Greetings,

This month we'll be exploring the Parami of Truthfulness. Truthfulness lies between Patience and Resolve. I have personally found this to be a perfect place for Truthfulness. It seems that our truthfulness arises out of patience - our willingness to be still and resolve - our persistence and determination to keep going. There's a tension that exists between these two and truthfulness is the capacity to keep our direction towards Dhamma. This truthfulness is not solely about whether or not you told a lie. It's about whether you are in alignment with your practice and whether your practice is in alignment with the direction set out in the Eightfold Path.

Luang Por Pasanno recently visited Seattle Insight and gave a public talk. During his talk, he spoke about what it meant to align oneself with the Eightfold Path. He shared that Buddha used the word "Samma" for each path factor, so, Samma ditthi (Right view), Samma sankappa (Right thought), Samma vaca (Right speech), Samma kammanta (Right action), Samma ajiva (Right livelihood), Samma vayama (Right effort), Samma sati (Right mindfulness), Samma samadhi (Right concentration). Samma has been translated as "right." Luang Por Pasanno pointed out that Samma was commonly used in relationship with music. He indicated that a more accurate translation is "harmonious." To me this word Samma and its fuller meaning of harmonious is what the Parami of Truthfulness is all about. Are we in harmony with the Dhamma, the path, our practice? The more harmonious we become, the more aligned we will feel and the more truthful our life becomes.

Another thing to point out around truthfulness is that it comes as the seventh Parami of ten. This means that it takes some practice to get to this degree of truthfulness. It comes after cultivating a pretty strong heart and tempering our energy with patience. Which means, it requires development of citta (heartmind), a willingness to see, and a steadiness against reactivity towards what's seen. This is what we need to cultivate the next three Paramis - Resolve, Lovingkindess and Equanimity. At the same time it seems strange that we would need Truthfulness to cultivate these three Paramis. We talk about Lovingkindness, Equanimity and Resolve all the time. Rarely do we talk about them in relation to Truthfulness. But this may have a lot to do with our resistance to these three Paramis. It's not uncommon for people to have a lot of difficulty with metta practice. People push back against Equanimity like being equanimous means you don't care about the world, you don't care about struggle and/or suffering. In truth to get to the mind states of Equanimity and Lovingkindness, there needs to be a strong degree of truthfulness about the way things actually are - a recognition/discernment around what we truly have control over and what we don't have control over.

In order to stay on the path and persistently face whatever comes without the need to constantly control everything, takes a large degree of cultivation around truthfulness. Basically we have to be willing to admit the truth of what is being known rather than relying on our subjective opinions, assumptions, beliefs, and expectations. Liberation, freedom from Dukkha (suffering), is not the end of all difficulty in life. It is the ability to see the truth of the way things are and remain aligned with the truth of our practice. In other words, life becomes a tuning fork that truthfulness is the tone that tells us we are in alignment with the Eightfold path. It also tells us when we are not in alignment with the Dhamma by the tone of the tension we begin to feel. Learning to feel this tension as wisdom takes a lot of resolve. So the Parami of Truthfulness foreshadows the Resolve we will need to stay in alignment with what's true.

I picked the picture of the puzzle pieces for this very reason. Truthfulness is the silver piece and the red pieces represent the last three Paramis. They come together to support the flow of our overall conduct. When these puzzle pieces are linked together by truthfulness, our resolve becomes strong, our kindness becomes genuine, and our equanimity becomes intimate and stable.

This month some people may talk about ways to cultivate Truthfulness. Others may talk about their experience of truthfulness in practice. And still others may talk about truthfulness in relation to the precepts. Whatever people talk about, keep an open mind around how truthfulness can help you connect more fully with Resolve, Lovingkindness and Equanimity.

With a deep bow,

Tuere