A Thought for the Day - 5
 

By the benevolence of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, may all beings be well and
happy. Honesty in speech, people generally say, is the most difficult to maintain. Yes.  Let us
concede that it may appear to be so. Musâvâda  or lying is dangerously slippery and evasive
and takes much less time to execute than any other physical crime like killing or theft.
 

The danger of proneness to it is highlighted in Buddhism, stating that he who resorts to lying
with ease is capable of committing any crime. No crime is  too difficult for him.  natthi
pâpam  akâriyam. Verse no. 176 of the Dhammapada would constantly remind you of this.

                                 Ekam  dhammam atîtassa  musâvâdissa  jantuno
                                 Viti.n.naparalokassa  natthi  pâpam  akâriyam.

Dishonesty in speech leads to a total breakdown of all social contracts. Human society has to
go on a basis of trust and understanding. Promises have to be kept. Wheels of society move
on this basis. We are wheels within wheels. If one fails, the entire set up can come to a
grinding halt.

Let us take a few statements from the dhamma and examine them ourselves. He who abstains
from lying speaks only what is true. He is sacca-vâdî. In what he says there is factual
consistency. Therefore he is  bhûta-vâdî. He does not gamble between what is and what is
not. Thereby he does not cheat or deceive another, by presenting a picture which really exists
not. This is a virtue that is insisted on in the Metta Sutta too. This is what is meant by  the
statement  na paro param nikubbetha. An honest man has also to keep to his promises :
sacca-sandho. He is also reliable : theto  paccayiko.
 

Talking of the need to lie or be dishonest, it is summed up as  1. for one's benefit, 2. for the
benefit of another or  3. for the sake of some gain, material or otherwise. When we are driven
to situations like these, why do we not stop for a moment and become aware of the fact that in
society we live in the midst of numerous reciprocal relationships,  to persons as well as to
institutions ?  We cannot afford to act hastily and rudely as we choose. We would then be
knocking many people on many sides. We violently disrupt social order. Harmony and
goodwill depend on this. We know this quite often. But we are unmindful of the
consequences. Or in the rude and clumsy anti-social way, we are used to thinking, and saying
We could not care less.
 

At verbal level or in being dishonest in what we say, the absence of immediate recording of
what is said, enables the miscreant to change his position with another statement,
contradicting the former. This leads to constructive malicious lying. Checking for the truth in
this case becomes difficult and disentanglement still more difficult. Defrauding in action is the
compliment to this. Deliberate falsification includes both negation of the real and the factual
as well as the elimination of one thing and the substitution of yet another for it. Even
collective tampering with medical reports, for the sake of personal gain, is not unheard of in
Sri Lanka these ddays.
 

Dishonesty leading from lying to factual distortion, or vice versa, is viewed in legal contexts
as serious criminal offences. We know of ministers of state in other countries, now serving
three or four years in prison, being convicted of falsifying personal financial statements which
in some way are connected with the state. The state today needs to take a more serious view
of honesty. Whether they be wild allegations leading to character assasination of men and
women, in high or low positions, or rich or poor, whether it be swindling of state funds, in
big or small amounts, the state as well as the public must learn to view them with far greater
seriousness and to bring to book the miscreants for due punishments.
 

Our request to our Sri Lankans, quite apart from their religious and ethnic differences, is to
hold fast with national dignity to their inborn respect for honesty in word and deed and strive
for the uplift of the society in which we live here. Inspite of a temporary gloss of success it
can provide for the time being, it invariably nurtutres an inner cancer which would finally be
calamitous. Each one of us in this country, must invoke our  Dharma or God above, to enable
us to be honest to ourselves and to practice honesty with all around us, so that we may
salvage the country and its people from slipping into the bottomless abyss towards which it
appears to be heading disastrously everyday.
 

To thine own self be true, O man. You know very the well truth from falsehood. Attâ  te
purisa  jânâti  saccam  vâ   yadi  vâ   musâ .
 

May all beings be well and happy. May there be peace on earth  and  goodwill among men.