What Should We Talk About?

My dharma buddy, Bhikkhu Samahita, sent me an interesting email over the weekend. He basically answered the question, “What should we talk about?”

Naturally, he was coming from the point of view of what the Buddha said. Not being one skilled in the art of small talk, I welcomed his words of wisdom.

He writes that the subjects we should not talk about are

Conversation about kings, robbers, & ministers of state, armies, alarms, & battles, food & drink, clothing, furniture, garlands, & scents, relatives, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, the countryside, women & heroes, the gossip of the street & the well, tales of the dead, tales of diversity, the creation of the world & of the sea, talk of whether things exist or not.

These are the subjects we should be talking about:

Talk on the Modesty of having few wants,
Talk on the Bliss of Contentment,
Talk on the Joy of Seclusion,
Talk on the Ease of Disentanglement,
Talk on the Energy of Enthusiasm,
Talk on the Advantage of Morality,
Talk on the Calm of Concentration,
Talk on the Insight of Understanding,
Talk on the Freedom of Release,
Talk on the Direct Knowledge and Vision of Release …

This all makes sense to me. What do you think? Please share.