Before You Send

Prince Abhaya came with a trap. He had been coached: ask the ascetic Gotama whether he ever says things others find disagreeable. Either answer convicts him. If he says no, he is caught — he had recently said hard things about Devadatta. If he says yes, then what makes him different from any other man with a sharp tongue?

The Buddha did not take either door. He set out instead what he does and does not say, and the test had three parts, not one. Is it true. Is it beneficial. And — separately, not decoratively — is this the time. Something can be entirely true, genuinely useful, and still be said at the wrong hour to the wrong person, and do only damage.

Abhaya, listening, had a small child on his lap. The Buddha asked him: if that boy got a stone into his mouth, would you take it out? Yes, said the prince, even if I drew blood doing it. Just so, said the Buddha. Some things must be said and will hurt. But the reason you would reach into that mouth is the child — not your own irritation, and not your right to reach.

We do the same thing today at eleven at night with the message already typed. It is accurate. That is exactly what makes it dangerous, because accuracy feels like permission. You are not asking whether to say it; you are admiring how well it is put.

So run the third test, the one that is easy to skip. Not is it true — you have already decided that. Is this the hour. And underneath it, the question that decides the rest: am I reaching for the stone, or am I reaching to be right?

Leave it in the drafts for ten minutes. Read it again once the heat is out of it. You may still need to send something difficult — sometimes you must.

Some words are meant to light. Some are meant to burn.

Know which one you are sending.