LTF 14: The First Two of the Four Destructive Actions of Speech

The first of the destructive actions of speech is lying. Lying can involve either denying something that we have actually seen, heard, or generally experienced with our senses or have known with mental consciousness. This also includes claiming to have seen, heard, experienced or known something when we have not. That’s the actual definition. Basically, if we have actually seen something, lying would be to say that we haven’t; and if we haven’t seen something, it would be to say that we have. The same thing goes with the other ways of knowing. 

Lying includes knowingly misleading others with false information – giving them wrong information, purposely giving bad advice or incorrect teachings, slandering others by denying their qualities or inventing faults, or even telling what we called in English “small, white lies,” which we think do no apparent harm to anyone. Slandering others by denying their qualities or inventing faults, especially when that concerns a Buddha, our spiritual teacher or our parents, and lying to our spiritual teachers or our parents is especially serious. The heaviest lie is usually when those who have vows – monks and nuns – lie about their spiritual attainments. That’s the heaviest in terms of the lying. 

The Basis

The basis has to be a person who is capable of understanding us when we lie. If we say something to somebody who doesn’t understand our language or who, for whatever reason, doesn’t understand what we say, the action is not complete. The person has to understand our lie. 

Participant: Body language, too, no?

Dr Berzin: It could be with body language. 

Motivating Mental Framework –Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion

When the urge arises to speak or gesture – we can communicate with a gesture, like with a shake of the head or something like that – we have to be unmistaken about the fact that what we are about to indicate doesn’t accord with the truth. In other words, we have to be certain about what’s factual and then purposely alter it. If we’re unsure about something or say something incorrect that we thought was correct, that’s not a lie. 

Participant: If we’re unsure, but we still indicate…

Dr Berzin: Well, if you’re unsure and you know that you’re unsure, but you say that you are sure about whatever it is, that’s a lie. However, if you say, “I am unsure about it; I think this is the way it is,” and this turns out to be wrong – that’s not a lie. Or if you explain something that you thought was correct and later you find out that it wasn’t, that’s not a lie, either. You have to know that it’s incorrect. You have to know what’s correct and then purposely indicate something that’s incorrect. 

The motivating intention has to be aiming to lie, to say what is untrue. And that intention has to be accompanied by one of the three poisonous attitudes. We could lie out of attachment and greed in order to get wealth or power by, for instance, claiming that we have qualities that you don’t have and this sort of thing. We could lie out of hostility in order to ruin the reputation of somebody that we don’t like or in order to deceive an enemy. We could also lie out of naivety – for instance, thinking that it’s amusing and that there’s nothing wrong with telling a lie. But, of course, there’s the old adage that if we lie too much, we’ll soon start to believe our own lies and be unable to tell the difference between what’s true and what’s false. And, of course, what happens as a result of this is that nobody believes us.

It’s interesting that sometimes we lie just as a joke. If the other person is very gullible, then we say something that is completely wrong just as a joke. And if they believe it, we laugh – “Ha, ha, ha.” That falls into the category of both a lie and meaningless chatter. 

Implementation of a Method

The method we use to lie could be expressing our lie verbally, out loud, in writing, or even nonverbally by a gesture. It could also be causing somebody to lie for us. Another method could be simply remaining silent. If somebody says, “You are so kind; you must be a saint,” and you just remain silent and smile – that’s a lie. 

Participant: When he says you are a saint, that’s also often a lie.

Dr Berzin: Right! But the appropriate thing is to say, “No, I’m not like that at all.” And then you punch them or something to demonstrate that you are not a saint… But then I just lied, by saying, “Then you punch them to prove that you are not a saint.” 

Finale

It’s actually very easy to lie, except that the act of lying only reaches its finale when the other person understands and believes what we say. Otherwise, the words are just idle chatter. For it to be a lie, the other person has to believe it; they have to be fooled. 

In the vinaya, the texts on the rules of discipline, it says that, although it’s a negative action to lie, there are certain situations when “necessity overrules the prohibition,” which is the way that it’s referred to technically. This can be, for instance, when it involves saving a life. The classic example is that you see a deer running, and then some hunters come up to you and ask, “Did you see the deer? Which way did it go?” What do you say in that situation? It says in the vinaya that there is a difference between lying and not offering the truth. So, you don’t always have to give information. This is actually a very important lesson to learn. Some people in some cultures give far more information than is necessary or helpful in a given situation. So, if the hunters ask if you saw the deer, you can say, “I just got here,” or “I am just on my way to such and such a place,” or you can evade the question by making up some long, crazy story. The purpose, of course, is to delay the hunters from their chase. 

The classic example of this is when the people from Tibet came to India to invite Atisha to come to Tibet. When they were asked, “Why did you come here?” they answered, “Oh, we have come to invite Atisha to Tibet.” Then they were warned, “Don’t say that because if you do, if you tell the truth about why you’ve come, it’s going to cause a lot of obstacles and interferences. Then you won’t be able to invite Atisha to Tibet.” So, sometimes you have to go around the question in the sense that you don’t necessarily say the truth. You don’t have to lie, but you also don’t have to give all of the correct information, either. Tibetans are quite good at that.

Participant: What if, in a conversation, you direct the interaction in such a way that the person will not ask the right questions and so will not find something out – something that might be important for this person? 

Dr Berzin: But the point here is that it’s for a good purpose: you’re trying to save the life of the deer.

Participant: What if it’s for your own benefit? 

Dr Berzin: If it’s for your own benefit? It’s always questionable, if it’s for a selfish aim. But it depends on what you’re doing with your life – if you’re using your life in a beneficial way to help others. One has to look at it case by case. I’m thinking of when, in America, people refuse to answer questions in a legal trial by saying, “I don’t want to incriminate myself,” which obviously indicates that they are guilty; otherwise, they wouldn’t say that. But one has to see. If you’ve committed a crime and then go around denying it, that would be a lie. These are  classic examples, though –saving the life of a deer or saving the life of Jews that you were hiding during the war. If you actually tell a lie, you would experience some negative effects. If you just don’t tell the truth by not offering information – that’s not a lie. 

In general, I think it’s always good advice to just give as much information as is necessary, as much as is required in the situation, and not to give information that is unnecessary. As I said, in some cultures, people give far more information than is necessary. Americans, for example, find it very strange (myself included) the custom here in Germany, and I think elsewhere in Europe as well, that when you answer the telephone, you give your name. In America, you would never do that. Never, ever do that; that’s really forbidden. Why? Because you’d get all sorts of cranks that would bother you by making endless telephone calls. Or if somebody wants to murder you or steal from you or something like that and they know that you’re home, that would give them the chance to come and get you. America is the land of paranoia, remember. They would know that you’re there. So, you don’t say who it is. 

Participant: “Hello. I’m not home.”

Dr Berzin: Well, you just don’t say who you are. 

A lot of people in America always have the answering machine answer. When they hear who’s speaking, they can decide whether to pick up or not. You see that in American movies all the time, don’t you? I’m just saying that Americans find this custom strange. 

Participant: Who was it in this story about Atisha who warned the people not to say they wanted to invite Atisha to Tibet?

Dr Berzin: It was an emanation of Avalokiteshvara who said, “Don’t give all of the information. You are going to cause obstacles.” That’s actually fairly good advice for when you have plans for anything. It’s not good to announce your plans because, often, they don’t work out. Then you look like a fool. Announcing your plans prematurely and advertising them just causes obstacles. Tibetans believe that very strongly. 

Participant: Sometimes it can help, though. For example, if I plan to change my apartment, if I tell people, then someone might say, “Oh, I can help with something.”

Dr Berzin: There’s a difference between saying, “I am planning to move,” and saying “I am looking for an apartment.” If you give an announcement, let’s say, of news on my website about a certain thing is going to come up in a certain month and then it doesn’t happen – it gets delayed and delayed – it would have been better not to have announced anything. It can cause obstacles. So, one doesn’t announce. Much better. 

What about if somebody asks us a question like, “How do you like my new dress?”? Or they cook us a meal and ask, “How do you like it?” Do we tell the truth if it is really going to really hurt their feelings? 

Participant: We can always find an alternative, like “It’s a very nice color,” or “I can see you put a lot of effort into cooking that.”

Participant: If you answer like that, it’s pretty clear what you really mean.

Participant: I think it’s better than saying it directly.

Dr Berzin: “Boy, do you look ugly today.” 

Participant: I always use the word “interesting” if I don’t like something.

Dr Berzin: Well, in America that is the worst thing that you could say. For example, we’re television critics and someone asks, “How did you like the television program?” and we answer, “It was interesting…” Well, what do we say?

Participant: But saying something about someone’s dress or that kind of thing – you can always find something nice to say.

Dr Berzin: Right. You can find something that is nice. Maybe, though, it would help the person more if you told them, “It doesn’t compliment you very well to wear that particular style.” 

Participant: That really depends on the person.

Dr Berzin: It depends on the person and the relationship.

Participant: And how openly you can speak to them. 

Dr Berzin: Right. “The meal, basically, was very good. It was a little bit too much salt for my taste, but other than that, it was really good.” You can get around these things in some sort of way. If they serve you something that you really don’t like, you can say, “I’m not very hungry,” or “I don’t care for this type of food,” or “This food doesn’t agree with me.”

Participant: “I am on a diet.”

Dr Berzin: “I’m on a diet…” Well, is that a lie? 

Participant: You could get served this every week.

Participant: But then one can say, “I don’t like this.” I think this is acceptable.

Dr Berzin: In most situations, it’s acceptable to say that you don’t like it. But if it’s the whole meal and there’s nothing else – that’s awkward. So, I think that in that situation, you just eat a little bit of it – it’s not going to kill you – and then leave most of it, saying something like “I’m not very hungry. I can’t eat too much of it.” That’s not a lie. 

These are these awkward situations. Is it a lie or is it not a lie? Somebody is talking to you endlessly on the telephone – what do you say to stop the conversation? “I’ve got to go now.” Do you really have to go now? 

Participant: You want to continue working. It’s sometimes hard to say, “I would like to continue working now.”

Participant: It could be the weekend and you don’t have anything special, so you are just relaxing.

Dr Berzin: The example that we are thinking of here is of somebody who, if you let them, will speak to you for two hours on the telephone and not say anything important – just sort of idle chatter. 

Participant: Well, you could be honest about how you actually feel. You could possibly say “I’m getting tired” or something.

Dr Berzin: Well, again, I think it depends very much on the relationship that you have with that person. I have some friendships where we are very honest with each other. If they say, “I don’t really feel like talking,” or “I’m not in the mood to talk now. Let’s speak another time,” the other person honors it. So, it really depends. But it’s a tricky thing – this whole issue of lying and then also being diplomatic and not saying something that will hurt the other person’s feelings. You can always make a little bit of a joke: “How do you like this dress?” You can say, “Do you want my honest opinion, or do you want me to just say something that you’d like to hear?” 

Participant: This is also a big issue in Asia, I think. That’s why they have all these kind of cultural behaviors. For example, basically right from the beginning, you never say your real opinion about something. There’s always the danger that you might hurt somebody’s feelings, so you should just not do it.

Dr Berzin: Right. In Asia that’s very true. You can’t cause the other person to lose face by criticizing them and these sorts of things. I learned that with the Tibetans, for example. Despite all the teachings on accepting criticism and seeing the person who criticizes you as the teacher and so on, most Tibetans are unable to take criticism. They really get very upset about that. So, you don’t criticize a Tibetan. If they are doing something that is not working or that you think is not good, you don’t say that, but you act in a very Tibetan way, which is to request them to do something else. Requesting them to do whatever it is in another way is an indirect way of criticizing without causing them to lose face. 

For instance, if a Tibetan teacher is giving examples of the Dharma in terms of yak caravans and things that Western people can’t relate to, you could request, “Could you please give an example from our modern situation here in the West?” rather than to say to them, “This is ridiculous. You are giving examples that we can’t relate to.”

Participant: Tibetans can’t take criticism even from their own teacher?

Dr Berzin: From their own teacher? Well, that can be different. Tibetan teachers can be very heavy in terms of scolding their students. That’s different. So, again, it depends on your relationship with the other person. It’s like with a Tibetan cook. Tibetans are very happy to eat exactly the same meal every night of their life, a noodle soup called thukpa. You don’t say to the cook, “Oh, come on, this is ridiculous. Why are you always making the same thing?” You could request, “This evening, could you make this?” and you tell them your request. 

The next destructive action of speech is using divisive language. Divisive language means to say something that will either cause a harmonious party to split up or to cause those who are not harmonious with each other to hate each other even more, to become even further estranged. In general, it’s to cause disunity and unfriendly feelings by what you say.  

The Basis

The basis has to be a group of two or more people who are either close to each other or who are already hostile toward each other. What is considered really very heavy here is causing a split between a disciple and their spiritual teacher or causing a split within the monastic community.

Motivating Mental Framework – Unmistaken Distinguishing, Motivating Intention, Motivating Emotion

When the urge arises to say our divisive words, we need to distinguish correctly the parties involved and their feelings toward each other. We have to know for certain that they are either friends or that they are hostile toward each. Additionally, our intention must be to stir up trouble and to cause disunity or to cause further discord, further disharmony, and that intention must be accompanied by one of three poisonous emotions or attitudes. 

So, with attachment or desire, we could try to cause the separation between a husband and  wife in order to take get one of them for ourselves – so, to try to cause a divorce. With hostility, we could try to cause disharmony among our enemies, as in the policy of “divide and conquer.” With naivety, we could try to cause disunity among followers of a certain religion in order to convert them to what we, from our own limited point of view, think is best for them. For example, we could say bad things about a Western religion to somebody who believes in it in order to cause them to give it up and become a Buddhist. That is divisive language. That’s improper. Basically, what is involved here is saying bad things to one person about the other person or group of people. 

Implementation of a Method

The method we use to cause disunity among friends or to prevent reconciliation among enemies is to say something bad about the other party. What we say could either be true or false. Also, it’s equally negative if we make somebody else do it for us. 

Finale

The act reaches its finale when the people involved understand and believe what we say and, as a consequence, become hostile toward each other or even more hostile than they were before. 

Participant: Does this include someone who speaks badly about a group of people that you are neutral about? For example, you have never been to Iran, and you don’t know anything about them, and the person starts saying bad things about Iranians.

Dr Berzin: I think that would also be considered divisive language. 

Participant: What about warning somebody about the dangers of taking drugs by telling them how bad the drug dealers are and what a bad influence they would be?

Dr Berzin: First of all, divisive language has to do with a group of people. So, for instance, warning somebody about the dangers of taking drugs – that’s not really divisive language. 

Participant: But what if you warn friends or some other a group?

Dr Berzin: Warning them against drug dealers, warning them against people who could be bad influences on them, and so on… Well, this gets into a whole long discussion because that’s a really difficult point with this particular destructive action. Let’s say that somebody is following a misleading teacher or has a very destructive group of friends that is misleading them, leading them into crime and stuff like that – maybe your child is hanging out with this type of people – do you say something? That’s a delicate issue. 

I think that the issue here of whether or not the act of divisive language is complete has to do with the motivation – for one, whether or not the motivating emotion is a disturbing emotion. Let’s say that there are people who are following a misleading teacher, and you make a website saying a lot of really bad things about that teacher – which, as it says, could be true or false, but that doesn’t make any difference. If your motivation is really dislike and hatred of that teacher (so, there is a very disturbing emotion behind the action) because you were hurt by them or something like that – so, you want to get even by getting back at that teacher – you’d have to say that this is divisive language. In this case, it becomes a complete act of divisive language – provided, of course, that all the other factors are there in full. 

If your motivation is compassion – so, it’s not that you dislike that teacher or that you want to get those students away from that teacher and to have them for yourself – then, although it causes a division, it’s not so heavy. It’s like when Buddha killed the potential assassin of so many people – it was still slightly negative, but the positive motivation made the result of the negative action very slight, very minor. So, I think you’d have to say that it would be the same case here, even if the division you caused was between a student and their teacher. 

I think what’s always best is when somebody actually asks you, “What do you think of this teacher? I’ve been following this teacher,” and so on. If they ask you, you’re in a much better situation than if you try to force yourself on them. But even if they ask you, and even if this teacher is really misleading, really doing a lot of negative things, you have to carefully watch your motivation, your state of mind, when saying negative things. What is your aim? Is it to cause the other person to leave this misleading teacher? Or is your aim to give this person information so that then they can decide, and if they decide to stay with the teacher, you’d be fine with that? Again, for the action to be complete, not only do you have to be motivated by a disturbing emotion, you also have to really intend to cause them to have bad feelings toward this teacher and to leave them. 

Now, what about your child hanging out with criminals and drug dealers or gangs? 

Participant: I’m also thinking of examples of women who get beaten by their boyfriends or their husbands. Their partners always get drunk and beat them. But they are emotionally dependent on these persons. They get beaten and then run away, but then they go back because they also depend on this person. So, it goes on and on. I saw a situation like this, and really wanted to say, “Please, don’t go back.” In this situation, I really wanted to divide these people. I really wanted to say, “Don’t go back to him.”

Dr Berzin: So, is it destructive to want to get her to stop and not to go back again? Again, I think a lot depends on the motivating emotion – whether it is compassion or really dislike of the drunken husband and anger toward him. It’s hard. Are you going to advice somebody to get a divorce? This is that type of situation. As I say, even if you advise that they divorce, you want to advise the person not to have hatred toward the other person. It depends on how you say it. You could say, “Look, not only would it be best for you to leave that relationship, it would be best for the other person as well for the relationship to end.” A lot, I think, really depends on our emotional motivation. 

Participant: But in this case, it’s really also being upset with this person who always gets drunk and beats her. He treats her really badly… cheats on her, also. I don’t like that. I don’t like that guy. 

Dr Berzin: Well, we don’t like that guy. When somebody is like that… I remember what the young Serkong Rinpoche had me write in the guest book of the holocaust museum in Washington DC. He had me write that he saw all of these horrible things that were done to the Jews and that it was very helpful for him to have more and more compassion. “But don’t forget,” he said, “one also needs to have compassion for Hitler and the people who did these things because they were not bad people. What they did was bad; they themselves are not bad people.” So, again, the conduct of this husband that’s abusing his wife is improper – that’s bad. But if one is really following the Buddhist path, one would differentiate the conduct from the person. Not easy.

Participant: Do you really think that it’s better that this wife separates from this husband?

Dr Berzin: It would be better. It would be better. But it also would be better for him because he’s building up more and more negative karma. What I’m saying is that one tries to have compassion for the abuser as well if one wants to develop compassion in the full, constructive and proper way. It’s not easy. Absolutely not easy. 

Participant: So, any division of any kind is regarded as karmically…

Dr Berzin: Causing division…

Participant: Even in a case like this, when…

Dr Berzin: Well, causing division. As we we’ve been saying all along, the karmic consequences are going to be light or heavy depending on how many of these factors are there. And it’s a point that’s debated – whether or not actions in and of themselves destructive? What makes something destructive? Are things naturally destructive just from the point of view of the action – like killing? Usually, the answer is that, yes, the action in itself is destructive. But it’s a very difficult point when the action is dividing someone from a very bad influence. I think the key here is, as I said, to differentiate the bad conduct from the bad person and to be willing to take the consequences of whatever might come from doing something destructive, like Buddha did. 

But it is very difficult, even when somebody asks us advice. I know this from experience because I’m asked advice very frequently. What do I think of this teacher? What do I think of that teacher? I try to give them an honest evaluation, but when they ask about teachers that I think are not very well qualified, it’s not so easy to give an objective account without having some sort of emotion there. 

You can, for instance, say, as I’ve sometimes said, “What you do is your own business, but I personally would avoid such a teacher because of this reason and that reason.”
That’s one way around it. However, this is dealing with spiritual teachers. As I said, it’s more difficult when your teenage child is hanging out with criminals. Do you say something that will be divisive? Usually, if it’s a teenage child, the more divisive things that you say, the worse it will be. They’ll just do the opposite to rebel. Especially if you don’t like the boyfriend or girlfriend of your teenage child, to say something that will cause them to break up never works. So, how do you get your child to break from these negative influences? That’s very difficult. Very, very difficult. 

I was speaking with a friend of mine who’s a psychiatrist who deals with adolescents that have this type of problem. She was speaking about how parents are very often enablers. They enable the child to act like that by tolerating the behavior, letting them stay at home while still taking drugs, going out with gangs, and so on, and all the while, they keep supporting them in the name of, “Well, I love my child.” Then, of course, anything they say to the child about not hanging out with these bad friends, these misleading friends, of course doesn’t work. She was saying that the best advice in that case, is to kick the child out. You have to be willing to let go of the child; it’s your attachment that is enabling the child to continue their behavior. The danger, of course, is that the child will then go and really become a criminal. But in many cases, it’s a very sharp slap in the face of reality – that if they want support, a free place to live, food, and things like that, they need to shape up. She was saying that this is the only thing that really works and that very often, a big part of the problem is the parents. But you have to be very tough. Most parents are not willing to do this. 

As we can see with all of these destructive actions, and although we are going very slowly, these are not easy points. There are always situations in which we really need to use our discrimination between what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. If, in a situation, we need to do something that is destructive by nature, then we try to minimize the heaviness of it, like in the situation of using divisive language to separate somebody from an abusive or criminal relationship. In these cases, we at least try not to cause harm to the other person involved; in fact, we’re benefiting the other person by doing that. That also factors into the heaviness or lightness of the karmic results for ourselves. It really requires quite a lot of analysis and discrimination to determine how to act. We have to really examine carefully because we often don’t know what’s going to be of benefit.

I’m thinking of the example of divorces in which one parent tells the child bad things about the other parent in order to get that child not to like the other parent and not to be with the other parent. This is often because the one who is saying the bad things thinks that it would be more beneficial for the child not to have the influence of the other parent. But again, that could be, on the one hand, naivety. On the other hand, it could be jealousy, hostility, and so on, as well as attachment to the child. These are really the areas in which one has to be very, very careful about using divisive language.