I was doing my four mile walk with my ear buds in, listening to a book on tape. The author was a woman whom I consider my coach and spiritual teacher, Pema Chodron, and she was talking about gossip. In her usual humble way, she was using her own life as an
example. I don’t recall the details, they didn’t stay with me, but the lesson did.
It went something like this:Before Pema became a Buddhist, when
she was still known as Deirdre Bloomfield, she had an apartment and a roommate. I don’t where she was living at the time, but they each had a bedroom and they’d meet in the morning in the kitchen for breakfast. They had a mutual friend and Deirdre and her roommate talked about her a lot. Not in a positive way. They seemed to enjoy saying negative things about her and they bonded over
their shared gossip.
It went on for a long time, they got a twisted kind of satisfaction from it, but one day Deirdre noticed she was feeling uncomfortable. The next morning at breakfast, she said to her friend, “We have to stop this. We’re being mean and it doesn’t feel good.”
“I feel exactly the same way.”
When they discussed the situation, they realized that the person about whom they were talking didn’t feel badly because she didn’t know they were doing it. They were the ones who felt badly. They were closing their hearts, thinking negatively and taking that out into
the world.
There’s a false sense of unity when you get together with a friend and start ragging on someone else. It’s a weird kind of gratification, as if you both have a secret that you’re better than someone else is. But you’re not. We are all the same. When Buddhists talk about the
suffering of all sentient beings, I see that we all suffer in our individual ways but we all feel the same things. Fear. Anger. Disappointment. So why
should we take someone down and make it worse? People are having enough trouble in the world. There’s too much attacking and abasing. There’s too much finding fault with each other. Let’s just give one another other a break.
When you gossip, you’re causing harm, mostly to yourself. Putting negative thoughts into the world creates a blockage in your communication. Putting positive thoughts into the world helps everyone heal. Bonding over something that can heal a situation is much more powerful and wise than making someone else wrong. It would be kinder and a lot more creative to have compassion. It would be helpful to talk about something that happened to you that you’d like to figure out. Or to support someone during a challenge in their lives.
I was driving to the grocery store, idling at the stop light, ready to take a left turn. The red light turned to yellow and I waited for the intersection to clear. Just when I about to make my turn, a car speeded up and took the turn in front of me. By the time the
intersection was clear, the light had turned to red and I turned as quickly as I could, stopping traffic. I was irate. Later, I told my friend about the idiot who had turned in front of me. But as I told the story, I realized that sometimes I did the same thing. Did that make me an idiot? By my definition, it did.
The same thing happens when you’re putting someone down. Throwing shade as they call it these days. Did you see the ugly dress she was wearing? Can you believe what she just said? She’s so overweight. Why doesn’t she go on a diet? Did you see the weird thing she does with her mouth when she talks? We all have our eccentricities and I’ve seen that when someone judges someone else, they’re talking about themselves. If someone is doing something that bothers you, the only decent thing to do is to
look at yourself and take responsibility for your thoughts. You wouldn’t have noticed it if you didn’t do it yourself. Why is it troubling you and what can you do to be more loving?
Gossiping is like yelling at someone behind their back. It’s like sending a text using all capital letters and never speaking to the other person. The late Beatle, George Harrison said, “Gossip is the devil’s radio.” If there’s something you want to say and you feel the need to keep it a secret, if you don’t want someone to hear it, don’t
say it. Often, when you’re judging someone else for doing this or that, you’re angry at them for another reason that you don’t want to address. It’s easier to say negative things about them than talk about your own frailties.
When I’m about to talk about anyone, I ask myself what my intention is. There’s a difference between gossiping and venting. Sometimes its hard to tell the difference. Gossiping is blaming. Venting is taking responsibility for your feelings. If your intention is to make fun of someone else, it’s gossiping. If your intention is to unburden your
heart without aiming vitriol at someone else, that’s venting. More venting and less gossiping is a goal to keep in mind when you’re troubled by someone and you need to understand why.
It’s the simple saying about do unto others. If you don’t want other people to talk about you behind your back, stop talking about them. Remember the adage: If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. Stop focusing on people’s weaknesses and start
noticing their strengths. Before you express a negative opinion, think about how it would feel if someone said that about you.
Actress Kirsten Dunst says, “I don’t gossip about myself.”
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