Communicating The Truth

There's a Buddhist saying that says when in meditation, watch your mind; when in public, watch your speech. And that's partly because speech, what we say, how we say it, is really a window into understanding what motivates us. What's the background within us for what we're going to say? We watch what we want to say and how we say it, so that we can begin exploring: how do I get stressed? How do I get caught? How do I lose my freedom?

Transcript

So this month we will be exploring communication using the five criteria of speech that is from the Buddhist canon and my friend and teaching colleague who is here this morning,

Lily,

Will be offering a more secular view of these five from the perspective of nonviolent communication.

So it will be a very useful teaching over this next month.

There's a traditional Tibetan saying,

A Tibetan Buddhist saying that says when in meditation we watch our mind and when in public we watch our speech.

And that's partly because speech,

What we say,

How we say it,

Is really a window into understanding our own motivations.

You know,

What's the background within us for what we're going to say?

What are the conditions within us for what we're about to speak?

And it's not about watching your speech to be,

You know,

More ethical,

Although that does happen.

We watch what we want to say and how we say it so that we can begin to explore,

Well how do I get stressed?

You know,

How do I get caught?

How do I lose my freedom in communication?

Speech is one of the easiest places not to be mindful.

It's so easy and so fast to get involved with the content of what's being said and not be careful.

You know,

When we get angry we're likely to speak in a way that is more angry,

Louder or curt.

And if we're kind of caught up in wanting,

Caught up in greed,

What often happens is people speak more in a manipulative way to get what they want.

And this is all of us and it's it's quite normal.

So we want to bring some care,

You know,

To how we speak in the world.

Not only for ourselves but for others.

We don't want to cause harm.

You know,

This idea of not causing harm is such an important part of our practice.

So the Buddha gave five criteria on how to study your speech and we'll explore each of these.

And these criteria I find are useful to be taken as questions,

Questions that we can ask ourselves before we speak.

And the first criteria,

The one that we'll review today is,

Is it truthful?

Is what we're about to say truthful?

The second is,

Is it kind?

The third is,

Is it beneficial?

The fourth is,

Does it bring us together?

Does it bring people together?

And the fifth and often the one that feels most important in some ways is,

Is it the right time to say this?

You know,

We may find that what we're about to say is truthful and kind and the intention is to be useful and to bring us all together,

But it is just the wrong time to speak.

And so I know a lot of teachers that actually start with timeliness of speech because even if it's true,

It might not be heard if it's spoken at the wrong time.

You know,

Or it could be truthful and kind,

Intended to bring people together,

But is it useful?

You know,

Sometimes for some people we can say like,

What is true?

And they're never going to change.

Like,

They're not gonna hear it.

So then we have to go inward and say,

So what is it?

Like,

What's the purpose of me continuing to speak about this?

Why exhaust yourself?

Why keep trying?

And that can be really upsetting when something is true and kind,

But it's just simply not received.

And that happens.

That happens in life.

So today it is truthfulness.

You know,

With a world that is seemingly running on alternative facts,

What is true and how we recognize the truth can be experienced kind of like a philosophical question.

But in a really simple way,

Like a simple understanding,

At the very minimum,

The truth involves an absence of lying,

Of deceit.

The absence of lying.

You know,

That's how we can identify the truth.

There is no intention.

There is no effort to deceive anybody with what we're about to say or what we're doing.

Because with deception,

We are clearly not speaking truthfully.

And one of the ways that I've been taught to strengthen our capacity for truthfulness is when we say something,

To follow it up immediately with the basis on what we think is true.

So,

You know,

Why do we think something is true?

So for example,

Rather than saying like,

Oh,

Today is a great day.

You know,

Today's been a great day.

We can say,

So today's been a great day for me.

This way,

We're saying what is true in our perception and our interpretation,

Rather than making this blanket statement for everyone.

So saying what the basis is for something,

It's based on something that you've directly experienced.

And I think Lily will kind of point to this a little bit more in how to bring this into conversation.

Because every experience is an interpretation and it's personal.

So if you make these caveats or explain,

You know,

For me,

In my perception,

It's no longer a declarative statement.

And then it's easier to participate in a conversation with other people.

In the five ethical precepts of this practice,

Right speech is not a dedication to truth,

But a dedication to not lying.

You know,

To not speak false words.

So false speech is speech which is intended to be misleading.

And it's actually easier to notice when we're intentionally,

Consciously trying to mislead somebody or to draw them into our point of view.

It's actually easier to see misleading communication within ourselves,

Then to recognize,

Well,

What is true?

Because it's not always clear what's true.

So my experience and understanding of speaking the truth is that it's a way of healing.

It's a way of growing.

In some ways,

It mends relationships.

We connect more deeply with people when we're truthful.

We connect more deeply with ourselves when we're truthful.

When we're deceitful,

We're actually creating barriers to connection.

I think that it's a big statement,

But I probably would say that it's true that there's really no spiritual growth,

No growth in the Dharma without a dedication to being truthful.

The truth is just that important.

So before speaking,

We ask ourselves the question,

Is this true?

Or how can I say what I want to say in a way that feels truthful to me?

You know,

It's a very powerful practice to do and an important one.

One of my teachers used to say that speaking the truth is mindfulness out loud.

Mindfulness out loud.

Mindfulness practice,

What we're doing here is continually,

It's kind of like a continual act of saying the truth to ourselves.

Like the truth of what is happening directly in our experience without deceiving ourselves.

It's honesty practice.

So you could be sitting and every aspect of emotion will come into your world.

Sleepiness,

Restlessness,

Doubt,

Boredom,

Wanting,

These all come.

And if we see them and just we're honest with them,

We name them,

We note them,

We're just seeing what's happening.

It's not a problem.

So being truthful and honest out loud is mindfulness out loud.

And when we bring attention to our speech,

We can feel and see when we want to lie or bend the truth in some way.

If that happens,

Then it's really a useful time to kind of look at ourselves like,

Huh,

What has me want to embellish here?

And take a really good look at what's happening with us.

What motivates the desire to lie?

What motivates being deceitful?

You know,

Often it's fear or maybe it's greed.

It can be anger or it can be about avoiding embarrassment or hiding from people so they don't know who we are or what we do.

It can be around trying to get what we want in the world.

What motivates deceit?

I think that we can really look outside of ourselves in some way at the larger culture right now to sort of ask that question.

What is the motivation for deceit for so many humans in the political realm?

And then also see and then turn the turn the focus on to ourselves and how is that true for our own experience?

How is that true for us?

What we're seeing?

It's a very powerful inquiry.

And the advantage of asking the question of what is motivating my desire to lie is that looking at our deeper motivations is such an important part of our practice.

It's kind of opening like a closed door into the world of delusion.

It's an opportunity to discover where we're attached,

What kind of sort of self-making we're involved with and what sort of delusion we might be living from.

This is such a big part of the Buddhist practice,

This deeper truth-telling.

They don't always advertise it in the flyers though,

Seeing our attachments,

Seeing our motivations and conditioning.

So rather than seeing our attachments as the bad news,

Which we often do,

We're actually identifying them in a way where we're just committed to being truthful with ourselves.

Seeing these parts of ourselves that are motivated to deceive or to get the advantage,

This is good news to see more parts of ourselves.

I offered this from my lived experience.

You know,

I lied a great deal before I came to practice as a way of hiding.

And I've had to develop and learn and heal in a deep way.

Like I've learned to heal in a deep way through the practice of truthfulness.

And it's amazing what opens up when we learn the art of telling the truth,

Because it is an art.

It takes some time and it's a skill worth learning.

So for this day ahead,

I encourage you to pay attention to what motivates your speech.

Why do you say what you say?

And pay attention in this way and you will learn a lot about yourself.

So thank you for your consideration.

Reviews

Superb as always 🌟 Thank you!

Thank you 😊