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Why is lying bad?
Jeffrey
Veteran
I am not totally in the dark to this question but I wondered if I posted this if I would get any very clear/powerful answers or even a meme to explain.
Lying is a precept but why is it bad? Is it harmful some way?
Lying is a precept but why is it bad? Is it harmful some way?
0
Comments
This is obviously devoid of the social morality aspects, which seem to me to be a macrocosm of the same archetype.
Its the reason why one lies that is.
I hear some Buddhist Traditions who say 'we should NEVER LIE.
However, just say you were alive when Hilter was around. And you had jews hiding in your loft and he knocked on your door asking you 'do you have any jews in your house (knowing very well he was going to kill them) Do you lie and say No OR tell the truth and let hitler kill them??
Which is right speech there?? and Which is right Action?? etc etc..
This is where Buddhism becomes debatable!!!!
The answer is: You know deep down what is the right thing to do. You dont need Buddha to tell you what to do. We dont Need Buddhas teachings for anything really. You know all the answers to all your questions deep down.
Self Deception, different story... making a fool out of oneself. Telling myself I'm something when I'm not. Who am I really kidding? Who do you think you are?
Can you see the real me?
Even though I've given Zemyste a hard time on some other threads, I am once again forced to agree with him (or maybe her, not sure).
BUT, I feel I must play the "Devil's advocate". Let's consider the Hitler scenario that Zenmyste mentioned. I'm afraid that some could argue that Hitler killing the Jews in your loft would be HIS (Hitler's) karma, not yours. And by lying you don't dodge the bad karma that is created by their deaths because it's not your fault in the first place that they died. After all, YOU didn't kill them, HITLER did. So, by lying you just create more bad karma for yourself.
I know, it sounds silly, but some people probably think this way.
Just some food for thought.
Metta
Mr. Fell
Otherwise it should never be hard to tell the truth.
Because after a while you'll start believing your own lies...
and your own truth will be lost to you for good.
Buddhism and Christianity both hold that the truth sets one free.
People, of course, are free to forge their own chains with which to imprison themselves
as they wish.
When you tell the truth, you are telling it as it is, thus making things clearer. For example, if someone stole something and you saw that person stealing and the police asked you and you told the truth, it makes things so much simpler for everyone. The police would have to do less investigative work, the victim would have quicker closure, and so on.
When you tell a lie, you are perpetuating a delusion. In the same scenario above, If you told a lie, the police would have to waste time doing more investigative work, the victim would have later closure, and so on. It perpetuates their suffering.
The precepts are gross simplifications.
The fifth precept also is only a pointer; saying that as a rule it will probably be harmful when we deliberately mislead people.
In most cases it is obvious and in other cases we can argue about it.
I think that ultimately all words are lies: they fail in expressing truth.
All words are missing the point.
The point of Buddhism is liberation and the words, the concepts, and the preferences we identify with, make us seem more limited than we really are.
One I read that if there is a man who wants to kill many people, a Bidhisattwa would kill this man out of compassion (if this man kill people, he would make a lot of bad karma).
Lying is "bad" (leads to suffering) when it is used to hurt people. Lying is actually an act of aggression. The stress inherent in lying is what so-called lie detectors measure. It's the same stress your body feels when it's getting ready to fight.
But there are always conditions, in Buddhism. If Enlightement was a matter of obeying five or eight ethical rules, we wouldn't even need the Dharma. Intentions matter. The truth can be used as a weapon and lies can necessary to act with compassion.
My serious answer it that Intention is everything here.
If I say "I will not lie" then to me, this is dogma. What I'm mindful of is my intention, only with right intention can I hope to have peace of mind
For instance, your wife asks you "does this make me look fat?" would you respond with "yes, that makes you look rather fat" or would you say something else? sometimes it is more compassionate to tell a bit of a fib than to just be straight with it.
as with all the precepts, use in accordance with ahimsa (what does none, or the less harm possible).
Once again in the buddha's words "there is no evil that a liar is incapable of doing"
The mind is already deluded, so if you lie on a coarser level which is speech, the subtler mental activity of the mind also inclines towards the lying.
Devotion to truthfulness is an essential part of the path towards enlightenment.
Enlightened people don't lie, so if your serious about becoming enlightened better not lie.
- Frankly, there is no evil that any of us are incapable of doing.
- Honestly, overtime I become increasingly convinced that enlightenment is a delusion. At the very least I would be extremely leery of anyone claiming to be enlightened. At any rate enlightenment is not something that enters in to my intentions or practice. It is, at best, a next to impossible to realize long term goal. Again, I'm more concerned with here and now, this moment. Not some distant future that may never arrive.
But I think a really important point in Buddhism is that no action in and of itself is good or bad. It's the motivation that matters. *Most* of the time we lie in order to avoid dealing with the consequences of our actions and, indeed, ourselves. We drive ourselves deeper into the hole. But sometimes you may have to lie to save someone's life-- but that's pretty darn rare.