From Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening by Joseph Goldstein
Having established ourselves to some degree in Right View, and having cultivated the discernment and practice of Right Thought, we can explore what the Buddha lays out as the consequences of these in how we live our lives. These are the next three steps of the Eightfold Path: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood.
As we examine our commitment to awakening, we might notice a tendency to make these steps lesser endeavors, not quite on the same level as our meditation·practice. But if we hold these steps in this way, we are fragmenting our lives and weakening essential elements of the Path. Seven of the ten·unwholesome actions the Buddha said to avoid are purified by these three. steps of the Path. Each one requires mindful attention, and together they become the foundation for deepening concentration and wisdom.
Bhikkhu Bodhi emphasizes this point in his book The Noble Eightfold Path:
Though the principles laid down in this section restrain immoral actions and promote good conduct, their ultimate purpose is not so much ethical as spiritual. They are not prescribed merely as guides to action, but primarily as aids to mental purification. As a necessary measure for human well being, ethics has its own justification in the Buddha's teaching, and its importance cannot be underrated. But in the special context of the Noble Eightfold Path ethical principles are subordinate to the path's governing goal, final deliverance from suffering.
The first of these triad of path factors is Right Speech. Speech is such a powerful influence in our lives because we speak a lot. Speech conditions our relationships, conditions our minds and hearts, and conditions karmic consequences in the future.
Because Right Speech is such a powerful part of our practice, we can understand why the Buddha gave so much emphasis to it. Right Speech, as the third step of the-Noble Eightfold Path, cultivates abstinence from unwholesome mind states; gives expression to the beautiful motivations of lovingkindness, compassion, and altruistic joy; and, most importantly, aligns us with what is true.
"Bhikkus, possessing five factors, speech is well spoken, not badly spoken; it is blameless and beyond reproach by the wise. What five? It is spoken at the proper time; what is said is true; it·is spoken gently; what is said is beneficial; it is spoken with a mind of lovingkindness."
- Bodhi, The Numerical Discourses