A Time to Keep Silence, a Time to Speak

📝Reflection

The wisdom of speech lies less in what you say than in when you say it. Even a right word, mistimed, wounds; and silence, mistimed, becomes indifference. The Buddha said guarding the tongue is the gate that keeps out calamity. This verse runs deep because it nails neither silence nor speech as the virtue. In one setting a single word saves a person; in another, a closed mouth does. Wisdom is the eye that discerns those two times.