When encountering an onerous situation, what matters is . . .

Gossip is harmful, 

even if the person never learns of what we said.

When we gossip about others, we may tell ourselves that we’re not doing any real harm. The person will never hear about it. What are the chances? We can tell ourselves this. But even if that is so, harm is still done.

When we engage in gossip, we waste our time and energy. Even worse, we waste the time and energy of those who listen to the hearsay we’re spreading. If we want to say something about others, we should be speaking positively about them, not passing on gossip.

Gossip usually involves something unfavorable, even malicious. Unkind thoughts are negative and, therefore, plant negative seeds, thus creating more negative karma. To make things even worse, just as we view those who don’t tell the truth as untrustworthy, our gossiping will deem us unreliable in the eyes of those who do value the truth.

So honest people will avoid us. Eventually, only those who do not value integrity will spend time with us.

From Rage to Forgiveness: What Lies Within

Before voicing an opinion,

be sure the one you are speaking to 
wishes to hear it.

On one occasion, a monk asked the Buddha if he would speak to a certain woman.

Agreeing, the Buddha went to the woman. Seeing him approach, she turned away. The Buddha calmly walked around to face her again. She looked up. The Buddha moved so that he was again within her eyesight, but this time she looked down.

The Buddha then told the monk that the woman did not wish to listen to him. The Buddha wasn’t upset. He calmly accepted that conditions weren’t right for her to listen to him.

So unlike us—the unawakened and opinionated people of today.

Having neglected to first get a person’s okay to offer our opinion, we just plunge into giving it anyhow. The person may listen politely but sigh inwardly. She may mentally roll her eyes. Or argue. The chance of her eagerly saying “Wow! Thanks!” have become slim. Instead of helping, we’ll have irritated someone. And possibly, permanently turned the person off.