A large part of our reality involves talking, or working with our speech; it is one of the main ways we connect with our world  •  but our speech can also get us into a lot of trouble, including using it as a way of escaping from reality  •  Trungpa Rinpoche said that paying attention to speech is a way of paying attention to reality  •  but often we use speech just in the opposite way — as a way to avoid dealing with what is actually going on, covering it over with as many words as we can so we can just get through it and not experience it  •  the Dharma is transmitted through spoken words, so speech is very much honored; but it's also recognized that we fall prey to patterns of harmful speech  •  the four traditional categories of harmful speech are: lying; intrigue; destructive, critical, or harmful speech; and gossip  •  in every moment of ordinary conversation, the way we use our speech can bring us closer to — or farther away from — our connection with reality.