On Idle Chatter
May 28, 2019
Of all the forms of wrong speech, idle chatter is the hardest to get past. It also seems the most innocent to most people, which is one of the reasons why it’s hard to get past. After all, a little social grease isn’t bad, right? But as with grease in an engine, if you get too much, it mucks up the engine to the point where the engine can’t run. And the very nature of idle chatter is that you open your mouth and only then do you discover what’s going to come out. You don’t think very carefully about your intention, about why you’re saying this, what it’s going to accomplish. That’s a bad habit to develop if you’re trying to become a meditator, both in terms of trying to get the mind into concentration and just learning how to watch your own mind.