A question about lying

[Javier6]

Hi, hope you’re doing fine!

Imagine this: you’re about to organize a surprise party for a fellow, but in order not to reveal any details, you lie about what you’re doing, saying something like this: “today is a normal day; nothing interesting is about to happen…”

Yeah, you lie. My question is this, in moments like that, is it OK to do so? Since I started this journey on Buddhism, it has been crystal-clear that lying constitutes an unskillful deed, no matter how small or big, light or heavy is that lie. But again, in moments like my silly example above is fine?

I hope to hear from you!

[Khemarato.bhikkhu]

@Javier6

today is a normal day

It is a normal day though. The sun still shines and the birds still chirp…

@Javier6

nothing interesting is about to happen…”

If my friend told me this, I’d instantly know something was up! Just act natural!

[Pasanna]

Personally I’d just use distraction.

If someone asked what I was doing, I’d say ‘I might go for a walk later if the weather is suitable/cooler/warmer’. It’s a might and I can probably manage a walk around the block.

Like Ven KheRa said, it sounds kinda suspicious otherwise

[Mkoll]

Silence is an option. Or changing the subject. Or speaking in generalities. Or telling a joke. Lots of ways to avoid lying in the innocuous situation you described.

[thomaslaw]

@Javier6

But again, in moments like my silly example above is fine?

No, it is certainly not fine to lie: “today is a normal day; nothing interesting is about to happen…”

[Jasudho]

Hi,

While it’s never without some negative kamma to intentionally lie, there are circumstances in which practitioners who have not yet realized Stream-Entry or beyond may face situations in which the intention to lie is mixed with an intention for kindness or compassion.

Rather than relatively lightweight issues about parties, what if someone with a knife was chasing a child running away from them? You see the child turn left to hide in a building. The attacker runs up to you, says he saw you and the child near each other and asks if the child ran into that building.

Any response other than a non-lie obviously could lead to great harm or death to the child. I suppose just standing there and shrugging might work, but the attacker might run into the suspected building.

So maybe you lie and misdirect. Not bright kamma, yet mixed with a good intention for safety. This is called kamma that is mixed dark and bright. A sutta that teaches about this is MN57:

““Puṇṇa, I declare these four kinds of deeds, having realized them with my own insight. What four?

1. There are dark deeds with dark results;

2. bright deeds with bright results;

3. dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results; and

4. neither dark nor bright deeds with neither dark nor bright results, which lead to the ending of deeds. These are the intentions associated with the noble eightfold path.”

Also see AN4.233:

“And what are dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results? It’s when someone makes both hurtful and pleasing choices by way of body, speech, and mind. Having made these choices, they are reborn in a world that is both hurtful and pleasing, where hurtful and pleasing contacts strike them. Touched by both hurtful and pleasing contacts, they experience both hurtful and pleasing feelings that are a mixture of pleasure and pain—like humans, some gods, and some beings in the underworld. These are called dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results.

And what are neither dark nor bright deeds with neither dark nor bright results, which lead to the ending of deeds? It’s the intention to give up dark deeds with dark results, bright deeds with bright results, and both dark and bright deeds with both dark and bright results. These are called neither dark nor bright deeds with neither dark nor bright results, which lead to the ending of deeds.”

So we incline as best we can towards giving up intentions towards the first three kinds of deeds. But along the way we’re probably involved, to greater or lesser degrees, in “the grey” zone of both dark and bright. (Recall that these deeds/intentions involve more than only telling a lie).

[Pasanna]

We have to remember that ‘dark and bright deeds with dark and bright results’ isn’t grey deeds with grey results. It’s still got dark results. Using speech that deliberately misleads is a dark deed with a dark result - making your speech less trustworthy.

[Jasudho]

Thank you, Venerable.

I agree that deliberately lying is a dark deed. What I meant was that if it was together with an intention/deed that’s wholesome, such as compassion, it appears to be kamma dark and bright.

This is not to excuse lying by rationalizing reasons to do it.
Just in some instances, the intentions may be mixed – which I labeled “grey”. Perhaps this is a mistake. The point being that compared to lying for malicious reasons, telling a falsehood to preserve life might have mixed karmic results, i.e. “grey.”

Actually, I was recalling this from Ven. Brahmali:

@Brahmali

Most rebirth involves grey kamma. The kamma that leads to animal rebirth, for instance, is grey, but a darker shade of grey than the kamma that leads to human rebirth. As for the devas, it all depends on the level of rebirth. As you move up the cosmological hierarchy, the kamma needed to get reborn in any particular realm is a progressively lighter shade of grey. And the kamma that leads to rebirth in the brahmāloka (the rebirth equivalent of the jhānas) is entirely white.

What do you think?

[Pasanna]

I don’t think that there is grey kamma. The buddha is very clear that there are good deeds with good results and bad deeds with bad results. That’s what the sutta you quoted above says. Yes, we do a mixture of both in the human realm and therefore receive the results of both the good and the bad. The human realm is where both dark and bright deads reach fruition. Whereas the hell realms are where bad deeds ripen. So I don’t agree with Ajahn Brahmali

With the example you gave of lying to plan a party. You have the good deeds of doing something for your friend and the bad deed of lying each of these will have their results. One might be people thinking you are good at organising parties, the other might be your friend not thinking that your word is so reliable. As I see it, they’re two seperate results.

[Jasudho]

Thank you.

Just to say, I didn’t use the example of lying to arrange a party, which was offered by the OP. My example was of telling a falsehood to help save a child’s life.

But I see your point. It appears to be a question of whether a particular deed can combine bright and dark intentions or whether deeds are either dark or bright and only the sum can be labeled dark-and-bright. I incline to the former, imho, while also understanding that the sum of vipaka gives directionality to the next rebirth.

From Ven. Thanissaro:

“…(i) dark with a dark result,
(ii) bright with a bright result,
(iii) dark and bright with a dark and bright result,
(iv) neither dark nor bright with a neither dark nor bright result.

Dark (evil) kamma does not give a bright (happy) result, nor does bright (beneficial) kamma lead to dark (miserable) result. Kamma can be mixed, where an action is done with a variety of motives, some good, some evil.”

Just for discussion here’s another thread that I recall regarding this:

On deeds of war both bright and dark

The Buddha offered us a logical framework, the tetralemma, for unpacking the troubling morality of war. It clarifies not just the ethics of war, but the limits of ethics as well. In doing so, it offers a more nuanced and sophisticated perspective than the so-called “just war” doctrine that has so fascinated theorists of European traditions. Buddhism does not “lack” a just war doctrine; rather, it refuses to be drawn into the errors of thought that make such a doctrine necessary. But first let m…

Not trying to force the issue here! Just sharing different understandings.

I appreciate getting different perspectives on this.

[Pasanna]

Oops, sorry for mixing you up with Javier. I just saw the big J and was not attending to details.

The essay from Bhante Sujato is the kind of nuance i was suggesting. Thanks for reminding me of it.

[Jasudho]

Thank you for sharing, Venerable.