Gautama Buddha was a philosopher who came up with the eightfold path to end suffering, in other words, it is a way in life to help to reduce suffering. From the word eightfold, as literal as it gets, there are eight “right” ways that Buddha considers that will resolve or even end suffering. The right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Each one of these “right ways’ ‘ is dependent on each other to resolve suffering, one can not say simply because they achieve one of the right ways and it will reduce the suffering, but rather they have to archive all eight of the right ways to reduce the suffering. Out of the eightfold path, the one that most correlates to me is the right of speech, in the reading Buddha was talking to a monk about what is the right speech, and he said “And what, monks, is Right Speech? Refraining from lying, refraining from slander, refraining from harsh speech, refraining from frivolous speech. This is called Right Speech” (458).
People who live in America, I am sure that all are very familiar with the idea of Freedom of speech, which has been written in the constitution since 1787. This is very similar to Right speech, the only difference is that Right Speech gives restriction to the thing that we can say if we wanted to reduce suffering. The idea of freedom of speech has caused many problems in America and for many people, because it is allowed to say whatever people want to say, people say what they want and sometimes it comes out hurting people. Speech is a powerful tool, it can bring happiness or sadness. There is an old Chinese saying “you can eat whatever you want, but you can’t say whatever is on your mind”, that’s why people say think before you speak because verbal speech is what sometimes gets people in trouble or a situation that they don’t want to be in. I do believe that having Right Speech will reduce suffering, from points like refraining from harsh speech, frivolous speech.
I am a child of immigrant parents, so when I first entered school here in united states, peers would say the most terrible thing to me and it just hurts, I didn’t do anything or act in any way that would want them to treat me like that just because I had a different color and is from a different race? If people were aware of the harsh things that they say, I understand that it sounds like a joke to them but to some group of people is very offensive, people need to watch their mouths and not say these harsh words because it clearly induced the suffering of other people. One thing that I don’t get is how do people say such terrible things, how do they live their life, Like do they not feel guilty after saying these things to people. Or by saying these things makes them happy. I think it will definitely lower the suffering of many people if the Right Speech was followed. No longer exists such a thing called a verbal bully, no longer will people say racist things to people, etc.
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