It was only a waiting moment at the Amaravati Buddhist Centre in Hertfordshire, England. Suddenly I was obsessed by colourful blooming flowers on my far right. I decided to walk into that flower garden. A middle-aged Englishman was seen planting varieties of flowers in different colours along the road. Flowers of different colours in a pot did make it a beautiful combination. I walked further down to cross the road to a street isle with a beautiful Japanese garden on it. Obviously the plants for the Japanese garden were brought in far from Japan. Still, they could coexist peacefully with the local tulip in the same flowers plot.

Plants of different species from different places can coexist together peacefully without any problem.

I began to think further about humans. Why couldn't they stay together peacefully like these plants? Not necessary to be as many as these plants, even only two persons couldn't make it peaceful. Sooner or later there are always arguments and misunderstandings among themselves. The more we have people, the more we have problems.

I tried asking the plants why they got no problem coexisting among themselves. Of course, I got the silence reply. I concluded that because they were probably silent, they thus had no problem among themselves. That explained why humans could not stay together peacefully like plants. If humans learned to keep silent, they would have been on a peaceful terms like plants. However, this precondition seems impossible as a plant has only body without mind while a human has body and mind. With that mind exists, humans have developed emotions of their own. Human beings have emotion to react bodily and mentally. That causes more complicating trouble in the human world.

With different minds and thoughts for different persons coming from different places, human relationships become complicated with lust, aversion, and delusion. Malicious speech without mindfulness and wisdom will only bring about trouble and distress to oneself and also to others. It leads more to several arguments thereafter.

Human relationship can be peaceful if the words spoken come from wholesome intention with kindness, compassion, benevolent and sympathy. To be mindful and considerate will only bring about peace and end of all troubles.

So the delivery and receipt of speech from human to human become very important in bringing about peaceful understanding in the society.

To choose the delivery of speech - what is the difference of the final outcome between:

• deceptive versus truthful
• malicious versus harmonious
• grumbling, harsh, and pessimistic versus sweet, constructive and optimistic
• frivolous, nonsensical versus substantial and beneficial

To pick up the speech delivered When noise strikes into ears, there occurs an ear-consciousness leading to a certain mental formation, transforming it into emotion, either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. As a human being, the response is usually automatic and too fast that Sati (mindfulness) cannot catch up with it. So what should it be done?

STOP !!! - before making any response toward that voice perception, bodily or vocal. The first thing to do is to recite a magic spell to regain one's Sati as the following.

They do not create anger or admiration upon us; we do create it upon ourselves.

If we have enough wisdom in time, we can quickly analyse alternative consequences. Do pick up the optimum response which will bring about best result. If the voice is nonsensical, there is no need to make any response. If there is no response, there is often no trouble.

Like trees of different kinds in the same forest, they can stay together peacefully without any trouble. Each tree does its own duty, regardless of its shape or species. Therefore they can stay together in peace.

Human living can also be made as peaceful as the living of the trees. They can live together peacefully by sticking to their own duties. One neither picks up harsh words nor speaks unnecessary words to develop unnecessary emotions. As long as there is no harmful intention among themselves, even though they are different in mental foundations, they can still live together peacefully like those plants grown together in the same pot. So to speak, it would be a friendly living.

Although some plants are dense in the pot, they are not under illusion. The same could be applied to humans when there occurs an unintentional conflict, there will be nothing to hold on to it. Only we stay together with good intention and without unnecessary arguments. Only THIS, we all will have a happy life.

Whoever cannot make the stop, let it be YOU who can.