talk

When we talk about war, how does one do this in a Buddhist context?

The first thing I wanted to bring people's attention to is a particular sutta. Bhante Anālayo¹, a very well-respected scholar-monk, makes the case that when the Buddha addresses his audience as bhikkhave (the vocative plural for monks), it translates basically as, "Oh, you who are listening to me." Even though he says "bhikkhus," there were obviously bhikkhunis, laymen, and laywomen in his audience. Bhante Anālayo translates the term as "practitioners," and you can apply that to the extent that it's helpful for you.

The Buddha states: "Practitioners, do not engage in various kinds of pointless talk—that is, talk about kings, thieves, ministers of state; talk about armies, dangers, and wars..." He lists over twenty other topics of conversation that should not be engaged in. For what reason? "Because, practitioners, this talk is unbeneficial, irrelevant to the fundamentals of the holy life, and does not lead to disenchantment (nibbidā), to dispassion (virāga), to cessation, to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, and Nibbāna."²

This list occurs in a number of places, and before I ordained, I found it to be a fascinating checklist. Before engaging in these topics, it acts as a mirror: Is what I am about to say on this list? Is this really going to further the goal of my life?

It seems like the Buddha is cutting off so many avenues for the way humans talk to each other. However, he doesn't just end the story there. He opens a floodgate for what we should talk about: "Practitioners, this is suffering (dukkha). You should talk about this is the origin of suffering, this is the cessation of suffering, this is the path leading to the cessation of suffering."

He explains that this talk is beneficial because it leads to revulsion, dispassion, cessation, peace, and Nibbāna. Therefore, an exertion should be made—yogo karaṇīyo³—to understand this through mental reflection.

In our modern world, especially on social media, everyone has an opinion and is constantly being called to come down on one side or another of numerous conflicts. There is so much nuance that goes into things, and it is so hard to capture that in conversation. The Buddha suggests sidestepping the thick of these conversations about armies and kings, and instead focusing on the "right here, right now" of dukkha and the path leading to its cessation. As Bhikkhu Bodhi⁴ points out, the Four Noble Truths can be understood in a vertical dimension (our own bodies and minds) as well as a horizontal dimension (the suffering of other beings).

The Purpose of Discussion

As a general framing for speech, there is a profound quote from the Anguttara Nikāya—the only place in the canon where the Buddha speaks about the overarching purpose of discussion. It applies both to speaking and to listening:

"That is the purpose of discussion, that is the purpose of counsel, that is the purpose of drawing near, that is the purpose of lending ear: that is the liberation of the mind through non-clinging (anupādā cetaso vimutti)."⁵

This non-clinging comes right after craving in dependent origination. It is significant and powerful enough for us to pause and practice.

Guided Meditation: Dropping into the Heart

Let's do one of our mini-meditations to come back into the body. Come back to the actual feeling in the heart. See if you can, with eyes closed or eyes open, unhook from all the cognitive velcro that we are so enamored with.

Even if you don't know how to do it perfectly, just let the mind drop into the heart—the physical heart space behind the solar plexus in the chest. From this heart space, just sense outward. See if you can find any limit to awareness from this heart space.

You might think you can only feel the front of your chest, or the touch of your clothing, and assume that is the extent of your capacity for felt awareness. But the body seems to feel further than that. The tactile sensation just seems to blur out in every direction. Take this as a simile for the liberation of the mind through non-clinging. Disentangle and unattach from conceptions of limitation.

The liberation of the mind through non-clinging.

The Simile of the Saw

These mini-meditations are intentionally brief. A Buddhist teacher named Loch Kelly talks about "glimpse practices"—peaking into a mind and a heart which is free.⁶ Coming back into the body is a vital skill when we are entering the realm of speech, especially when we are cerebral or studying.

Our main focus is the discourse on the Simile of the Saw (Kakacūpama Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya 21)⁷. It is a very rich sutta, and you can find translations by I.B. Horner and Bhante Sujato.⁸

The Buddha begins with a famous metaphor about a lady named Vedehikā and her servant, Kāḷī. Vedehikā is praised throughout the district as kind, gentle, and easy to talk to. Kāḷī is a very skilled servant, but she gets the idea: Is Mistress Vedehikā really kind and even-tempered, or is it just because I'm so good at my work? Kāḷī starts testing her by waking up later and later. Eventually, Vedehikā has had enough, takes a rolling pin, and beats Kāḷī over the head. Kāḷī then goes about town showing everyone how "sweet and even-tempered" her mistress actually is.

The Buddha uses this story to explain: "A practitioner may be the sweetest of the sweet, the most even-tempered of the even-tempered, the calmest of the calm, so long as they don't encounter any disagreeable speech. But it is when one encounters disagreeable speech that you will know whether someone is really sweet, even-tempered, and calm."

The Buddha continues by pointing out that a practitioner isn't truly easy to speak to (suvaco)⁹ if they only do it for the sake of getting what they want (like robes, alms, lodgings, and medicines). Because when they don't get what they want, they are no longer easy to speak to. But when a practitioner is easy to speak to purely because they honor, respect, revere, and venerate the Dhamma, then the Buddha praises them.

This quality of being suvaco (from su, meaning good or sweet, and vaca, meaning speech) is a virtue praised all over the Pali Canon, including the Metta Sutta and the Mangala Sutta. It is a quality in unfortunately short supply today. In modern media and social media, quick, contentious replies are praised over being easy to approach. While there is a place for saying things that are hard to hear, flexing the muscle of being easy to speak to is essential.

Qualities That Make Us Hard to Speak To

In the Anumāna Sutta (The Discourse on Inference)¹⁰, the early commentaries suggest a practitioner should review themselves three times a day to see if they are truly easy to speak to. The Buddha gives sixteen specific, predictable ways that we make ourselves difficult to approach.

We are difficult to speak to when we:

• Entertain evil desires (like not wanting to receive public feedback).
• Exalt ourselves and disparage others.
• Are overpowered by wrath (kodha)¹¹ or anger, and become fault-finders.
• Take offense easily.
• Utter words which border on anger. (This is fascinating—you might say something that looks neutral on a transcript, but your passive-aggressive tone is totally inflamed internally, and the other person feels it.)
• Reprove the reprover. (When given feedback, you say, "Who are you to give feedback to me?" and attack them back.)
• Shove the question aside and ask an off-point question.
• Show temper, ill-will, and sulkiness.
• Are harsh, spiteful, envious, treacherous, or stubborn.
• Adhere tightly to our own views, holding them tenaciously and refusing to relinquish them.

Not clinging tightly to one's own views isn't necessarily a virtue Americans learn in university, but it is beautiful. When you have friends who embody being easy to speak to, who don't clinch so tightly to their opinions, it is bright and worthy of emulation.

A Dhamma Affirmation

The Buddha says: "Practitioners, you should train yourselves: 'We will be easy to speak to, purely because we honor, respect, revere, worship, and venerate the Dhamma.'"

If you have a relationship with the Triple Gem, this is meaningful. If you don't, you can replace "Dhamma" with "Truth." From a cool point of view, the extent of my view about things is absolutely not the full truth. The full truth is much more expansive than how I'm seeing something. Respecting that with humility is what the Buddha is pointing to.

This is a formal Dhamma affirmation. The Buddha often uses this stock phrase: "Thus you should train yourselves..." Memorizing these affirmations is incredibly useful because, in the heat of the moment, the limbic system goes into fight mode. We forget our higher principles. Having these affirmations rehearsed helps us remember the higher truths we value when we are cool-headed.

Guided Meditation: Añjali

Let's do another mini-meditation. Bring your hands up into the gesture of prayer hands, known in Pali and Sanskrit as Añjali.¹²

With your eyes closed or open, practice saying the affirmation. Doing this gesture during a conflict can calm things down. Bring your hands up with the intention to settle oneself, to calm oneself, and to listen.

Feel the hands. Feel the limitlessness of the hands. With your eyes closed, there is no real delineation; there is no skin line. It doesn't seem to end. Take this abundant, exalted, immeasurable perception that there doesn't need to be a limit. Disentangle and unattach from conceptions of limitation.

Say to yourself: I will be easy to speak to, purely because I honor, respect, revere, worship, and venerate the Dhamma.

When we shift back to the cerebral part of the session, try to stay with that embodiment, whether it's in the hands or the heart.

Q&A: Navigating Conflict

Vanessa: I have a question about number 11 in the list from the Anumāna Sutta: "When reproved, succeeds in explaining their movements to the reprover." It seems like it's out of my control whether they actually understand. In that case, maybe success would be equanimity if they don't understand?

Ajahn Kovilo: That's a very good point. That is I.B. Horner's translation. I'll need to look at the Pali specifically. But yes, gauging someone else's understanding is difficult, especially if they are not in a place to hear you because of their heat. I'll keep giving it some thought.

MJ: I had an experience with the Añjali mudra. I agree it is very calming and grounding, but during a conflict with a friend of a friend, I did this to calm myself, and the response was very negative. It actually increased their energy of discomfort and judgment, inviting more attack. Do you have any response to that?

Ajahn Kovilo: Thank you for sharing that. I've experienced the exact same thing, even in a monastery with another monk! It seemed to trigger them all the more. The mind can be tricky; it can even use things passive-aggressively ("I know you're going to get annoyed at this, so I'm going to do it").

If your intention is truly to settle the conflict, having the metacognition to predict how the other person will react to the gesture is important. If the gesture won't work, try other bodily gestures, like literally stepping back or sitting down. If I'm having a standing conversation that gets heated, I'll say, "Can we sit down on the ground?" Shifting into a different physical stance can have a deeply settling effect.

The Five Ways of Speaking

Returning to the text, the Buddha explains that there are five ways others might speak to you, or you might speak to others:

1. At the right time, or at the wrong time.
2. According to fact, or not according to fact.
3. Gently, or harshly.
4. Beneficially, or unbeneficially.
5. With a mind of loving-kindness (mettā), or with inner hatred (dosa).

You have to develop a temporal intelligence (kālaññutā)¹³ to know the right time to engage in a conversation, to step back, or to withhold your opinion for the well-being of both parties. You must also try to speak factually. In a world with so many sources of information and so little fact-checking, it is easy to speak from bias.

While the Buddha encourages speaking gently, there are rare occasions for speaking somewhat harshly as a skillful means—such as when a parent warns a child of danger, or when the Buddha strongly rebuked Devadatta to prevent a schism. However, we must always try to speak beneficially. The Buddha famously stated he would never speak that which is unbeneficial. Finally, we must try to speak from a place of mettā, rather than dosa (hatred or ill will).

But what happens when someone comes up to us at the wrong time, speaking lies, harshly, unbeneficially, and with a mind full of hate?

The Buddha gives this training: "Practitioners, you should train yourselves: 'Neither will our minds flip (lose their balance), nor will we utter evil speech, but kindly and compassionate we will dwell with a mind of loving-kindness, devoid of hatred. We will abide pervading that person with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, and beginning with them, we will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness—abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.'"

The Buddha then provides four amazing, powerful meditative similes to illustrate this.

The Simile of the Earth

"Suppose someone were to come along with a shovel and basket and say, 'I will make this great Earth be without Earth.' They dig here and there, toss it here and there, spit here and there, and urinate here and there, thinking, 'Be without Earth!' What do you think, practitioners? Could that person make this great Earth be without Earth?"

"No, Venerable Sir. Because the Earth is great, deep, and immeasurable. That person will eventually just get weary and frustrated."

Even so, when someone comes at you with their "verbal hoe" determined to dig you up, you train yourself to let your mind be like the Earth: abundant, exalted, and immeasurable.

Guided Meditation: Grounding Like the Earth

Bring this principle of earthiness into the body. Bring your attention to your root—that which is connected to the floor, or grounded. If you are sitting on a chair, it can be your feet or your buttocks. If you are on the floor, feel this whole expanse of body-contact with the floor.

Soften the mind here, knowing this touch. Establish the mind there, but do not create boundaries or limits.

Abide with the affirmation: I will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, like the Earth. Abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.

Let the center of your awareness be at that spot, but let there be no parameter, no rim to this sphere of awareness. Let that goodwill just emanate and radiate.

The Simile of Empty Space

"Suppose a person comes along bringing lac, yellow, dark green, or crimson dye, thinking, 'I shall draw pictures in space.' What do you think, practitioners? Could that person draw pictures in space?"

"No, Lord. Because space is formless and invisible. That person will eventually just get weary and frustrated."

When someone comes up with their paintbrush, thinking they know you and your positions, there is nowhere for their paint to land if your mind is like empty space.

Guided Meditation: Having No Head

Bring your attention to the head. We will do a perception practice taught by Douglas Harding called "On Having No Head." It uses the visual field to get out of one's own way. Notice that within your visual field, you don't actually see your own head.

Come to the felt sense of being inside the head, behind the eyes, but do not limit yourself to being a tiny homunculus chained up behind your brain. Come from this spaciousness. What does loving-kindness feel like coming from here?

Notice that there don't need to be limits or boundaries. You can feel the forehead or the back of the head, but awareness is bigger than that.

Pervade the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness, like empty space. Abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.

The Simile of the River Ganges

"Suppose a person comes along bringing a burning grass torch and says, 'I will set fire to the River Ganges! I will make it scorch up!' Could that person set fire to the Ganges?"

"No, Lord. Because the River Ganges is deep and immeasurable. That person will just get tired and frustrated."

People might come at you with a grass torch of their heated views and opinions. Even if their facts are accurate, if they speak harshly and with hatred, they are trying to set you on fire. Train your mind to be like the deep river.

Guided Meditation: The Deep River

Come back to the body. You can maintain inward awareness even with your eyes open. Bring your attention to the feeling behind the navel, in the Dantian.¹⁴

Do not create boundaries. Do not create a barrier that says "this is me, and that is the rest of the world." From this center behind the navel, pervade the world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness.

Like the Ganges River. Like cool, deep water. You can't set me on fire. Abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility and without ill will.

The Simile of the Catskin Bag

"Suppose there was a catskin bag..." (If you don't like that image, imagine a well-worn, soft pleather or silk bag.) "...that was well-rubbed, soft, silky, and rid of all rustling and crackling. A person comes up with a stick or stone and says, 'I'm going to make this soft bag rustle and crackle!' Could they make it crackle?"

"No, Lord. Because the bag is well-rubbed and soft. That person will just get weary and frustrated."

Someone can try to provoke you with all types of speech, but you can train to have a mind that is entirely soft, unreactive, and "defanged."

Guided Meditation: The Soft Bag

Bring awareness into the full body now, and relax.

The image of the bag is striking because it has no life left in it to fight back; it has been declawed and defanged. A person who is easy to speak to is entirely soft and receptive.

With awareness in the full body as the center, pervade the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness. Like a soft, unrustleable bag. Abundant, exalted, immeasurable, without hostility, and without ill will.

The Final Simile of the Saw

The Buddha concludes the teaching with a very striking statement:

"Practitioners, suppose low-down thieves were to carve you up limb by limb with a double-handed saw. Even then, whoever sets their mind with enmity or anger is not a practitioner of my teachings. Thus you should train yourselves: 'Neither will our minds flip, nor will we utter evil speech, but kindly and compassionate we will dwell with a mind of friendliness, devoid of hatred. We will abide pervading the all-encompassing world with a mind imbued with loving-kindness—abundant, exalted, and immeasurable.'"

The Buddha says that if you take these affirmations to heart and embody this skill, there is no type of speech, gross or subtle, that you couldn't endure.

Q&A and Reflections

Andrew: Thank you for the teachings. As you were speaking, it came to mind how aware and present we need to be just to notice when we're being triggered by someone speaking in a provocative way. That seems like a good first step in the battle.

Ajahn Kovilo: Very true. Having periods of meditation in the morning and evening primes the mindfulness pump. Memorizing these affirmations helps, too. There is another type of intelligence called puggalaññutā¹⁵—knowledge of persons, or interpersonal intelligence. It helps to have a sense of who might trigger you.

When I was newly ordained, there was a monk who pushed buttons I didn't even know I had. It was extremely predictable because we lived in a small community. During my 20-minute morning walk to the meditation hall, I had a little ritual to calm myself down in preparation for meeting him. It requires mindfulness beforehand. As a takeaway skill, just memorize those three words: Abundant, exalted, immeasurable. When provoked, come back to the body—whether it's the earth beneath you, the empty space behind your eyes, or the cool water in your belly—and silently repeat: Your paint won't land on me. Abundant, exalted, immeasurable.

Vanessa: To follow up on my earlier question about the Anumāna Sutta translation ("succeeds in explaining"). I was thinking that success could be measured by the other person understanding your motivations, but often they don't. So maybe success could be measured by your equanimity?

Ajahn Kovilo: I was able to look up Bhante Sujato's translation during the break. He translates it more along the lines of being willing to account for the evidence. It points toward a willingness to engage in further conversation and account for what you did. But I appreciate that you brought equanimity into it. Being "easy to speak to" (suvaco) relies heavily on equanimity when provoked. However, it's not just a wall of equanimity; it is a pool of softness and receptivity.

Deborah: The part about being someone easy to talk to is profound. I have a colleague who is the easiest, gentlest person to talk to. Just their presence makes you feel safe and comfortable, and brings your tightness down. We should strive to be that.

Ajahn Kovilo: You can see it in some people right away. It's also something gauged over time and under pressure. The monk who always pressed my buttons once confronted a different monk who was a close friend of mine. I watched my friend react so coolly and softly. He was completely un-button-pressable. It brought my entire conception of what it means to be suvaco to a whole new level.

Roy: I found the quote from Ajahn Mahā Bua¹⁶ about taking a vacation in your body very interesting. Was he talking about the depth of focus?

Ajahn Kovilo: Ajahn Mahā Bua used the Thai word tiao¹⁷, which specifically means going on vacation or traveling around. It's the idea that you can cycle around and explore your body, discovering how the breath interacts with it. Breath meditation becomes a very intimate friend over time.