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Divisive speech is speech that sets people up against each other. Divisive speech sows the seeds of conflict and suffering.
A typical example of divisive speech is telling one person or group of people something negative about another person or group of people, usually in private. This gives one side a reason to generate aversion towards the other side.
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Thanissaro Bhikkhu wrote,,
For many of us, the most difficult part of practicing right speech lies in how we express our sense of humor. Especially here in America, we're used to getting laughs with exaggeration, sarcasm, group stereotypes, and pure silliness — all classic examples of wrong speech. If people get used to these sorts of careless humor, they ...
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This sounds like an issue best analyzed according to the Buddha's teachings on right speech. The Buddha famously expounded how he personally determined how to decide on what to say in the Abhaya Sutta, saying:
[1] In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual,
untrue, unbeneficial (or: not connected with the goal), unendearing &
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In order to answer this sort of question, you have to be clear on what the precepts are and what they are not. They are a set of intentional statements of will to keep a finite set of basic moral precepts. They are not an all-encompassing treatise on morality.
So, the fourth precept, as Sankha Kulathantille says in his answer, relates to a specific type of ...
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It seems to be difficult at times dealing with people. People can Pull your strings and push all your buttons to make you react an contribute to their state of anger or gossip or ignorance.
Through my studies of Buddhism. I found meditation is a must, Learning to center yourself an to improve your focus. The Eightfold Path is like the corner stone of my ...
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This question is addressed in the Abhaya Sutta from the Buddha himself, on the topic of Right Speech.
Your question should fall under "In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual, true, beneficial, but unendearing & disagreeable to others, he has a sense of the proper time for saying them." (Abhaya Sutta).
From your same link on the ...
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There are no Enlightened lies. Fourth precept is the one precept that the Bodhisatta has never said to have broken since he started cultivating Paramita, many Kalpas ago.
Four conditions must be met to break this precept
The statement must be untrue.
There must be an intention to deceive.
An effort must be made to deceive.
The other person must know the ...
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I would suggest that it depends on how you relate to the success, your attitude to it. Relating an experience can be beneficial to the recipient in many cases, both in terms of use as a teaching and possibly of merit as you mention. In terms of telling about a successful experience as a teaching, this can be related to the Udayi Sutta in the Anguttara Nikaya,...
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In a short piece called Right Speech by Thanissaro Bhikkhu he defines idle chatter as that "spoken with no purposeful intent at all". and he stresses the important of intention in speaking.
Right speech, explained in negative terms, means avoiding four types of harmful speech: lies (words spoken with the intent of misrepresenting the truth); ...
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Sarcasm isn't a deliberate lie, because the intention isn't to lie or mislead, but it is wrong speech, because it has the capacity to hurt people.
Per Buddhism, unless a statement is true and beneficial, it is not right speech. And joy derived from the suffering of others isn't wholesome.
Ironically saying "You lied" to someone who is being obviously ...
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There are a few tactics which I have employed in the workplace when dealing with people such as this. They don't ALWAYS work, but with some practice they can definitely help.
1) You can try to push the conversation off tangentially to a different subject.
"Such and such customer did this when we were talking about the smith account."
"Oh right, about the ...
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you said:
One shouldn't attach him/herself (to material matters).
One should move toward truthfulness in all things and correct harm.
but... the second one does not sound like a Buddhist principle... where did you get that from?
The first one (nonattachment, dispassion) is a universally valid Buddhist principle. As a rule of thumb I would stick ...
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Make an effort to be mindful. Seeing things mindfully is seeing things as they are. What that means is when someone says something rude you just are hearing the sound of the rude words but not listening to the meaning of the words. "Seeing things as they are" means "experiencing things without any of the conceptual agreements we have made in the past". For ...
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As a counter to the other answer, Wikipedia's article on upāya ('skillful means') describes the Parable of the burning house:
The Lotus Sutra contains a famous upaya story about using the expedient means of white lies to rescue children from a burning building.
There's a similar, modern. non-Buddhist term for this called Lie-to-children:
Because some ...
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If lying is the most appropriate thing to do, then developing the heart of compassion for the tormentors, so that they may not add to their evils by killing the victims, and developing the heart of compassion for the victims so that they may be saved, the aspiring Bodhisattva (please read Shantideva's Bodhisattvaharyavitara) may come forward to lie. By ...
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Antagonising a boss may bring difficulties, but this is exactly why it is very hard to break away from samsara, it is often too easy to fold, and compromise just this one time.
Dharma is not a magic formula that fixes all the problems of samsara, it merely teaches us to be okay with a hard landing if one's only choices are between soft quicksand, a rock and ...
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What if you replied, something like, "I'm sorry you feel that way"?
If so then your talk with your boss would be about the boss' feelings, instead of gossip about the client.
Or ask, "Is he really so bad?" That would give the boss feedback that he is speaking negatively, and an opportunity to come up with a more balanced view.
Or turn the conversation to ...
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There is a famous parable by a founder of Tibetan Buddhism guru Padmasabhava comparing Right Concentration / Attention with Lion's Gaze. Modern Tibetan Buddhism teacher ven. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche explains:
Padmasambhava said that when a stick is thrown to a dog, the dog will chase the stick. A dog’s gaze follows the object, the stick. The lion ...
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The answer to this comes in the Kesi Sutta:
As he was sitting there, the Blessed One said to him: "You, Kesi, are
a trained man, a trainer of tamable horses. And how do you train a
tamable horse?"
"Lord, I train a tamable horse [sometimes] with gentleness,
[sometimes] with harshness, [sometimes] with both gentleness &
harshness."
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The Buddha himself protested silently on at least two occasions in the Dhp commentary; both relate to his family, though. He never seems to have protested against the cruelty of kings, etc. and his actions seem always to have been in the form of teaching.
A protest is always a showing that you are against something. If you are truly against it, this is ...
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Of course lying is sometimes called for. Morality is not about mindlessly following rules, but in seeing beyond our egoic concerns and doing what the situation calls for (Skillful Means). Mindlessly following rules is how cults and death camps get started.
Moral guidelines have a place, and more often than not, they should be followed. However, there is ...
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Is it all a matter of perspective and/or perception? Each of us sees a circumstance from a set of values embedded in our experience & personality. Our culture, spiritual aspirations and social interactions also impose on us group expectations of how we should behave and in some respects what we do or do not say. There is most definitely the capacity to ...
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If something upsets you, it is because you are delusional.
If something upsets someone else, it is because they are delusional.
If you want to avoid upsetting someone out of compassion then avoid the object of their delusional hatred, but if anyone claims that because the onus is on the other to avoid being upset that I can do whatever I want to, then they ...
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MN58 Abhaya Sutta:
(1) In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be unfactual/untrue, unbeneficial, and unendearing/disagreeable [i.e. painful - AV] to others -- he does not say them.
(2) In the case of words that the Tathagata knows to be factual/true but
unbeneficial and unendearing/disagreeable to others -- he does not say
them.
(...
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