Standing mute.

JohnG

When is standing mute right action?

Straight_Man

Well, when you know that logically there ARE two sides, and you do not want to create a polarized problem-- or when compassionateness tells you to stand mute.

how

Standing mute is right action when your speech will create greed, hate or delusion.

how

@JohnG
I had to laugh when answering a post, after this one, about a Tibetan deity controversy.

What's a zen guy got stuck on the bottom of his foot when high stepping through that
thread.

That seemed like a better example of when standing mute is right action.

lobster

One day while Shibli was passing through populated area of Karkh, in Baghdad, he heard an imposter who was saying that Silence was better than speech. Shibli said to him, “your silence is better than your speech, for your speech is vanity and your silence is an idle jest but my speech is better than my silence, because my silence is gentleness and my speech is knowledge.”


For an ordinary person such words represent vanity. For a person like Shibli, nothing has been said by him . . .

Jason

JohnG said:

When is standing mute right action?

As always, context is key; most things depend on the context. But in general, I agree with @how that, "Standing mute is right action when your speech will create greed, hate or delusion.

genkaku

I think it was Philip Kapleau who once observed, "Silence is golden and sometimes its color is pure yellow."