"When someone is not ashamed to tell a deliberate lie, there is no bad deed they would not do"

The Watercooler
21

Oke, that is the mundane Path, but i feel it is also important to see the limitations of reinforcing habits.

I feel this is important too:

“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”. (MN57)

23

A tsok offering consist of alcoholic drink would be a kind of “nectar” and not treated as something alcohol in vajrayana especially in Nyingmapa . Even if the Tulku himself is a monk , they dont break the precept , because they are suppose to visualise it as blessed nectar . But of course this is totally different from Theravada teachings . Maybe the samanera didnt understand the vajrayana teachings very well that he need to make visualisation (according to vajrayana), or he may need to disrobe first before engaging in vajrayana practice .

24

Tja, so all is wrong what i am saying? There is no point in it that one can be to strict in rules and attached to it? What you say rejects all i say?

27

That i have no way of knowing . He was a Yogi rinpoche not a monk rinpoche which clearly upholding precepts that quite different from vajrayana monks , not to mention other lineage vinaya . Perhaps he should know hinayana monks are not suppose to drink it in the first place and not to test someone lightly but instead to properly guides him on the path . Thats the role of a good teacher . From the perspective of Theravada , he already broke it .

28

Wow in what Sutta did the Buddha say this? In my understanding, telling a lie is a quality of the coward. Or they have wrong view that there is no afterlife. Thus you won’t be accountable for your actions and there is no repercussion in any kind of deed. So why not commit the worst of worse deed altogether? But even then killing your parents seem like a stretch to me. You probably don’t want to kill your own parents if there was no huge advantage in doing so, like if you’re member of a cult or you can access inheritance or something like that.

29

From the follow-up i notice that you apparantly quote Namkhai Norbu rinpoche when you write:

It is an anecdotal story and for me it really sounds all very strange. So, i question if it really took place this way. Were these really the literal words and deeds of the rinpoche?

For me this story leaves a bad impression of the teacher. And one would almost think that the monk disrobed because of this incident. It leaves a bad taste. Am i allowed to question this story? I feel i ama. Am i allowed to show my doubts about this story. Well, i do.
All taken together, i feel it would be proper to give some evidence that it really happened this way and these were the literal words and deeds of the teacher.

I shared this story with a friend dzogchen practioner , pupil of Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche and he cannot imagine it happened this way because it is not at all the style of rinpoche. So, i wonder, what did happen here?

31

This sutta: SuttaCentral

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33

Thanks. Maybe you can alter your reply of aug 5th a bit?
I feel, that reply leaves one with a bad impression of this teacher. It gives the impression those were the literal words of the teacher and you did not know this, and do still not know this.

Actually we still do not know what really happened on that occasion. Also not what his critique really was and how he presented this.
The suggestion in your reply of 5th aug. is that the teacher was quit unfriendly and brute against the monk. I feel your reply gives this impression.

It might have taken place in a respectful way.

If it took place in a very disrespectful way, the way you describe, the monk would probably remembered it too.

Thanks for verifying.

34

I have never killed anyone, but I have been telling a huge lie similar infact to Chandler Halderson for over 5 years now and I finally gave it up and came clean to my parents. Incidentally that morning I never woke up thinking its time to give it up but I had a very nice meditation sitting and the thought that I could die any minute and not even uphold the 5 precepts made me come forth.

I feel amazing now, I just feel so confident in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha and just generally feel like I am striving to be a good person. I am eternally grateful to the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

Going forward I am just trying to maintain constant mindfulness throughout the day and keep the five precepts. The stress and anxiety that I put myself through is just insane.

The lie and the stress was what drew me closer to Buddhism, but I suppose other people do not have the privilege of being born into a Buddhist family or even coming across the Dhamma. These are the many young men my age who commit mass shootings or suicide in their early 20’s.

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35

Stef

With all those examples you are talking about other people and their lies. I don’t think we should avoid people because they say lies (Within reason), but we should be more worried about what comes out from us.

Because we can’t control their mouths we can control ours.

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36

(The following post is a reaction to @NgXinZhao quoting the passage discussed here in another thread, and has been split off, so it is not a direct continuation of the previous discussion.)

Yes, that‘s one of the scriptural passages I find very hard to swallow. Taken literally, it means that if someone makes up nonsense stories for comedic effect, they‘re liable to kill their parents. Coming from an everyday understanding of human psychology, even informed by Buddhist psychology, this statement is such a stretch as to seem nonsensical. Taken to be „a slippery slope“, the statement would make more sense to me, but still, the „even for a joke“ part would take a lot of convincing exposition.
This is loosely related to my problems with the 7th precept, and I‘ll say again that no one has given a convincing answer here yet, so let me state the question in a somewhat confrontational manner with an implied wink (:wink:): Would you say that the fact that @sujato continues to write fictional stories, which are technically lies, means that he wouldn‘t shy away from any sort of immoral action?

Taking this further, while it‘s easy to determine the truth of a statement like „there‘s a coffee mug in my right hand“, the waters quickly get muddy when you take abstractions into account. What about a statement like „the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle“? Or, to take one from the other side of the shopping aisle of political ideology, „the will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished off its masterpiece so well that the object’s sense of freedom is actually flattered by the most thorough-going enslavement that has ever existed“?
How would you determine the truth or falsehood of these statements?

Closely connected to this is the problem of definition. Abstract terms are defined in different ways by different people at different times. Reading Aristotle, you‘ll find that our idea of liberal democracy is a recent invention. He saw democracy as a degenerated form of government where the rabble is led by demagogues. Not just through history, though, even between contemporary subcultures, definitions of abstract terms differ sharply. Many current „political“ dinner-table discussions clot around these differences in definition, chiefly because people lack the imagination to think that their reified concepts might not correspond to a metaphysical „true“ definition, but might, in fact, be wholly dependent on others‘ assent in order to be regarded as true.
Now, given all these complications of language and intersubjectivity, how would you deal with such a situation? How would you tell truth from falsehood?

Scripture aside, even if you disapprove of ironic statements, just taking them at face value without acknowledging their „authorial intent“ is an irritating strategy that can easily lead to misunderstandings.

Also, mods, please feel free to split this thread. I don‘t think I can do that on my own.

37

One doesn’t need to.

It’s clear from the Vinaya judgments issued by the Buddha in connection with the fourth pārājika rule that the determination that an utterance is or isn’t musāvāda has nothing to do with whether it communicates something factual or non-factual. It has solely to do with whether the speaker’s intention is to communicate something factual or non-factual. In other words, it hinges not upon what’s actually the case, but upon what the speaker believes to be the case.

And so if it’s not the case that „Die Geschichte der ganzen bisherigen Gesellschaft bewegte sich in Klassengegensätzen,“ but Marx nonetheless sincerely believes it to be so, then there’s no musāvāda, merely an error. On the other hand, if it is the case, but Marx believes it not to be so, then he commits musāvāda despite the factualness of his claim.

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38

Imho, I always thought that the meaning of that sutta was that if the precept of not-lying is liable to be broken, then all others are as well. In other words, if one doesn’t stick to the truth all the time, then their integrity has a price or limit. It doesn’t mean that they will break any precept, but rather that they may break them if the situation is strong enough. In normal daily contexts, I also don’t think that they will go so far as to kill their parents for any trivial reason, but in extreme scenarios bad actions may feel more tempting. Extreme cases were more common in the Buddha’s day than in modern, technological, safe, stable, and democratic societies. A person who lies to make jokes may not kill their loving parents. Why would they do that? But if they grew up in a tough neighborhood, in a violent family, and they are needing money, then the situation is another.

When we can resort to lies, it’s very difficult to fully follow the precepts because it’s easier to get rid of the bad consequences of bad actions. That is, feeling ashamed for doing what is bad is quite powerful to make us do the right thing even in hard moments, even when there’s a lot of money and power involved. If we always say the truth, there’s no way to seem a good person without being in fact a good person. Sticking to the truth even in jokes means that we are sticking to the truth literally all the time, even in casual moments. That’s really difficult, but one who does that is prepared when tough circumstances happen.

Also, fictional stories aren’t lies since they aren’t intended to deceive as @Mumfie said.

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39

In that case, would it mean that the lie for a joke part of MN61 would only apply to practical jokes or pranks? For example, making up a counterfactual scenario like „why did the chicken cross the road“ would be permissible because the intent isn‘t to deceive (or to convey factual information about a chicken‘s intentions, for that matter), but to amuse the listener, whereas shouting „there‘s a spider in your hair“ just to see someone freak out (besides being mean as hell) would be a lie in that sense?

Assuming that is the case: The thread I was responding to had OP posting a transcript of a chat with a new AI, which was clearly ridiculous, saying ironically that it „confirms rebirth“. Bhante @NgXinZhao, after some back and forth, then responded with MN61. I‘d maintain that it‘s not applicable since we can infer that OP‘s intention was not to deceive anyone.

Also, since text doesn‘t quite convey emotional tone, here’s another wink: :wink: I‘m not doing scripture lawyering here to „gotcha“ anyone, just trying to work stuff out more for myself than anything else.

That would be the „slippery slope“ interpretation I find believable. It sorta revolves around the definition of lie, though. Judging by intention rather than factuality, as the Vinaya rulings @Mumfie has referenced do, would allow for all the varieties of good-natured humor. It also seems to validate my misgivings about a restrictive interpretation of the 7th precept.

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40

It’s my view that the hassā musā of MN61 would apply only to prank scenarios. When one tries to give someone a scare by telling them they’ve got a big black spider crawling in their hair, one is speaking in jest, but one does wish the falsehood to be believed (for otherwise the prank won’t work) and so one’s intention is to communicate a falsehood.

By contrast, when one tells a funny but non-factual story about a bhikkhu, a priest and a rabbi going into a pub, or whatever, it wouldn’t be musāvāda spoken in jest, for not all of the factors of musāvāda are present. In particular, since one doesn’t expect the story to be taken as factual, the intention to communicate a falsehood is absent.

Having said that, I should note that Buddhaghosa seems to disagree with me in this matter. To judge from the examples he gives, an amusing but non-factual anecdote would in fact be hassā musā. One of his examples seems to be an ancient Indian version of what Americans call a “Yo mama…” joke:

A novice, hearing the yapping of hyenas, asks a bhikkhu, “What’s making that noise?” and the bhikkhu replies, “That’s the noise of those who are lifting the stuck-in-the-mud wheel of the carriage your mother’s going in.”
(translated by Ajahn Thanissaro in BMC I)

And the other I don’t really understand, but it also doesn’t seem to be of a prankish kind:

A novice asks a bhikkhu, “Have you seen my preceptor?” and the bhikkhu, teasing the novice, responds, “Your preceptor’s probably gone, yoked to a firewood-cart.”
(Ibid.)

:man_shrugging:

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41

The thought of iron-age Indian Yo Mama jokes is pretty funny :joy:
The other one is probably similar, comparing the preceptor to a beast of burden. I mean, they‘re undignified, certainly not the kind of humor I‘d expect from a bhikkhu, but as with all other counterfactual stories told with a different intention than deceit, calling them a lie is stretching it pretty thin. Bhante Thanissaro in his commentary seems to focus on the inappropriate nature of the jokes without following Buddhaghosa‘s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which would forbid any kind of storytelling, including the humorous cartoons Bhante himself is fond of.

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42

I have trouble telling ironic statements.

All the more so when I get tips that says normally if people is known to have this character but says things opposite of what they would normally say, then most likely that they are being ironic or sacarstic.

Given that this is a public forum and I dunno the person there, I cannot judge properly if it’s said in an ironic tone. Also most of the information in communication comes from body language and tone, which is lacking in text based forum like this.

Thus indeed, they should had used /s or something like that. Or else it’s assuming too much that people will not get fooled. There really are very stupid and deluded people out there so I cannot assume the intelligence level of strangers I have never interacted before.

Referral and context: Microsoft's new AI Chatbot confirms rebirth

In general, I would recommend not using ironic or sacarstic speech as it’s directly saying the opposite of what one means, and it can easily deceive people, even without the intention to deceive.

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43

Oh, I had assumed you knew it was meant to be ironic and chose to disregard it. My mistake.
I do agree with you, layers of meaning often get lost in communication, and it‘s good practice to be as clear as possible when talking to a general audience. I‘d still maintain that MN61 doesn‘t apply in our case, though.

44

I have heard that there is a Chinese saying "“That man is without embarrassment”.

Having no thought of others such a person without civility has no thought of the customs or concerns of others. Another word that comes to mind is Sociopath, albiet that word is rejected by the mental health community.

46

I have thought again about this issue in the past few days. What prompted this reflection was Jordan Peterson of all people, since for the first time I watched some of his videos (I had heard of him before but I never was interested enough to find out what he has to say).
I must say that thanks to him I understand more deeply why it’s so bad to lie: as far as I understand one of his messages is that even though initially you may think that you are in control when you lie; with time the opposite happens and it’s lying that takes control of your mind and the way you think and behave. For example one podcaster said that Musk now that he’s rich and comfortable can speak his mind safely and Peterson replied that this is not true; Musk speaks his mind now because he has always done it and he contrasted this to say academics who put up with so much bs and tell themselves that once they will be in a more powerful position they will speak up, but in the end they never do because they have conditioned themselves to be liers or at any rate to put up and tolerate so much bs.
So my understanding is that lying is bad first and foremost because it transforms your mind once it becomes a habit and will make you see the world in a distorted way. I think that’s why Plato wrote that a philosopher must be someone who doesn’t lie (even in petty things) is sofar as they are lovers of truth.

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