Harsh speech occurs when we insult people, criticise them, yell, scream, ridicule, make fun of them, and point out their mistakes, all done with the intention to hurt these people or to release our anger. We usually think of harsh speech taking place only when someone completely flies off the handle. It can also be very harsh when we ridicule people, tease them about things they are sensitive about, or say sweetly just the thing that we know is going to hurt them. Harsh speech is communication we use that is designed to hurt people’s feelings and humiliate them in the presence of others. It can be done out of jealousy, anger, or sometimes out of attachment and ignorance. But it always results in other people’s feelings being hurt.

Now does that mean that whenever other people’s feelings are hurt, it is because our speech was harsh? No. It has to have a negative motivation that wishes to hurt others or humiliate them. Many a time, we may say things, but people are incredibly super-sensitive, and everything gets taken as criticism or as making fun of them. These things are not harsh speech on our part. Sometimes we may be asking a question and somebody gets all rankled about us asking that question. Or you ask for some information and people get defensive and think you are criticising them. In these situations, that is not harsh speech, and we certainly are not responsible for other people’s flare-ups because of it. We may learn that a person is sensitive about certain things, so walk delicately in those areas, but it is not necessarily negative karma on our part.

We need to look at ourselves when we are on the receiving end and we get defensive in a finger snap. People say “Good morning” in the wrong tone of voice and we get all upset about it. We need to look at how we inhibit free communication with other people from our side through our habitual misunderstandings and super-sensitivity.

In our introspection on how to create good communication with other people, which is what I think we all want to achieve, we come to see that sometimes we are the ones who put up the barriers and then complain that other people are mean.

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