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Many business people may think that it is impossible to keep the precept of not lying. However, consider this. If a business person is truthful in his/her claims and perhaps makes a little less on a honest transaction, the chances are that by creating trust, he/she would have gained a loyal client. In other words, being truthful does not conflict with doing business and can instead bring about long term success. I once read of a very successful businessman in Malaysia, whose success was due to his truthfulness and sincerity. The story goes like this…

After the businessman entered into a contract, the price of the necessary raw materials went up. If he stuck to the contract price, he would have lost money. Since there was no way to change it, the only choice would have been to “cheat” with cheaper, substandard materials. However, the businessman decided to courageously tell his customer the truth about the situation. His truthfulness and sincerity touched the customer, who then agreed to an adjustment of the contract pricing. The businessman is now one of Malaysia’s most successful.

Let us now take a look at the state of affairs in the consumer market today. There are many shoddy and fake goods that have harmed consumers. The Chinese use the term “black heart” (黑心产品) to describe such products. Just to quote an example, the 2008 Sanlu Milk incident in China killed four babies and left thousands ill. Business people who want to maximise profits produce such so-called “black hearted” products. These are harmful and are detrimental to public safety.

There are always ways and means to make money ethically. Therefore, we should always strive to be truthful and honest about our products or services, and the fourth precept sets out the guideline for us.

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Some people say that they are already keeping the precepts and are spiritual, and feel there is no need to go through the official ceremony. In fact, they argue that they are better than those who go through it but do not uphold the precepts.

The ceremony is a time when we can express our faith, confidence and commitment. By participating in the ceremony, we express our determination and commitment to observe these Five Precepts in our daily life. It means we have strong faith in these Five Precepts as a framework for us to transform our life; without faith, it will be difficult to observe/practise the Precepts. In the ceremony, we publicly accept the Five Precepts with a strong intention to use them as a guideline for living an ethical life. In other words, we are committed to live a virtuous life, with dignity and mindfulness, to be in harmony with all beings around us; in short, to bring our actions into harmony with our spiritual ideals.

The Pali word Sila (morality) has the connotation of virtue, skillfulness, nobleness and wholesomeness. By taking part in the official precepts ceremony, we formally take on the qualities of Sila in the presence of a spiritual mentor, the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and arahants. Therefore there are only benefits and no harm in participating in the precept ceremony when we are intent on living virtuously.

The Buddhist Five Precepts provide a wholesome foundation for personal and social growth, by providing practical and universal principles for a good life and the cultivation of virtues. It is based on the principle of non-harming and has the effect of harmonising our true interest for the well-being of others, and the universal laws. Action taken without regard for ethical principles leads to relationships scarred by competitiveness, exploitation, and aggression. In contrast, actions guided by ethical principles promote harmony among people, bringing about peace, cooperation and mutual respect.

The Buddhist Five Precepts are not commandments imposed by force; rather, they are a course of training that we take on willingly. They are not taken to please a supreme being, but for our own cultivation. The Five Precepts function as the core training in moral discipline and form an integral part of a Buddhist’s life. They are used to help us become better people and are not to be taken as a burden we feel compelled to shoulder. The upholding of the precepts includes recitation of the precepts daily, mindfulness, self-discipline and reflection. It requires a high level of sincerity, honesty and inner discipline.

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The Buddhist Five Precepts form a framework which allows us to take care of ourselves, as well as the society. It prevents us from creating problems for ourselves and others, and guides us in doing what is beneficial. It provides a path through which we learn to live in harmony, with honesty, strength and dignity, which will then bring happiness to ourselves and others, and ultimately lead us to liberation.

We need to ask ourselves what we mean by freedom and liberation. Society tends to define freedom as the ability to do what we want, and say whatever we think and feel. Actually, this sort of freedom is an illusion. The actions we do to get what we want are often motivated by disturbing emotions, which in turn are often driven by external or environmental forces. These forces can be social, political or economic in nature, for example, peer and societal pressures, and media influences. Such forces create great feelings of inadequacy and an exaggerated need for acceptance from others. To compensate, we try to add “value” to our lives through material acquisitions or changing our behaviour in ways that are often against our natural or true feelings. We conform to what we believe to be others’ expectations so that we will be seen as the individual we want to be. We are not really free when our decisions mindlessly comply with these external factors. We are not free if our actions are driven by our wants and desires! Instead, we become a slave to our desires.

From the Buddhist perspective, true freedom is only attained when we transform our desire, hatred and ignorance into compassion, love and wisdom. Morality and the Five Precepts guide our speech and action; meditation helps us develop the awareness of our mental attitudes and how external forces influence our feelings and motivate us to act. When we are able to uproot our three “poisonous roots” – greed, ill-will, and ignorance – we can then be in control of our mind, speech and action, and not be driven by external factors or by internal emotions or attachments. It is only then, can we claim to be truly free and liberated.

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A child conceived as a result of rape is entitled to live and be loved just as any other child. The baby (foetus) is innocent. He or she should not be killed simply because their biological father committed a crime. In dealing with unwanted pregnancy, the child could be given away or adopted by others.

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(taken from Thich Nhat Hanh, For a Future to Be Possible, 2007, Appendix 1, p107)

When you do two or three things at the same time, like eating your dinner, watching television, and having a conversation with friends at the dinner table, you do not do any of the three things deeply. You cannot truly taste and enjoy each morsel of food that your beloved one prepared for you. You cannot give your full attention to the television programme, and you will be unable to listen carefully to what your friends are saying. It is even more difficult if you have several sexual partners at the same time. Please examine this deeply. None of your relationships will be profound. Ask your heart whether you are really happy. It may seem all right now, but are you certain that you are not causing suffering to yourself or your partners? A superficial, non-committed relationship never leads to real happiness or peace.

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If we have good reason to suspect that someone’s life is at stake, we should use our wisdom in how we reply to a question. We can give a nonsensical response, change the subject, or respond to another question instead because our intention is to save lives.

We need to be very mindful in bending the precepts and only do so in extreme cases. We should not allow “exceptions” to become the norm. We need to be very careful and look deeply, to see if we are bending the precepts for our convenience and then calling them “white lies” to justify them.

Our motivation for lying often is to conceal another action we did that we do not want someone to know about, and frequently that other action was a negative one. In this case, there are two non-virtues: the original action, such as sexual misconduct, and then the lie that is told to cover it up. Here we have to examine why we did the original action as well as why we want to conceal it.

If we reflect deeply, we will find that very often, we conveniently turn to white lies when confronted with difficult situations. In fact, if we are determined to keep the precepts, wisdom will grow. In other words, we use our resolve to deal with difficult situations without violating the precepts.

In my personal experience, when devotees brought food (dana) to the temple, they are usually fond of asking the monastics “Does it taste good?’’ or “Do you like the dish?” I knew they were not ready for a negative answer and they would feel discouraged or disheartened if I said I did not care much for the dish. Initially I told white lies, so as not to upset them. However, to me a lie was still a lie. I aspired to keep my precepts pure, yet I did not wish to hurt anyone. This required skilful means. As time went by, I began to think of better ways to respond. Instead of answering their questions directly, I chose not to answer. I would acknowledge their virtuous act of offering dana and supporting the monastics, and encourage them to continue with their kindness.

In doing so, I did not lie, and I did not upset anyone. When I got to know the devotees better and when I felt their minds were ready, I would give them positive suggestions on how to improve their dish!

Hence, when confronted with difficult situations, it is our cowardly mind that leads us to tell lies and conveniently use “white lies” as a license to lie. It is only when we are mindful, that we can see our intentions clearly. Our courage, determination and wisdom will grow if we keep the precepts faithfully.

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With modern technologies, communication has become very vast and sophisticated. Besides the telephone, we send instant messages online. In fact, we spend a lot of time talking. Yet if we look deeply, we do not need to talk as much as we think. We need to reflect on the content of our chats and our motivation behind the chatting.

Loneliness is one of the afflictions of modern life. People in modern societies often feel lonely, and many engage in chit-chatting via SMS and instant messaging, in the hope that the feeling of loneliness will then go away. However, idle-chatting/surfing the Net is never an answer to loneliness. Instead, it may bring more “toxins” into the mind. Each time you feel lonely and turn to your handphone or the Internet, you are cultivating the habit of idle talk, which may make things worse. If we are not mindful, we can easily get addicted to these modern technologies, and in fact, many young people do. They feel uneasy if they are unable to access the Internet. We need to be discerning in our use of information technology and help our young ones use it wisely.

During the Buddha’s time, there was no IT and hence, no precept set to guide its use. Today, we can use all the precepts based on the principle of non-harming, as a guide for IT use. If we look closely at the content on the Internet today, we detect a lot of violence, hatred, greed and fear. If we spend hours surfing aimlessly, we unconsciously sow seeds of violence and ignorance in us. When we do that, our children follow our example. We need to be careful of unhealthy content which is destroying the social fabric of our families and ourselves. Discussion within our communities about this can bring about greater awareness. It can also bring about ideas on how to protect children, families, as well as society from destructive websites. We should boycott those websites that spill harm into our societies and make an effort to warn others of their danger.

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