The Perfection of Truthfulness (Sacca Parami in Pali) is the seventh of the Ten Perfections of Theravada Buddhism. It follows the Perfection of Patience, or Khanti Parami. Khanti means “unaffected by” or “able to withstand,” and it could be translated as tolerance, endurance and composure as well as patience or forbearance. Developing Khanti is essential to building a foundation of truthfulness.
Deep Self-Honesty
Why does truthfulness require endurance or forbearance? For one thing, truthfulness is not generally our default reaction whenever life challenges us. We all go through life with a narrative in our heads about who we are and how our life is supposed to unfold. When events clash with our expectations, one of the first things we do is “edit” the narrative to protect our beliefs or our egos. We find ways to explain reality that exonerates us from blame, for example. This is not truthfulness.
Self-deception takes many forms. Psychologists use terms like “confirmation bias” and “subjective validation” to describe strategies for making reality seem more to our liking. But genuine truthfulness requires being honest with ourselves about ourselves.
Speaking truth comes from a practice of truthfulness, or deep honesty. Through practice, we see that whatever shtick has gotten us through life is a crutch and a hindrance, and the myriad little lies and rationalizations we tell ourselves about ourselves fall away.
Another aspect of deep honesty is remaining open to truth. So often we “make up our minds” about the way things are, and then we are closed. Certitude is a dead end.
Always leave room for new understanding, even if you like your current understanding. Especially if you like your current understanding. Be particularly mistrustful of “facts” that fit too neatly into your worldview. Stay open to the realization that your worldview is an illusion, even if it doesn’t seem to be an illusion.
Ultimately, speaking truth can only be built on a practice of truth. Deep honesty does not try to protect our ego, serve our self-interests or confirm our biases. And if we’re not being sincerely honest, how can we be truthful?
Without Deception
Another way to think about truthfulness is that it is without deception, either of ourselves or others. Not deceiving is not always exactly the same as not being factual. Any good propagandist can build an argument from facts and still be deceitful.
For example, we can deceive by taking words or facts out of context in a way that gives a false impression. This sort of lie seems particularly common in advertising and politics. A government program that proved to be ineffectual might be praised for “staying under budget” — because hardly anyone used it. A reviewer might write that a film was “only passably entertaining,” and the film poster might shorten this to “entertaining!” Many people defend these practices as “not really lying.” But it’s still deception, with self-serving ends.
Mindfulness, Right Speech and the Four Noble Truths
Sacca is the same word translated as “truth” in the Four Noble Truths. It’s important to understand that the truths are not doctrines to be believed. Rather, they propose that we may be liberated from dissatisfaction, fear, and suffering by deep realization of the truth about ourselves and our lives.
The Fourth Noble Truth is the Eightfold Path, or the path of practice that leads to truth. One part of the path is Right Speech. Right Speech includes truthfulness, and it also teaches us to use speech in a way to encourage harmony rather than disharmony. We must also not be selfish in our speech by denigrating others to enhance ourselves. Right Speech and the Perfection of Truthfulness are, obviously, closely intertwined. And without a foundation of truthfulness, the other parts of the Path can easily collapse.
How does one perfect honesty? Most teachers will say that the most essential practice is Right Mindfulness, another part of the Eightfold Path. Mindfulness is being fully aware of the present moment, without judging and without conceptual filters. It might be called a practice of honesty of the present moment.
The Perfection of Truthfulness begins with self-honesty and putting aside selfish concerns, and it continues to a practice of manifesting honesty for the benefit of others. This leads to the next Perfection, the Perfection of Determination.
[This is an article I wrote for the Buddhism section of About.com. However, since About.com has removed it from their servers, all rights revert to me.]