All the motivations for our speech come from our minds. Transforming how we use our speech involves looking at our minds and how we want to relate to other people. Naturally, we have a lot to purify and a lot to be attentive to as we go throughout the day.

One of the four harmful actions of speech is idle talk, and that is a hard one. Sometimes it is difficult for us to discern between idle talk and valuable talk. Sometimes it has to do with the topic that we are discussing. It could be a frivolous topic that is not of much importance, but we think it is important, which is why we cannot see it as idle talk. Sometimes it is the motivation with which we are speaking. Good or not, we are just talking because it is amusing and something to do and we have a lot of restless energy that just comes out as speaking.

Discerning what is idle talk and what is not requires a great deal of study of our mind. Sometimes we might be talking about politics, sales or television, but it is for a specific purpose with a specific person, and we are aware of what we are doing and the motivation behind it makes sense. In that case, the topic may be quite frivolous, but the motivation makes it so that it is not idle talk. At other times, we may be talking about something meaningful, even the Dharma, but our motivation is one of idle talk because we like to hear ourselves talk, we like to spend time hanging out with people, and we have restless energy. The topic may make it seem like it is a good speech, but the motivation is one of idle talk.

It requires some skillful discernment to really observe our speech and see what is going on and to know when to speak about something and when not to. This is often a practice of trial and error and constantly observing our mind and what is happening in the situation and observing our speech as well. In the process of doing that, we learn what topics are appropriate or inappropriate to speak about to certain people, what times are appropriate or inappropriate times to speak, and so on.

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