Precept #4

“I resolve not to lie but to speak the truth.”
by Jody Wilson

Seemingly straightforward, the Fourth Precept goes deeper than just a George-and-the-cherry-tree goody-goody resolve not to tell lies, although it certainly encompasses that kind of simple honesty.

This precept, like all of our practice, brings us relentlessly back to that pesky question — what IS truth? Since that is a question I’m not qualified to answer, maybe it’s best to start with what is not truth. I’ve made a handy list:

Story: “. . .and they all lived happily ever after.”
Literature: “In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.”
Poetry: “I hear America singing . . .”
Myth: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
Social grease: “What an interesting dress!”
Exaggeration: “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times!”
Excuses: “The dog ate it.”
Ego protection: “The check is in the mail.”
Blatant: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” *
Dangerously delusional: “And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.” **

Then there are the filters through which we see and experience our lives and the world around us. We’re so used to these distortions and take them so much for granted that we don’t even notice that they’re there. It’s the way we think about things, the unconscious way in which we interpret the events of lives, even our expectations of outcomes. In scientific terms, it’s called “the observer effect.” More mundanely, we see what we expect to see.

So how do we come to see things as they are, including ourselves, our exaggerations, our fictions, our opinions, our delusions, our ego protections and preferences, regardless of consequences?

I have no idea. Except to sit. Except to keep on with the hard questions. Except to be willing to have a cherished “truth” exposed as an ordinary opinion. And, to be willing to not speak at all.

That is, frankly, the hardest for me. I’ve got a million ideas, not to mention opinions, thoughts and – above all – feelings about all sorts of people, places and things. A friend once said that if I didn’t feel something — anything — I’d cut off my arm and beat myself with it until I did. I feel too strongly about too many things. And although it may make for interesting conversation, it’s a real burden in the search for truth. And can lead to unintended consequences.

In 1995, I traveled to Tibet. Feeling strongly about the Chinese occupation of that country and having personal connections with both local Tibetan refugees and staff at the International Campaign for Tibet, I brought along a slew of Tibetan language pamphlets, from a “Free Tibet” point-of-view, of course. I was warned not to actively distribute the pamphlets, but to leave them behind in hotel rooms and rest stops where the locals could pick them up. About six weeks after I returned, I read that a couple of French tourists had been arrested for doing exactly the same thing I had done. I realized that I had risked the safety of everyone with whom I was traveling. Plus, I didn’t always follow the advice I was given and had actually visited family members of a Tibetan friend living in Chicago, where I included these pamphlets with the family letters and photos I had been asked to deliver. With the clear resolve “Not to lie but to speak the truth” and with all “good” intentions, I had thoughtlessly jeopardized the lives of many. I still shudder at the possible consequences.

And I still muck around in the muddy ground between truth and propaganda, between facts and my opinions, between my ideas about what’s happening and what is actually happening.

I cannot tell a lie — some days I long for a cherry tree and a little hatchet!

* Cheney: 8/26/2002
** Bush: 5/29/2003