Practicing With Our Pants on Fire

By Jeff Wilson | Toronto Buddhist Church

As a professor teaching Buddhism at a college, I like to assign short exercises to students so that they get a taste of what Buddhism is like. These are designed to go beyond books and lectures, to provide some actual (though brief) experience and develop insight into the practice of Buddhism. For one of these, I have them follow the five basic Buddhist moral precepts for a day. Here’s an excerpt from the assignment instructions:

On your chosen day, try to avoid the following five things.  As much as possible, don’t kill anything at all.  Obviously that includes people, but also try to avoid killing bugs, such as mosquitoes, ants, cockroaches, spiders, and so on.  

Second, as much as possible, don’t steal anything or borrow anything without the owner’s explicit permission.  Obviously that includes not robbing any banks, but also try to avoid eating anything out of the fridge unless you’re certain it doesn’t belong to your housemates.  

Third, as much as possible, don’t misuse sex.  Obviously that includes harassment or assault, but also try to avoid late-night booty calls outside of a committed relationship.

Fourth, as much as possible, try to avoid lying.  Obviously that includes straight up deceptions, but also try to avoid white lies, half truths, strategic omissions, or any other less-than-fully truthful speech.  

Fifth, as much as possible, try to avoid the use of intoxicants.  Obviously that includes not getting hammered while doing your homework, but also try to avoid cannabis, caffeine, or any other sort of recreational stimulant or relaxant.

Afterwards, they’re asked to write a short reflection paper. Although the goal of the assignment is for them to learn, I too have learned a lot from my student’s experiences. Many find it hard to avoid caffeine. Others become much more aware of what they’re borrowing or taking without permission—especially, taking other people’s food. One student, whose dorm was full of bugs, tried very hard not to squish any all day, but it was hard. The student who smoked weed everyday found the temptation very strong, and eventually gave in. But it opened her eyes to how much she was relying on cannabis to smooth over times when she felt bored, frustrated, or anxious.

But while there are plenty of violations of the precepts against stealing and so on, overwhelmingly the precept that my students find the hardest to follow is not lying. This surprised me the first time I ran the exercise. It surprised the students too. They discovered, with some chagrin, that they lied all the time, throughout each day. There’s an old Buddhist saying that we should practice like our hair is on fire. Apparently, we need to practice like our pants are on fire too, since we tell lies so often.

Why was not lying the hardest precept to keep? For the most part, students found that they all told many “white lies,” mostly to ease social situations. Often this was to make others feel better, so there was an interesting conflict between morality and compassion, which are both Buddhist values. For instance, a student lied to her parents about not feeling sick (she actually had Covid) so they wouldn’t feel worried. In another of the many examples, a student told her friend that she couldn’t go study with her because she already had plans, but really she just didn’t want to do it. She felt this was a nicer way to let her friend down.  

In many other cases, the students were deceptive because they didn’t have the time or energy to deal with some situation. Or because their job required it: the student who worked in customer service found it almost impossible to go any length of time without telling an untruth, because our language and social interactions are actually structured around them: for instance, everyone would ask how she was doing and she would say “Good!” even though it wasn’t necessarily true.

Some students discovered that they frequently lied to themselves. I thought this was quite an insight to uncover. Another student realized that since it can be hard to know the truth about things, many of his statements are probably less than fully truthful, despite his best efforts. It turns out there are so many different ways in which we’re untruthful without being evil or pathological liars, just ordinary foolish beings.

Right speech is an interesting matter. It receives its own place on the Noble Eightfold Path, separate from Right Action, which covers most of the other precepts. In other words, it’s so important (and challenging) that it’s separated out for special attention. As the students discovered, some precepts are broken because of our own craving impulses, such as for food, sex, or intoxicants. But Right Speech is broken mainly because of social situations that we find too difficult to handle without resorting to behaviors that Buddhism considers immoral or problematic. 

On the one hand, this suggests that we could avoid the wrong action of untruthfulness by taking ourselves out of such situations, or cultivating relationships in which we can be fully honest and open. On the other hand, avoidance of such situations is nearly impossible for regular laypeople, and breaking the precepts is in part the result of systems far vaster than ourselves, within which we have quite limited agency in some ways. This dilemma provokes deeper thinking about the meaning and limits of morality in an imperfect world, which leads to good discussions.

I appreciate the honesty with which my students approach these assignments. It’s yet another situation where I end up learning something useful from them and their experiences, something I can reflect on to discover how the Dharma operates in my own life as well.