So,
We've been exploring the 10 Paramis,
The 10 Perfections,
And these are qualities,
These are qualities of character that we develop and they support our daily life.
The emphasis is on developing these strengths within us,
How we are in the world,
How we are in community.
And today's topic is truthfulness,
Being honest.
In some ways,
I experience mindfulness practice,
Awareness practice,
As really honesty practice.
We're learning to be honest with ourselves.
The willingness to see the way things are honestly,
Straightforward.
Truthfulness leads to freedom,
In a sense.
In the story of the Buddha's death,
It said that as he was dying,
He turned to those around him and he said something to the effect of,
Make yourself a light.
Make yourself a light,
Like a lamp in the darkness,
You know.
It doesn't matter how long the darkness has been there.
As soon as you turn on the lamp,
It's illuminated,
Whatever was in the dark is illuminated and it shows the way things are.
So this statement,
I find inspiring because it points to our capacity for self-honesty,
To be able to illuminate the dark places within ourselves,
To tell the truth.
Even perhaps when we're not able to say it out loud,
And even though it might be difficult to see the truth.
One of the characteristics of a wise person,
Which is what Lish talked about a couple of weeks ago,
Is a wise person is always truthful with themselves.
Able to recognize what's happening,
Even if it's not necessarily good news about themselves,
You know.
Being truthful tends to strengthen clarity and clear seeing.
When we're not truthful,
There's tension.
There is tension in lying.
There is tension when we embellish,
And there is tension in fabrication.
And it's like a form,
In a sense,
Of protecting ourselves in some way,
Kind of like hiding.
And the consequences are that it prevents the wholesome qualities within our heart to really to flow fully.
It's like we've put it,
We've dammed up parts of ourselves.
This is from the writer Michael Ventura.
He wrote,
The people that you have to lie to own you.
The things you have to lie about own you.
When your children see you owned,
They are not your children anymore.
They are the children of what owns you.
If money owns you,
They are the children of money.
If your need for pretense and illusion owns you,
They are the children of pretense and illusion.
If your fear of loneliness owns you,
They are the children of loneliness.
If your fear of the truth owns you,
They are the children of fear of the truth.
I appreciate this,
You know,
The consequences of not being able to tell the truth to ourselves is that we can't live with the real courage and wisdom of life.
And sometimes,
You know,
Sometimes the truth is really uncomfortable.
In my own experience,
You know,
I had an avoidant relationship with truth before I came to practice.
I wasn't raised in a family that valued truth.
My father was a dishonest man in most of his dealings.
I remember clearly that he used to turn the electric meter on the side of our house upside down after the meter reader would come so that he could control the electricity bill.
He would flip it so that it would run backwards.
He was always kind of looking for ways to screw over the system,
You know,
To get away with breaking the laws.
And he was really proud of his scamming.
You know,
The message growing up was don't trust anyone and figure out a way to get ahead by whatever means possible.
So I equated the truth with being vulnerable and being weak.
And there was no way that I was going to be vulnerable.
So I lied.
I hid my truth and my shame and my fear until I came to practice.
And the truth that brought me to practice was that I was an alcoholic and I finally admitted it to myself.
I finally saw it.
And my life started to change.
And once I faced that truth,
It was easier in a way to look at the lies.
It took a while.
But now I can say that the parami of truthfulness is the highest value to me.
So rather than dwelling with the discomfort,
The encouragement is to understand the tremendous value and importance of our capacity to see clearly what's happening,
To see things as they are,
Including what is difficult.
And as we do this,
We start to experience truth as freedom.
When I first stopped drinking,
I was practicing at Green Gulch Farm,
A Zen center in Northern California.
And I was also working as a paralegal for a San Francisco law firm.
And I lied.
I lied to get the job.
I said that I went to Australia where I had lived for several years,
But I didn't go to college when I was there.
The truth was that I dropped out of high school and moved to Australia.
So for four years in my career,
I was just kind of winging it and I figured things out.
But then the law firm said their policies needed to kind of get audited.
And so they asked for a copy of my college transcripts for their records.
Well,
I didn't have one.
And I was practicing meditation now,
So I wasn't going to live a lie anymore.
So I told the truth.
I told the truth.
I said I lied to get this job.
I don't have a college degree.
And I resigned because I was ashamed.
And to my surprise,
They wanted me to stay and they wanted to figure out a way to help me.
But my shame was deep.
And I experienced freedom from the lie and I wanted to be free.
I was free finally to leave.
I was free to then get my GED and finish high school.
And then I was free to go on to college at UC Berkeley.
And this is what I did.
So these kinds of experiences,
These kinds of truths,
They're a wonderful foundation for knowing ourselves.
Knowing ourselves well enough that we can change.
When we need to speak the truth out loud to the world,
We can know ourselves enough,
You know,
That we don't have hostility towards ourselves.
We can be and say the truth with an open heart and an open mind.
When we know ourselves,
We have the courage to do it.
We're no longer caught or influenced by our fears.
Sure,
They might be there,
But they're not running the show.
So this idea of discovering the truth,
Being with the truth and knowing ourselves,
What is true for ourselves,
It has been a powerful and liberating force in me.
And I think it can be a powerful and liberating force within all of us.
You know,
In our practice and in our minds,
We have what amounts to like the truth and reconciliation committee.
You know,
We sit with ourselves.
We meditate and we practice truth and reconciliation.
Truth and compassion for what we see.
So this seventh parami of truth,
The more patient we can be,
The more we can take time to discover what is true.
And as that happens,
We see that the truth truly is what sets us free.
It's a certain kind of power.
And that certain kind of power is what we'll explore next week or actually on Thursday with Lish.
So thank you for your attention.
