Truthfulness has two different levels: One is to be truthful in your speech, not to tell lies for personal gain. Notice that I added "not to tell lies for personal gain" because as you've all heard I tell the story about the kids and the house with the fire in the back room. The old person lies to get them out. That's not the same sort of thing as what most people lie for. Most people lie for selfish reasons such as personal gain, to cover up or hide something they did which was unskilful and withhold information from people they don't like. Lying for these sorts of selfish or unskilful reasons is not a good thing to do.
But the type of lie that's actually to help somebody - yelling because the house is on fire - this is very rare, yet, it does happen from time to time. This is when we don't tell somebody the absolute truth, because we know that, if we did tell them the absolute truth, they may ignore a dangerous situation, thus possibly harming or endangering their lives, or that's not going to really work, we have to tell them something with the unselfish intention to protect them and which hopefully later they will understand the truth of the situation. But, of course, situations like this are rare.
So, Truthfulness in our speech is basically not lying in a way that is deceiving, in a way that's harmful and so on. That's a pretty obvious level of Truthfulness.
Beyond that level, though, there is a deeper level, that is being truthful to our direction, to our intentions, to where we are going on our own personal journey. It's like you here now: You are here to help purify your mind, you are here to develop more Wisdom, you are here to find more happiness, you are here to develop Compassion and Lovingkindness and so on. That is your direction that you have now. Can you be truthful to that direction in your normal life? That's not always so easy, often because of what our family and friends want. We may want to stop alcohol and drugs but our family and friends say, "Hey, come smoke a joint, come have a beer," whatever. Can we be truthful to our direction out of retreat as much as we try to be truthful to our direction here? That's a different level of Truthfulness.
Considering the compassionate intention. Are you being truthful in your efforts to develop compassion? For example in the food line if someone bumps into you, will you be considerate and back off, trying to be compassionate for their mistake?
Can you also do that in your normal life, and if someone bumps into you at the shop can you refrain from yelling at them, saying something nasty or fuming inside? That's another level of Truthfulness to our direction, how we want to develop our direction in our own personal life.
What helps you most to stay true to your direction? A good, kind, wise spiritual friend, a Kalyanamitta. Here, you come to a retreat to receive the guidance of Rosemary and myself, and the support of everyone else who is trying to develop in a beneficial way. So because you and everyone else is going this way it is very easy to stay truthful to your direction.
But in your normal life, if you are going this way and the rest of the society is not going this way or even in the opposite direction, it's very hard.
More spiritual, kind, wise friends are very important, one of the key aspects of the whole practice. When you are in the normal life, do you have that support? Do you have that support so that you can stay more truthful to your direction, so that you are not led astray by other people, friends and families, and what they want, which can take you in a different direction.
So when you think about being able to stay truthful to your direction then you may also consider, "Well, do I have the support of good spiritual friends?" Do you have spiritual people around you? Or as a minimum at least once a week, can you get together with other people to get some encouragement. If not can you sit down and write emails to some of your other meditation friends, can you keep in contact, can you call them up on the phone? Telephone costs these days can be incredibly cheap! Cents, it's so cheap, three or four cents a minute to call Australia last year when we were here! It was three dollars a minute when I called Rosemary when we dated thirty-five years ago. I didn't call her very often! It was enough. I wrote a lot of letters.
At any rate, phone calling is cheap, use it! Call up another Dhamma friend on the phone, or these days use internet phones - even cheaper- especially at times when you are getting lost, when you are not being truthful to your direction. When you are feeling weak. Call up a friend on the phone, or Skype them and have a chat, get some energy. It will always help you with your Truthfulness.