Six days · About five minutes a day
Stung by Words
Understand why words sting, sort what is true from what is not, and answer without handing over your day.
Your six days
- Everyone is blamed — Free in your browser
- Where the sting lives
- Is any of it true?
- Another handle
- The small slights
- Steady, noticed or not
A taste of Day 1: Everyone is blamed
Welcome. Few things stay with us like a sharp comment or a slight. Over six short days, we'll practise taking words more lightly, and more usefully. Today, we start with a plain fact.
They blame him who sits silent, they blame him who speaks much, they also blame him who says little; there is no one on earth who is not blamed.Traditionally attributed to the Buddha · Dhammapada, verse 227
F. Max Müller, 1881
The verse calls this an old saying: they blame the one who stays silent, the one who talks a lot, and the one who says little. Nobody escapes. That isn't exactly comfort, but it is relief. If every way of being draws criticism from someone, then one criticism isn't proof that you did something uniquely wrong. It's what happens to people. Today we only practise seeing it that way, as ordinary weather.
Try the reflection
Recall a recent comment that stung, a remark or a silence. Keep it small. Notice where you feel it: chest, jaw, stomach. Then silently say: people are blamed whatever they do. Let that sentence settle in beside the sting. You don't need the sting to go. If it's too much, you can stop at any time. Take three minutes.
One question to take with you
What was said, in the plainest words you can find?
Day 1 is free. Days 2–6 are planned for the iPhone app, coming soon. This is reflection, not medical advice.