So last week I started talking about right speech, and I talked about harsh speech, idle chatter, and gossip. And this week, not to say we finish those topics, but this week I'd like to talk about lying or not lying. practice of not lying, or the practice of not using false speech, which entails sometimes, of course, speaking the truth. And I think this is a, in some ways, I feel this is a harder one than the other ones, in a way. For me, anyway. Much more complicated. I don't know if it's more complicated. Anyway, it's complicated. Difficult. So I don't know where to start exactly, but I guess I would say that I think it is a difficult preceptive practice.

[01:07]

It's difficult to not lie. It's difficult to, you know, not deceive yourself. It's difficult also sometimes, even it's difficult sometimes to say the truth. And I think underlying, I think you could consider underlying is when you're not saying the truth, when you, to keep quiet under some circumstances is in a sense to say you think it's okay, in a way. If you don't, to not say that you don't think it's okay is a kind of a lie. I don't know if it's a lie, but that's why I'm saying it's kind of confusing. Is it a lie that not to speak when you think something's happening that you don't think is right? Or is it a lie sometimes if someone says, you know, thank you very much for, you know, paying your bill on time when you didn't, and you don't say anything?

[02:14]

Is that a lie? So... Can you say a little bit about the difference between privacy and withholding? The difference between privacy and withholding? Yeah. Oh, I see. Well, okay, so what I would say is the key thing for me about lying is that I think lying, what I mean by lying, I think the key ingredient about lying is that it's based on self-concern. I'm not saying everything you say based on self-concern is a lie. It might be possible for you to tell the truth and still have self-concern. Sometimes, well, sometimes it promotes your self-concern to tell the truth.

[03:15]

For example, if someone says, did you break that window? And you didn't, it you might promote your self-concern to say, no, I didn't. I cannot tell a lie. I didn't break it. In that case, you didn't lie even though you were somewhat concerned for your own welfare. But if you are concerned with your own welfare and you did break the window and someone asks you if you did, you still might have trouble then saying, yes, I did. Now, in that case, you might say, well, I just think it's kind of a private matter. I don't feel like divulging my private relationship with the window that I broke it, so if you asked me if I broke it, I would say, geez, I really can't say, or I'd rather not talk about it, or that might not work very well. You might say, what do you mean? So I guess, again, if privacy is that you're keeping something to yourself and the reason you're keeping it to yourself is out of self-concern, then that's one thing.

[04:34]

If you're keeping it to yourself not out of self-concern, that's another. For example, children... who aren't sexually mature, it's not necessarily keeping certain information about sex to yourself or private. It's not necessarily self-concerned to keep it to yourself and not tell them about it. It may be actually, if you were concerned for their welfare, you might not talk to them about sex. So you would keep it private, but it wouldn't be private for your own welfare. It would be private for their welfare, at least that's your view. And at a certain point, you might feel like it would be good to give up your privacy for children as they get to a certain age. When they're a certain age, you might say, yes, your father and I do actually, we have had sex. And your daughter or your son might say, well, what do you do?

[05:39]

And you might say, well, and you might explain. Even though before it had been private and you hadn't told them, the reason why you hadn't told them before was because you didn't think it would be helpful to them. But when they're at a certain age and they want to know, then your privacy maybe isn't any longer something that is appropriate. In that case, maybe you should be un-private. Not exactly public, but Show it. Tell them about it. In as much detail as you think is beneficial. And then if you notice as you're telling them that you think, you know, you start to think, well, geez, maybe my kids will think badly of me if I tell them I do those kinds of things. And you notice that you're trying to, like, keep an image of a pure mother or something. You know, that mommy is virtuous and doesn't get involved in those things like those other people. If you notice you're holding that, then you might say, well, there's, now, is that self-concern? You know, what's that self-concern there?

[06:44]

And you might even stop and say, geez, mom's feeling a little self-concerned here. Just give me a second. I notice that I'm getting kind of defensive. And I'm wondering what's that about. So in that case, does that relate to your question? That definitely relates to the question. I guess I'm just getting a little confused then about what we talked about last week, about right speech and knowing when to speak at all, and the difference between... Do you know what I'm saying? Not yet. In regard to speaking at all. Yes. If nobody comes to you and asks you whether or not you broke the window or not. Yes. Or cleaned the window, whatever the case may be.

[07:51]

Yes. That I'm having a hard time coming up with a good example. It just becomes a little confusing, the difference between keeping quiet because it doesn't need to be said, because it isn't helpful to the situation or nobody's asking or it isn't coming up or whatever, and keeping your privacy or withholding it. Those are three kind of... Okay, well, let's say you break something at Green Gulch. Should you go to the director and tell the director that you broke a Marley mug? It may not be necessary. It may not be helpful. But if you broke something major, like one of these windows, it might be helpful to tell that you broke it. It might relieve people. People might say, well, something like that. I wish somebody would tell us how it happened. That might be helpful to tell that one.

[08:52]

But there's a lot of things that might happen which... don't necessarily help to mention to people. Now, on the other hand, if you notice that the reason you're not saying it is because you're afraid that someone's opinion will be lowered of you, then you might go tell some other person whose opinion wouldn't be lowered of you that you notice you're afraid of lowering your opinion by telling somebody else. Confess that. in a situation where you don't have to worry about your opinion being, your status being lowered or whatever by confessing the thing. At least get your self-concern out there. Is there some other example you can think of? No, not right now. The key thing is when you're speaking, the key thing is when you speak, before you speak, generally speaking, before you speak there's a thought. There's a motivation to speak. There's an impulse to speak. You can't always catch it, but it's been suggested by the ancestors that prior to speaking and prior to moving there is the mental impulse to move or to speak.

[10:06]

And you can sometimes certainly notice that impulse. So part of practicing right speech is to watch, look into yourself and watch your mind and look at the quality of your mind and look at the We talked before about the definition of karma is chetana, is the shape of your mind, the inclination, the tendency of your mind. So if your mind has the shape of a certain thought, and in addition the thought is shaped towards wishing to speak it, and you notice that, This exists prior to speaking a good share of the time, if not always. Certainly you can find some times when that's the case. Now I'm speaking to you, you know, right along here, and I'm not necessarily stopping before each word or each sentence and checking my motivation, but I could just about do that.

[11:10]

I could keep checking my motivation, keep checking my motivation as I speak. Is this helpful? If I do that, there might be more pauses in my speech, but it might be okay. It might not hurt you if I stopped every now and then and checked to see what's my motivation speaking to you. Now I'm speaking again. How did I check to see, would this be helpful? I think it would be helpful to mention, that it's good to check your motivation before you speak. So I just said it to you. Now we live in a situation where it actually is possible, this social situation, like during your practice period, it's possible to actually speak in a rate with a pace and a rhythm so you can stop and look at your motivation before you speak.

[12:12]

A lot of situations you can actually do that. We don't talk that fast and that hectically here. You can stop and look. I'm thinking of saying this. Would that be helpful? So, that's the key thing. In all these kinds of speech, am I speaking kindly? Am I speaking with the intention to help? Will this be helpful to say this? And if so, I would say, if you think it's helpful, then helpful and appropriate at this time. If this is helpful and also helpful right now, then I would say, generally speaking, say it. Say it now. If you think it would help the relationship, help the person, help the sangha, make the place a more harmonious place. place to practice, then say it.

[13:12]

If you don't think so, I would say, don't say anything. Wait. Let it sit there for a while. But you can actually, it is possible, if you look into your mind, see the shape of your mind, and ascertain the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of your intentions... you can actually do that. It's possible to introspect in that way and keep track on yourself. It is not necessarily easy, but you can get the hang of it and we can talk about how you assess that. And I would say if you don't have something helpful to say, then keep quiet. That's fine. It's okay. And people may come up to you and say, would you please say something? And then you might think, geez, I have nothing helpful to say. And they might say again, please say something, and gradually you might see, well, at least I probably should say, you know, I don't think I have anything helpful to say. And they might say, oh, okay. Now they might also say, well, go ahead and say something even if it is not helpful.

[14:16]

Such a person is what we call not a good friend. Someone who encourages you, just say something even if it's unhelpful. It seems kind of friendly. but it's not a good friend, because they're encouraging you to think something unwholesome, you have something to be unwholesome in your mind, now say it too. And there's another rule of karma, which I don't want to get off into karma right now, but when you think a negative thought, there is karmic consequences of that. There is an effect or a fruit of thinking a negative thought, like thinking, you know, I hate that, I think you're a jerk, I think you're a bum. There's a negative consequence of having a hateful, disrespectful thought of someone. There is a consequence of that. But if you speak it, you know, in such a way you can hear it, another person can hear it, the consequences are more substantial.

[15:18]

And actually we say that the consequences of verbally and physically expressing unwholesome or wholesome karma, they like structure your consciousness. So the shape of your mind gets changed by verbally and physically expressing wholesome and unwholesome things. So if you have something kind to say to someone, and you say it, it has more of an effect than if you just think it. If you say, I really... hope you have an excellent meditation period. And when you say that, it changes the shape of your mind. If you write it down, or make two sign signals, like, you know, when you see them go in the zendo, bow to them like, and I really, you know, this means I respect you. That kind of physical message and verbal message changes the shape of your consciousness and molds it, in a way that's conducive to further wholesome thoughts.

[16:23]

Similarly, if you have a negative thought and you say it, you shape your mind and make your mind more conducive towards unwholesome thoughts. That's why taking the precepts and vowing to take the precepts is stronger when you verbally do it and physically do it than if you just think, I would like to follow the precepts. we have the ceremony coming up where people will say in a concentrated way very very clear and they'll say it out loud and everybody can hear and that will change the shape of their mind they will be different have a different mind at the end of the ceremony than they did at the beginning okay so that's why if you have something good to say you should say it for the sake of your shape of your mind and to promote further good you have something negative to say and you're thinking of something negative, it's better not to say it, because not only will it be harmful at the time, but it will shape your mind for the future. That's why it's really important to reflect, is this going to be helpful?

[17:26]

And if it's not, don't say it, and if it is, say it. So, as part of the practice of this precept, or this right speech, key thing is look at your motivation, look at your motivation, look at your motivation, what kind of motivation do you have for speaking? Is this really coming out of concern for the welfare of the person you're speaking to, and for yourself, and for everybody else? But at least, is it going to be helpful to this person, first of all? Yes. If the understanding is that it is going to be helpful for other people or a group, but it is a negative thing about that other person, is there a point where there is more good contentment to be said about saying something negative, because it would actually help the welfare of the group? rather than not say anything negative at all and not help the point of therapy. A very extreme example would be Hitler, for example. I could say something very negative about him, but I could hold my speech because I'd say, this is too negative.

[18:28]

Right, right. Okay, well, one thing I mentioned last week, and you weren't here, about speaking of others' faults. If you see someone doing something that you disagree with and you think is not good, and you speak of it, hoping that other people will feel more divided from that person and think less of that person. That's actually what you're trying to do, is cause people to feel separated and divided from that person. That's your motivation. In that case, that's the kind of criticism we don't recommend. But if your criticism is actually to help create harmony in the situation, so Hitler is a good example, or not Hitler, but whole Nazi Germany, is that tremendous divisiveness was occurring. So if you could speak that I don't like what you're doing to the Jews, and you speak in a way hoping that this will promote unity, won't establish it maybe, but promote and work towards unity rather than towards divisiveness and excluding people.

[19:34]

If that's your intention and you're not trying to create division, then it would be good and it would help everybody. So, as the example I used last week, if someone's repeatedly late for meditation, the attendance officer might point that out to that person's teacher. But not with the intention of making the teacher think less of the person, but with the intention of having the teacher or friend help the person and talk to the person about what's going on. But if it is the intention to report them so that their teacher or other friends will think less of them, then they should not say it from that point of view. It's in this example. Now, there's some other example where it might be helpful in some other way, but basically... If your motivation is to cause this person to be degraded and cause division between this person and other people, that's the kind of speaking of others' faults that is not to be done. But if speaking of others' faults is to bring people together and bring help to the person, bring help to the situation, remove the ill, then it should be spoken.

[20:43]

Again, you have to look inside. Are you trying to, you know, And oftentimes it would be someone that you're in competition with, it would be someone that you would like to point out their faults, so people would think less of them, and if you're in competition, more of you. So like if you're speaking of other Buddhist groups and you think something's wrong with them, if your motivation is to make other people think less of the Buddhist group and therefore think your group's better, this is not so good. But if your point to criticize them is to help alleviate the problem or promote healing of the problem there, then it should be spoken. even if, perhaps, it might be a problem for you. And let's talk about that a little bit later. But what will happen to you if you say something that, you know, you think, like, if I say that, I might get in trouble. And let's talk about that a little bit later. Okay, so, yes? It seems to me, for myself, that the impulse to do that arises if I'm hurt and angry.

[21:48]

Yeah. Hurt and angry, yeah. Or threatened. Yeah, and I know that it would be more beneficial... Afraid, hurt, angry, or afraid. Yeah, so it would be more beneficial to say, I'm hurt or I'm, you know, keep it here. Much better. But I lose track of that sometimes. Especially if you think that telling the person that you're hurt or angry will help. That's still better, probably, to say that than this other thing. But sometimes we say we're hurt, but really we're expressing anger. So it's nice to, if you can express, if you can say I'm hurt before you get angry, that's really good. And you circumvent the whole thing of all that other stuff. But that's hard. But then you have to feel the hurt, look inside, notice the motivation to say something, See that you're thinking of telling the person that you're hurt with the intention to benefit your relationship.

[22:51]

Notice that it's good and then do it. That's pretty fast. Because the pain's going on, it might go into anger before you have a chance even to look inside to see what it was and whether it would be helpful. And then you shift into anger. So then it's like you already lost that chance. So now you look at the anger. Now I'm thinking of speaking out of anger. Now is that helpful? Well, no. So you have to wait. until the anger subsides so that you can talk about what happened from a place that's going to be helpful. So sometimes we just can't have nothing to say that's helpful. We have to be quiet. We temporarily disqualify ourselves from speech and keep looking inside until something wholesome comes up in the speaking department, which may be, you know, a while. But it is wholesome to be, it's good to be checking anyway. That's a good practice. You're doing something good by keeping track of yourself. That's good. That's helpful.

[23:53]

That's protective. That's pretty harmless. That protects beings by noticing what's going on inside you. Yes? Is it okay to lie to somebody else if you're not lying to yourself? If somebody asks you a question and you don't want to answer for purely selfish reasons but you realize they're selfish reasons and it's not like you're lying to yourself, is it okay to... but you're verbally lying to them? Well... just starting off doesn't sound like it's okay. But maybe you could give an example and maybe the example would be more complicated and it might be okay.

[24:56]

So, like, the example that comes to my mind is one I've used is, you know, your kid's going out on a date and she or he comes to you and they say, how do I look? And they've just done the latest thing to themselves, right? You know, they have, they look like a vampire or something. But this beautiful, beautiful kid, you know, has made themselves look really, from your point of view, really atrocious outfit, you know. And, but still, you know, once in a while these kids still come and ask their parents what they think. They sometimes do, even though they, they sense that they're being very creative, they They still ask, and you could say, well, you know, you could tell them, I think you look terrible, and then they go out and have a lousy time, you know, because they feel real insecure because their mother or father said they look terrible. Have a lousy evening because they feel, I'm ugly or whatever, you know. So you tell the truth, but does it help?

[26:01]

Does it actually promote their, you know, there's not time to change anyway, right? They're walking out the doors. So maybe you say, oh, look, you're beautiful. Maybe you say that. It's a little bit of a lie. You do think they're beautiful, but it's a little bit of a lie because you're maybe skirting the issue of their outfit. Or you might even say just directly, it's the most gorgeous outfit I've ever seen. But your intention, your speaking is not to deceive them, but to support them in having a good evening. So they aren't insecure and drive off the road. That's the main thing, is that they're benefited. So, you're not intending to deceive them. Your primary intention is not that they don't know how you really feel. Your primary intention is to say something helpful. In that case, you know that there's some deceit or some kind of like, not exactly deceit, but there is a kind of avoiding the real question and answering it from another angle. You know that you're doing that, but your intention is to help.

[27:06]

So, In that case, it's not to protect yourself. Now you can say, well, it is partly to protect myself because I'm protecting myself from the unhappiness I would have if my kid goes out and has a lousy evening. So in a sense, I'm protecting myself. What if you are doing it in the face of protecting yourself? Pardon? What if you are doing it in the face of protecting yourself? Well, again, if it's protecting yourself but it's to the other person's benefit, then again, still, even though it's protecting yourself, you still probably do it for their benefit. So it's the most important. So, you know, if protecting other beings protects you, you still should protect them. In fact, protecting other beings does protect you, so... But the point is that if you're really coming from the orientation of really first thinking about them and wondering what's best for them, and speaking from there, and looking from that point of view, and then you notice this is all sort of helpful to me, that might make you stop and think, now, was I just tricking myself?

[28:08]

Was I just saying this was good for them because it's good for me? Now let's look at it again. Now, if it weren't good for me, would I still think it's good for them? Because it gets complicated there, but you might have time to do that. So the most important thing is to not hurt the other person first, or to not hurt yourself? The most important thing is to act selflessly. That's the most helpful thing to the world. And one way to work up to acting selflessly is to consider what's helpful to others. And we're talking about telling the truth so somebody's there. Now, if you're lying to yourself, you don't know it. We haven't got into the fact that you can deceive yourself. And we can't. I'm talking about when you're consciously saying something that you are aware of. So far I'm talking about when you're consciously talking about lies that you know are... How we get into catching ourselves when we're deceiving ourselves is at another level.

[29:13]

Yes. Yes. Before we go to that level, I'm curious what one does with practicing this when they're aware of an unwholesome thought arises in the immediate moment. Yes. What to do? Like you think of saying something unhelpful? Something, you said like a negative thought, yeah, when that comes up. In the moment, what do you recommend doing? Well, like if I think of a negative thought and then I think that I want to say something about it? Voice it? Voicing it contributes to shaping your mind. Right. I'm just trying to clarify whether... And I'm aware of a negative thought. I'm just trying to clarify. If you're talking about a negative thought, just a negative thought, or a negative thought with the impulse to speak. A negative thought, if there's no impulse to speak, then all you have to do is notice it's a negative thought. That's enough. There's a negative thought, there's an unwholesome thought,

[30:15]

There's a thought of being lazy, or there's a thought of telling a lie, or there's a thought of saying something cruel. There's these thoughts, and I take away the lying thing. There's just a thought, I'm not going to stay awake, I'm not going to do my work today, I'm not going to follow the schedule, I'm going to cause trouble to myself by thinking bad thoughts about myself. All you can do there is notice it. If you're about to speak those things, though, then you can just say, well, now I think it would be bad to speak it, so I'm not going to speak it. So if one's practicing this, it might slow one down a little bit in the speech department. Because when you're starting to learn this anyway, you'd have to stop now and then And be quiet, probably, to check and look at what's going on inside, occasionally. And even during a conversation, to stop now and then and look to see.

[31:21]

I started the conversation with a positive intention. Am I still on that track? Yes? So does noticing a negative thought, for example, does that have an influence on on the influence that the thought would have if I wouldn't notice it? If you don't change that influence? Noticing an unwholesome thought or a negative thought, that noticing is a positive thought. You know. Now, if you noticed it, but... I shouldn't say... I take it back. Noticing a negative thought is a positive indication, but if you were noticing a negative thought and you also thought, there's no problem with me having the negative thought, that's sort of like no problem for me to think that way, it's kind of apropos the kind of jerk I am, then even though the noticing would be good, would be contributing towards goodness, the overall state of consciousness would not be good.

[32:34]

So if you have a mind that has lack of self-respect, and where you think it doesn't matter what you think, and you notice that you're thinking a negative thought, even though you're noticing it's negative, and even if you notice that it would be harmful, but you don't think it matters, because you don't think it's beneath you, or contradictory to your basic intentions of goodness, then the state of consciousness is unwholesome, even if you notice it. Now, if you have the attitude of, I do want to do good, and doing bad things isn't appropriate to me, to my basic intention, and then you notice a negative thought, even in that context, then I would say the state of consciousness is wholesome. It takes a bunch of things to make a wholesome state of consciousness, but there's two things alone which will make a negative one. You can have, it can be worse than that. The two things alone that will make a negative state of consciousness is is where you basically, you don't think that it matters what you do in terms of other people, and you don't think it matters for yourself.

[33:40]

You think you can do bad things and it doesn't matter. Because either you're a bad person, or karma doesn't hold, or something like that. If you think those things, you definitely have an unwholesome state of consciousness, whether there's other things or not. Whether there's anger, or greed, or cruel thoughts. Even if they're not there, you still have an unwholesome thought. Usually there will be those other things, but even if they weren't, even if you had a positive thought and were thinking a good thing about a person and thought, it doesn't matter that I'm thinking a good thing, I could just as well be thinking a bad thing, it's an unwholesome state of mind. But if you have a negative thought, even a strongly negative thought, and you really think that this is beneath you and you really feel bad about it, and you really think it would be harmful to other people and to you if you did anything about it, and you really don't want to be that way, the state of consciousness is quite wholesome. Like they use the example, if you take a glass, a cup of water, and you put a grain of salt in it, in Buddha's time they had big grains of salt, put a grain of salt in the water, it becomes salty and undrinkable.

[34:53]

Too salty. But if you take a grain of salt and put it in the ocean, It won't make the ocean, of course, not just take it away from being an ocean, that's a little confusing, put it in a large body of fresh water. It won't make it salty and it won't make it undrinkable. So if you take a minor, I wouldn't say this would work for a real big bad thing, but a minor thing, a fairly minor thing, like being disrespectful of someone or contemptuous towards someone, thinking, you know, so-and-so, you know, really didn't do too well there, that kind of thought If you put that kind of thought in a mind that's very big, a mind that really wants to benefit all beings, a mind that's really dedicated to practice, it won't have much effect. What will happen, it will have an effect, but the effect will happen very soon and will be almost unnoticeable. It will mature very fast because in an environment of a mind like that, it will be noticed as unwholesome and will reach its maturity very quickly and will not get big and bad.

[35:59]

If you take some small thing in a mind that does not observe, that does not care, that does not want to help other people, it will poison the whole mind, plus it won't mature. It'll keep going a long time, and it'll get bigger and worse and worse and worse until it's a real... It can be like... Well, it can put the person in a state of great torment, whereas another person, the same act, it almost, it matures very fast and almost has no, you can hardly notice the effect. So, that's how it works. Now, if you notice, if you would notice a small negative thought and then you have the idea of speaking it, and then you would go ahead and speak it, it has much more effect if you speak it than if you don't. But again, still, if it's in the context of a great vow, and all that, it isn't as destructive as if it's in a mind that doesn't care that you said a negative thing and hurt someone.

[37:04]

So the context is important, but still, we're just concentrating on the basic principle that this would be a negative thought and shouldn't be spoken, and should be noticed, and that's it. But also you should work on the whole context around it. and look at the whole context. And also, if you look at the context and you find out this is a real tight mind, so a tight negative mind around a negative thought, then the effect will be, you know, might go on for quite a while. And you really should be careful of that one. Now, Rain, did you want to ask a question, Rain? You raised your hand and put it down and raised it. Yeah, I was thinking about the example you gave before. For example, if your daughter grows up as a vampire, and I was just thinking about how it seems to be a lot of respect to not really take the time to try to be as specific as you can be, given the context, about how you actually feel. I mean, she's going out the door, you know, and maybe what you said was the best thing, but if you had a little time, maybe you could say something like, well, our tastes are different, you know, and, you know.

[38:14]

Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, that might be even better. So you can get kind of sloppy about just... Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yes, right. Well, there was a time, one time my daughter asked me, she actually wasn't dressed up yet, she brought out two different sweaters and asked me which one I liked best and I told her which one I liked best. And then she actually showed me two different pairs of shoes and I told her which pair of shoes I liked and I told her the reason. But if she's already dressed up, and not asking me about what to wear. She's just asking me, what do you think of this outfit? And it's not really a negotiable issue, it's just a question of do I approve or not? Then that's the example I'm talking about. But if there is room for discussion and giving my feeling, which has happened very few times that I've actually been consulted in the process, I'm often asked, what do I think?

[39:15]

What's my view? I'm often asked for approval and feedback, but I'm not usually asked for consultation in processes of shopping or, you know, putting on clothes in the case of my daughter or daughters or whatever. But if I was involved, then I think I'd be invited to, you know, I'd have more case to participate in. It actually would be more fun. It actually was fun to be involved that way. So I'm talking about more the case of, it's set, you know, the fingernails have been painted, the lipstick has been put on, the eye makeup, the hair, the clothes have been bought, it's on, you know, it's ready to go. Now, what do you think of this? It's not so much, what do you think I should wear tonight? Then we can discuss it and say, well, I'd like you to do the non-vampire outfit tonight. I think you're much cuter with your hair this way or that way.

[40:16]

The example I meant was, it's already done and it's taken quite a while to do. She was in there for hours doing this. This is her thing that she did. To say something which would make her consider... Redoing it all might not be possible because it took an hour to do. That's what I had in mind, that story. Or when she already went shopping and bought this dress, you know. It's maybe too late to make comments. And if you know beforehand that you're going to be making comments, or if you're going to be asked, and you might say, you know, if you're going to consult with me about what you're doing, then you might consider talking to me earlier in the process. if you want me to participate more than just sort of giving my approval at the end. So all these things are possible. So tell me, you tell me about lying. I want to hear from you. Tell me some examples of lying or some, I guess, maybe you are sort of asking me difficult examples.

[41:20]

So if you want to give me difficult examples for us to discuss or give me examples of where you think you lied, where it was hard not to or whatever. So, see, so we have four now. That's good. So, Michael, I mean, Tommy? Mine is kind of a question. With someone, with the idea of sometimes, you know, the way you say it is just for the other person, being completely selfless at the moment, in the long run, can't that endanger the relationship? Being selfless? No, I mean, as in to, let's say someone you feel maybe in a very highly emotional state at the moment, and so you may feel like lying is appropriate, but in the long run, you know, I think that's putting a lie between you and that person that sticks to the relationship, and that can maybe endanger the relationship in the long run, you know, the trusting. Well, can you give me an example? Like the example I gave, you know, I don't think that that lie would stick, you know, my saying that

[42:25]

that she's beautiful. I mean, I really didn't mean she was beautiful, but I wasn't necessarily saying I liked the outfit. So can you give an example of where lying is helpful and then sticks to the relationship? It's not helpful. It's where someone's making a judgment of that it would hurt the person too much. I'll take, you know, far extreme. Let's say in a relationship, an affair, the person thinking, oh, no, no, maybe the affair, you know, the affair's been over. Yes. And the person decides, you know, it's been over, it would just hurt my partner too much. But that would still be there, that feeling. Oh, I see. You had an affair. You didn't tell your partner. Is that what you mean? Yeah. So this was withheld from your partner? Yes. Okay, so the question is, is it being withheld in the beginning for the welfare of the partner? Because the person is thinking, you know, it would hurt my partner too much. and therefore I'm being selfless. I mean, I could see somebody... Well, you don't have to say that, go that far. Just, you know, I did this thing, I did this thing, and I think if my partner knew I did this thing, it would hurt my partner.

[43:33]

Okay? I think that's probably the kids. And also, probably that my partner might hurt me, too. My partner might get really angry at me, hit me, or, you know, whatever. My partner might take me to court. My partner might leave me. All these things might happen to me if I told my partner. So my partner might feel hurt if I told my partner. Plus, I might also get in trouble. The question is, would it help my partner to know at this point? If it would help my partner to know and I don't tell, then it's really going to get him to stick in the relationship. Because I'm basically saying, this is my partner and I really do care more about myself than my partner. So, now what am I going to do with that? Just, I would say, keep looking at that. It doesn't mean that when you finally... So I guess if it would help your partner to know about this affair, I would think that it would be good to tell your partner. You could talk to somebody else about it, talk to a third party. And if you tell the third party, I think it would help my partner to know...

[44:35]

and they say, yeah, I think you're right, then the two of you together think it's good, then it's going to be maybe you keep thinking about it, and if you keep thinking it would be good to tell your partner, then it probably would be good to help your partner. If you think it's going to undermine your partner, hurt your partner by telling them this, then you probably shouldn't tell it, even though it might protect you from trouble. Or I see it from the third-person perspective. Yes. Someone being in a tough situation where they know if they tell someone the truth about something, it can be such an intense thing, but that the truth would help them. It's really twisting my head in half. Well, I think it's a pretty good example. So anyway, still though, I'd like to deal with it. Does telling the person help the person being told And if the answer is yes, then let's figure out a way to tell them. Now you may feel like, well, yeah, it would help the person and also would help the relationship.

[45:43]

And there's even more reason to tell them. It would help the person and help the relationship, but also there's a possibility that although it would help the person and help the relationship, it might also destroy the relationship. Might. And that wouldn't be so good. Maybe. But if you really think, you know, I think it really would help the person being told, the other partner, and I think it would, but I don't know what will happen to the relationship, but I think it would help them, then I guess you probably should do it. But again, you might, since it's a big thing, you might consult with somebody else, and they might say, You know, I think you have such a good relationship with this person, and it might help the person if you told them, because they might feel like you're more intimate with them now, and telling them more about yourself. It's true, it might help them. But it might destroy the relationship, and you have such a good relationship, actually, aside from this thing you did back then, that maybe you should wait a little while, think about it a little bit more, before you tell them.

[46:49]

It might not be good. Sometimes therapists say, you know, or sometimes even, you know, your partner, you might start talking to your partner about something and you might notice and your partner might say, you know, I really don't want to talk to you about this. Go talk to your therapist about it. This makes me nervous. Like some people say, some people say to their spouse, you know, boy, I think he's really cute. You know, and the spouse says, yeah, I don't want to hear that. I mean, appreciate that you're telling me that. But I really don't want to hear about it. I don't want to hear you talking to me about how you think so-and-so is cute. Talk to somebody else about it. And so sometimes they don't necessarily want to know. I don't know if anybody else wants to bring something up about this example? Yeah. Yeah. I sort of feel like these things have a way of resolving themselves up out of your subconscious.

[47:52]

In other words, if you kind of Like, let's say... It's really easy for people to fool themselves about this stuff because that's such a hard place to go. Okay, let's sit down. I want to tell you about this affair right now. I mean, I think that that's the kind of place people can come up with a lot of mental gymnastics to be like, well, that's really going to be best for them to not know because just think of how painful it is. And, you know, kids and, you know, their careers in such a state right now that I really would hate to throw this on them. You can play all kinds of games. But I think if you don't, come out with this stuff, it starts coming out anyway. And so, also, if you don't come out with this stuff, to me, your relationship can only go so far. Like, you're the person that I love and I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, and, you know, I know something, and the guys at work know something, and there's this other woman that knows something, and you're the one that doesn't. Right. Like, how far are you going to go in that? So you think... you think that it would be beneficial to tell?

[48:52]

I'm saying you've got to really, like, you have to hold yourself to a really rough standard about not telling something when you know it's going to be really hard on yourself. It's going to be really challenging, it's going to be really painful for you to come forward with it. You have to hold yourself to a really, you have to really put all that into balance. And it's a tough standard to say, well, I really don't think openness is the right course, but my most beloved... Right, well, you're saying that you notice in yourself that you're afraid to do it, right? So that's a sign right there, that you're afraid of what will happen to you. Okay? So then you, if that's the case, then you would say, so that might prejudice me to be able to see what this would help her to tell. Right? You're saying, when you notice that you're trying to protect yourself, you feel bad, you're going to have a hard time saying this. You're going to feel bad saying this. So that difficulty of doing that might make it difficult for you to really see whether this would be helpful to her not to know.

[49:55]

Oh, so I'll have a reason to talk to somebody else? Yeah, but not necessarily all the more reason, but all the more reason why maybe it is beneficial to say. Oh, okay. It is. Because you may be prejudiced. You don't want to see that it's beneficial because it would be so hard on you to do it. Right? But if you think about that and you realize, well, take away that it's hard on me, then would it be beneficial? And you think it is beneficial, then you bring back in that it's going to be hard on you, then you may just say, well, that's still beneficial. Even though it's hard on me, that doesn't make it not beneficial. So it would be beneficial, and if it is beneficial, then probably you should do it. But if you're not sure, then talk to somebody else. And if they agree with you, you've come to the conclusion that it should be done. And if they agree with you, then probably you should do it. And it might be wrong, but at least you did what you thought was best. And usually, these kinds of confessions...

[50:57]

usually, in the end, after everything's happened, you know, maybe you get divorced and so on, but in the end, usually is best to tell. Usually confession is best. But still, if there's some doubt that it's going to be beneficial, he's bringing up the case of where it seems like maybe it would be harmful to the person, right? Yeah. My point is that I think people can make themselves think that it would be harmful to the person. Right, okay. So usually it's best to tell. Or maybe always it's best to tell. But it is good sometimes to check because it is sometimes possible that it might not be helpful to the person. You can't tell. Some people may suffer as a result of certain disclosures. The other person may. It's possible. It's possible. Yeah, but was he ahead of Martha?

[51:59]

Was he before Martha? And was he ahead of Hamilton? I think, well, did you notice Martha's hand? I didn't. Well, no, I didn't notice his other hand. I didn't. Yes? I guess I just wanted to comment on, in the very beginning you were talking about not speaking up when you think something is wrong, whether that's lying or staying quiet. I think it is, and it infers some kind of approval, and then you're caught in that. Yeah, particularly I'm thinking of when you see some people being treated cruelly, like, you know, the classical example, the Jews in Nazi Germany, that some... Germans did not like it, did not think it was wrong, but were afraid to say so because they were afraid of what would happen to them. In other cases, we see people being treated cruelly, and we don't speak up, even though we don't like it and we think it's wrong.

[53:03]

We don't speak up because we're afraid of what people will do to us. That's a very serious example I'm thinking of. Yes? Yeah, I think maybe it's lying. Maybe it should be classed as lying. It certainly is. It's certainly not saying the truth that you have. You have a truth inside. Your truth is, I don't like this. And you're not saying it. The reason why you're not saying it is because you're afraid it will happen to you if you say it. Right? So you're not saying the truth. You have a truth and you would say it. You'd be happy to say it if it was safe for you. Because you'd be happy to stop the cruelty and And we're into it, so I'll just briefly mention it and respond to the other questions. A key factor here is this selfishness. Because in these cases, what often happens is we see something wrong. Let's say it's wrong.

[54:04]

We think of saying something about it in order to begin addressing the problem, but we think in terms of ourselves saying it. Now, our view of the situation may not be selfish. We may see, oh, this is hurting them and even hurting the perpetrator even more. I would like to help those people by expressing my disapproval of this or my opposition to this. That's not necessarily selfish. But if we think in terms of, I'm going to say this, and then I'm going to say this, then what will they do to me? If there's some way to think about it that you don't say it or get the situation to disclose it, your own personal fear of what's going to happen to you may be that you're approaching it the wrong way, that it shouldn't be you pointing it out. There's some other way to get the information out. It turns out it protects you, but also maybe a better way to do it anyway. So the fact that you're the one, that you're going to be the hero, and that you have to be courageous, you're standing alone in a way.

[55:08]

So there may be some other way to do it. Then you don't get to be the hero. And if it is safe for you, it also should be done that way. Maybe. Because then you don't get to be the hero in putting yourself up as the one who's saying the truth. What if you're not sure if you think that they are ready to hear what you perceive as the truth? Ask them. Ask. Do you want to hear this? I have something to say. Do you want to hear it? And if they say no, say okay. In some cases. If they're hurting somebody, maybe tell them anyway. But, you know, especially if it's something about what they're doing, about themselves, and it's not causing anybody any immediate danger or harm,

[56:12]

then ask him. Ask, do you want some feedback? Yes? I was jumping back to people earlier, but in the discussion of the affair, the lie that was not being addressed in that whole discussion was the lie that's implicit in the original commission of the affair. Right. And not just that, but the earlier discussions, when you talk about the motivation for speaking, it isn't always clear for me, as I would imagine it isn't for everyone, when you have the impulse to speak exactly what your motivation is. But I know when I'm lying. It's probably one of the clearest connections for me of what the impulse, what the shape of the impulse is. I may not know exactly why I'm lying, but I know before the words come out of my mouth that I'm lying. More so, perhaps, than other things that work behind the impulse. And I guess that makes it a great thing to practice on, because the motivation, at least for me, is very clear.

[57:16]

Whether I lied by saying something, or I lied by not saying something. I didn't quite understand. I heard the first point that you're saying, that there was a lie back a ways in this example, that you lied in the beginning. Maybe you didn't lie at the beginning. I don't know. You had an affair... Was it a lie not to come and tell right away? Is that the lie you mean? No, the lie to actually do it. Why was it a lie? Because you have an agreement that says, you know, I will be with you exclusively. But is breaking an agreement the same as a lie? Is that what you're saying? Yes, I think it is. So if people say they're going to follow schedule... What? No, but let's say you're not doing it secretively. Oh, no, if you go to the person and say, look, I'm going to have an affair. No, not necessarily. Let's say you do it in public. Let's say you have the affair in public, you know, in front of people that know your spouse, but you don't tell the spouse beforehand, and you also don't try to hide it.

[58:30]

In that case, it wouldn't be doing it secretively. Right, it wouldn't be a deception. Well, it would be a deception if you didn't... If you kept that secret when your friends knew it, then it would be even worse. No, no, before you go on afterwards. I'm just saying, I'm saying you can break... I think you can break an agreement without telling a lie, can't you? But doesn't the original agreement kind of become a lie? I mean, I know... If you say you're going to follow the schedule... And you don't. Is it a lie? Yeah. No. Because you said you'd follow the schedule, then you... Oh, no, no, no, no. I never asked you people if you'd follow the schedule. I didn't ask you that. Maybe you... Huh? Pardon? What? No, I never... I don't ask people that. I say, do you want to follow the schedule? I don't think it's the same. It's not the same because people do not, sometimes the way people follow schedules, they don't go.

[59:33]

But that doesn't mean they don't want to go. But this is a different situation, though. If you say to somebody, like, I'm always going to do X or I'm never going to do Y. Yes, that's a lie. That's a lie. That's self-deception. I don't get into that. I don't ask you people, are you going to follow the schedule and never not follow the schedule? And I get you to say yes. I ask if you want to. And I know that you'll all follow the schedule in your own way. The way you're following it now happens to be that you're all on the Zendo all the time. But it might not be that way. It might be different. You might have a different way of following the schedule than that. You might miss some periods because you're sick or confused or... various reasons you might miss, but I would expect that if you change your attitude, I ask you now, if you change your attitude and your vow and you do not want to follow the schedule, you would tell me about that. But I didn't ask you if you would follow the schedule. In this precept ceremony we do, we don't say, will you actually follow these precepts and never go against them? We say, do you want to?

[60:35]

Will you continuously observe them? Will you keep practicing them forever? The answer is, yes, I will. So I ask if you follow the schedule. And if you violate it, violate your intention, then that's something you have to deal with. But it's not that I expect perfection. I'm just talking about, we're talking about the norm, the aspiration. Aspiration is to do the practice period. I wish to do the practice period as best I can, and I think basically it would be good to follow the schedule, go to all the periods. But sometimes it might not be good to go follow all the periods. I don't know. There are certain examples. If somebody really needed your help, and that would mean that you couldn't go to the Zendo, then I would think, if you thought that was better, you should do that. I would support that. But that doesn't mean you change your mind about wanting to follow the schedule. Or that's a lie. But if you say you want to follow the schedule and you really don't want to follow the schedule, I would say that's a lie. If you're saying that just because you heard that's the right answer, I would say that's a lie.

[61:37]

If you say, I'm going to follow the schedule, I'm never going to miss a period, I say, I don't know if it's a lie, I think it's kind of, I don't know, it's kind of self-perceptive that you think that you can say what you're going to do. But you can say what you want to do. You can identify your desires and you're right. Isn't that how just about everybody justifies affairs? Pardon? Isn't that how just about everyone justifies an affair? Well, when I said yes up on the altar to love, honor, and cherish, well, I meant it then, and I left the person I was then, and, you know. Well, that may be the way you would justify it, but that isn't the way I would justify it. That may be your approach to justifying things. Again, if you say, I want to follow the schedule here, and then you don't follow the schedule, I would say the way to justify it is to say, I really do want to follow the schedule, and I didn't. That's it. That's enough justification. You admit you didn't do it. You don't have to justify your errors when you do something you don't want to do.

[62:39]

It doesn't need to be justified. You just say, I wanted to do this, I did that, that's not what I want to do, this is what I want to do, that's it. No more justification is necessary. That's the way I would let it go. I'm sorry, actually, I missed that period. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I do want to follow the schedule. Then you justify it again. You're back on track. But some problem with that? Well, it sounds like there's... I really wanted to do this, but I just couldn't. It seems like you have no response. No, no, no, no. I didn't say I couldn't. Well, I didn't. I didn't. Not I couldn't. If I couldn't, it's different. Couldn't is different. I really wanted to go to the Zendo. Yes. But I... But I didn't. Yeah. That's a confession that you didn't do what you wanted to do. I really wanted to go to the Zendo. Yes. I really, I really wanted to. Yes. But I didn't. Yes. There's something missing. Oh, wait a second. I really want to go to the Zendo, but I didn't on that occasion.

[63:43]

Okay. And on that occasion, I didn't want to go. I suddenly changed my mind at that time. Okay. Okay. So, like, I want, my vow is to not hurt people, but I did hurt someone that time. At that time, I slipped. I made a mistake. That's not what I want to do. This is not my, I didn't change my intention, though, to now I want to hurt people. You mean in general? I really want to go to the center in general. Yeah, in general. Yeah, right, in general. In general, I want to help people. In general, that's what I want to do. This seems disempowering of the power of a vow, though. How? Well, I mean, I've used a couple times the example of adultery, and we keep going down to, like, missing a period of satsang, which to me are, like, you know, maybe a little bit different. But to me, there's a power in a marriage vow of a person having a confidence that their partner is there in a way that I think allows them, as a couple, to, I don't know, have something, that relationship that they don't have as individuals.

[64:45]

And I realize that there's no guarantees on that kind of stuff, but I think there's like a power in that vow. And if the vow like going in is like, you know, kind of, well, we'll see. You know, it just doesn't seem like people are going to have the kind of trust in their relationship and each other, and that relationship is never going to be as much as it would have been otherwise. So are you saying that the vow, are you saying the vow, a marriage vow is different than the vow, for example, of a practice period? No, only that the transgression is different of adultery versus missing a period of zazen. Yeah, I would say adultery in a normal marriage relationship is a more severe fault than missing a period of zazen. Right. Okay? I could have made... But I thought that would be a good one to start with because I thought that it would be easy to see that you do make a commitment to zazen, but some of you do not do that.

[65:46]

I mean, it's public knowledge that some people do miss things, right? So that's already happening, but we don't, like, kick you out of the practice period for it or anything like that. It's a lesser thing, but it doesn't mean you change your attitude in that case. And we could make some intermediate examples... But I think the vow to follow the practice period can be as strong as the vow to be faithful to your spouse. It may be that there's more examples of variation on what that means to follow the schedule than what it means to have an affair. And again, affair might be defined as sexual intercourse, right? That might be called affair. But someone else might say, no, affair means less than that. Affair means Less than that. Okay? Now, if it's less than that, then you can see that, well, you know, then it's more likely, more difficult not to go against it, right? Like, even thinking of having an affair with someone could be defined as an affair in some people's minds.

[66:52]

They say, no, no, no, that's not what I mean. Thinking of it wouldn't be so bad. Okay, fine. So, in fact, that's not even considered... But what if, you know, you do a major transgression and you're saying, I think it's good, I think you said before, I think it's good if you do a major transgression or maybe even a minor transgression, but certainly a major transgression that is better under most circumstances, maybe, to say it. I think that's right. But, After you say it, it doesn't mean that, you know, if you do it, it doesn't mean that your vow got weakened by doing it. You might even more strongly hold the same vow afterwards, even though you feel that was a big mistake. The vows that we're making now are to a great extent because of mistakes we've made in the past.

[67:58]

We're we're making these vowels to some extent with some strength because we have made some mistakes. Now, if we make mistakes in the future, we can then perhaps make our vowels even stronger. Now, it's too bad to make those mistakes, but we might. We might make small ones, we might make big ones. But that doesn't mean that our vowel has changed. or got any weaker, it may mean that it wasn't very strong in the first place. That's part of the reason why we veered off. Because it wasn't strong enough. So then we make it again. And then we may say, you know, I really have a weak vow. Okay, if you have a weak vow, now what do you want to do? Do you want to talk about how weak it is? Or do you want to make it stronger? Yes. Yes.

[68:58]

Yeah, I was just thinking about this discussion. I think it's very important, the issues that are raised are very important about sincerity. But I don't see how it helps our understanding of telling the truth and lying to equate breaking a vow with lying. One can make vows in all sincerity at the time that the vow was made and then break it. You know, then one would break the vow. But that doesn't mean that at the time the vow was made, at the time the promise was given or whatever, that it was insincere that one had in mind a deception, that one thought one thing and said another. Usually when we say that someone lies, we mean to suggest the case where they're thinking one thing and they're saying something other than what they really think or really believe.

[70:04]

So I don't think it makes the transgression of the vow any less. not to forego calling it a lie. We don't have to also say that it's a lie. It's enough that it's a transcription of the vow. It doesn't seem to meet the definition of a lie. How do people feel about that? Does that make sense to you? I agree with that. Is that okay? Do you feel okay about that, Tim? What do you say? Well, I sort of feel like if I say, you know, if I say to somebody, I'm not going to eat the last cookie, As I'm eating the last cookie, I know I'm making myself into a liar. Well, if you say, I'm not going to eat the last cookie, and then you do it, I think you already told a lie in the first place. Because vows are not about predictions. If you're making predictions, then you're lying if you make a prediction about your behavior, because you cannot predict your behavior. So I think don't get into predicting your behavior.

[71:07]

Right. If you want to, you're going to have problems with that because you can't control what you're going to do. But you can say, I want to not eat the last cookie. It's not that I don't want to eat any cookies. I don't want to have the last one that I should leave for somebody else. If you say you don't want to and you're lying when you say it, then that's a lie. Yeah, I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about a certain sincerity in making a certain promise. I'll promise whatever. But maybe it is a prediction. It seems like a prediction of behavior is almost inherent in it. Inherent or strong tendency? I guess you... If you say, I want to become Buddha, okay, is there a prediction in that? I guess you could say to some extent, but is it an absolute prediction? there is a prediction. I mean, you wouldn't say you wanted to become Buddha if you thought it was totally impossible. I shouldn't say you wouldn't, but a lot of people anyway say that they want to attain the Buddha way because they think it's possible.

[72:11]

But to not be a Buddha day after day does not violate that intention. It's not a lie for you to sort of say, well, today again I wasn't Buddha. And I still want to be Buddha. Do you see the parallel? Oh yeah, I see what you're saying with that example. So, if you say that when you make a vow in terms of your behavior or whatever, and then if you violate that vow, that you shot your vow down, then I think you're saying that there's nothing you can do about your karma. You're done for. Because you have done things in the past which shoot down all your vows, so why say them ever again? Because in the past you did these things, so all your vows must be insincere. Our intentions are a factor, an important factor in our evolution. But they aren't all that happens. They aren't the only thing. There's other factors. But our intention is extremely important and that's the part we have something to say about, is our intention.

[73:16]

So that's why karma has put so much emphasis on karma. But there are other factors in the environment that are important. But we still put the emphasis on the vow. And if we veer off from the vow, Are you trying to say something? No. If we veer off from the vow... That was a lie. So what are you trying to say? I was thinking about the fact that we have the intention to say the refugees. You would like to say the refugees and have some people join you?

[74:19]

Yes, I'd be happy. Would that be all right if we did that? In this room? In this room, yes. Would that be okay with people if we did that? Sure. And then if you want to, let me know if you want to talk more about lying next time and so on. And you can think about this, Tim, and everybody can think about whether this issue of making a vow and at least temporarily slipping off of it, if that's lying or whatever, think about this. I think anyway it's very important when we make a vow, it's very important to follow it. And if we don't, it's very important to notice it. And then it's very important to notice whether you want to go back and reiterate the vow or not. or whether you're actually changing your policy on this one. So this is something to look at and meditate on. And maybe we'll talk more about lying next week if you want to. But maybe it's good to do what Jordan says. Or, you know, join him in this thing. Is that all right? Please stop then. Okay?

[75:20]

So let me know if you want me to go on or if you want to talk more about lying this time.

[75:26]

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