First before I talk about the Truthfulness Parami, a little word about lying. When I give the Five Reflections talk on the 7th evening, I talk about kids in a house and the house is burning, the old person yells for them to get out and they don't, The old person then yells, "I have some cakes and candies," and they come out. The old person lied to them. And when I give that example, I say that it was appropriate and beneficial, although it was not correct and true. So I am not one that has an absolute "don't lie" attitude, if it is actually going to work in order to produce benefit, then in that particular case, the person lying was beneficial. There was an unselfish motivation behind the lie.
Now when lying is not beneficial, you will normally see there is a selfish intention. This older person across the street has no selfish intention. There is nothing in it for them, it was for the kids. When a person lies in order to get something, when a person lies in order to deceive other people, that is a selfish intention. Intention creates Kamma. Whether you make good Kamma, whether you make bad Kamma, it depends on your intention. So in the case of lying, for me there is not a blanket rule that you absolutely cannot lie, it depends on the intention.
Part of the Truthfulness Parami is to speak the truth. That is good and as much as possible we absolutely want to speak the truth, we don't want to lie, we don't want to make a habit of lying in order to kind of help other people. It wouldn't be a good idea, because if you make lying a habit, you are going to end up lying in order to help yourself, too. So it is not that we are going to purposely train ourselves how to lie in situations. Lying is something that may happen from time to time if it's beneficial. But really we want to be truthful, we want to be truthful all the time.
Speech is one part of the Truthfulness Parami. But going beyond Truthfulness in speech, for me the Parami is important for a direction. Where we are going, where we are heading in our life? Are you truthful to your goals, to your direction? Is your life centered around going in that direction? Or do you have a goal, but then, "Oh, well, I'm going to go over here for a while." Then we come back to our goal, yet then we go away again. So to be more truthful to your actual goal or direction can help keep us on track.
Whenever any Westerners, man or woman, talk to me about ordaining, wanting to become a monk or nun, whether it is temporarily, whether it is for a long time, I always stress one Parami in particular for them. I don't stress compassion, I don't stress morality, I don't stress wisdom, I stress Truthfulness to them. Because what I have seen with a lot of monks and nuns is that they are not actually truthful to their direction. There are areas where, "Oh well, the other monks are doing this, therefore I can do it." I try to instill in these people, because ordaining is a very big decision, once you take on those vows, stick to them, hold on to them. Don't sway because other people are not doing the same thing.
Truthfulness Parami, in particular, is something I stress when people want to ordain, because it will keep them on track with their goal or direction. For average lay people, you are not ordaining, that is fine, but what is your direction in life? That is something you have to decide. When you have a direction, how much can you stay close to it? Obviously you are not going to be perfect because you are not enlightened yet, but the degree of how well you can stay close to your direction, that is incorporated in this Truthfulness Parami, staying truthful to your direction.