How To Handle Insults And Profanity
A Catholic priest gives advice on how to handle insults and profanities. Draws on the wisdom of monks and the cleverness of children.
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Step 1:
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Insults Explained
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In almost every religious tradition, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, is a variation of the following story: A Master Monk is walking through a village with his novices trailing behind. A villager comes out and curses and swears at the Master Monk, insults him in every way imaginable, and the monk just tranquilly continues his stroll. After they exit the village, the novices say, "Master, he insulted you, he disrespected you, he cursed you at every vile way imaginable. Aren't you upset?"And the older monk just smiles and says, "A person who spits at the sky soils himself."
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Step 2:
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Degrading
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When we curse and profane another human being it may or may not hurt their feelings but it takes us down a notch or two. We're degraded by our own words.
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Step 3:
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Profanity Habit
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I worked in the steel mills, and my father worked their for decades. When I would go into the mill I would be immersed in a sea of profanity. There was one man in the mill that I worked closely with that every third word that he used, including the word "a" and "the", would be a profane or vulgar term. As a student of language I was amazed at his sentence structures and how he pulled that off.
Profanity poured forth from him, not in anger, but just as a normal way of discourse. What a terrible habit to have! The workers would try to cut down on their profanity when they left the mill, but it's easier said than done. They would bring that profanity into their homes.
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Step 4:
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Guiding
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What is needed is an attempt to uplift our spirits by guarding our language, biting our tongue. When insults are hurled at strangers in particular, it's a waste of energy and time because we don't know that person. They may have done some a small thing to irritate us, but many times it happens in traffic such as someone cutting us off, someone's going too fast, or someone's going too slow.
We have to remember there have been times when we've cut somebody off, sometimes we've been going too fast or too slow to suit another human being. And we don't know what's going through the mind of that other human being. Maybe he or she's just received tragic news in their life and are totally distracted. Maybe they have something on their mind that's so overwhelming that for the first time in their life they've made the particular mistake in driving that's so upset us.
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Step 5:
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Insults
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Insults generally rebound on the one who is the insulter. You don't have to have wisdom from monks to understand this. Just remember what you learned in first grade; that famous chant and mantra: " I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you!"
May God bless you. And may you hurl blessing on others rather than insults and find that you're more blessed in the process.