Tell no lies vs no harsh speech

More than 20 years ago I read a lot of books on Buddhism. One of the basic principles in Buddhism is tell no lies. I’ve tried to be honest over these years, but it is more difficult than one thinks. 

For one, most people don’t appreciate honesty. They end up feeling hurt and blame me for their hurt feelings (because I told them the truth). Over the years I’ve been told that I lack tact, I am too direct, I am too harsh, I lack social skills, I am mean. Also over the years, I’ve learnt to soften my approach especially in the working environment. For example, instead of telling the boss something cannot be done, I give suggestions on how it can be done in a better or proper way. It’s still saying it cannot be done, but in a more tactful way, I guess. How tiresome! 

And then there are times when I know the truth will hurt someone and I am either too lazy to think of a tactful answer, or there is no tactful answer, and I end up lying. For example, if someone who is dieting asks me if they have lost weight, I almost inevitably tell them “a little bit” even though they have not lost any weight or worse, they have in fact gained weight. 

I know this is not right but I just don’t know what to say in those circumstances. 

Recently I have been reading up on religion again, particularly Buddhism and the principle of telling no lies actually falls under a wider concept of ‘no harsh speech’. This includes not only not telling lies, but also no gossip, no harsh speech that can hurt another’s feelings, no rumour mongering, etc. 

I already knew this but 20 years ago, honesty was the most important thing to me (although I failed sometimes). But now, 20 years later, no harsh speech seems to be equally important to me. I guess experience does count for something. And that different things have different meanings to you at different points in your life. This is also why I sometimes re-read the books I have read, because reading it as a teenager and again as an adult can make you feel differently about the book, and sometimes you have an opposite view about a character. For example Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. It is fascinating.

But I digress. This honesty vs no harsh speech I have a real problem with. How do I be honest and at the same time say it in such a way so as to not hurt another’s feelings? 

I am faced with a dilemma right now. Someone I don’t particularly like has been asking me to go out for the longest time. Previously I’ve made up a thousand reasons why I am not free to see him (lies! 😱😱😱) but either he genuinely doesn’t understand, or doesn’t want to understand. On 2 occasions I just got tired of making excuses and met up with him, and on both occasions I made it clear that I was not enjoying myself.

He has not given up. He calls again. What the hell do I do. Wait. I know what I must do. Be honest but at the same time not hurt his feelings.

How the hell do I do that??

Tyrants

Today I would like to talk about tyrants. 

They are everywhere. Disguised as teachers, relatives, bosses, or just about anyone who has some sort of power over me. The teacher who punished me for being Indian. The relative who gave sweets to my brother but not me. The boss who sat on some work for weeks and then passed it to me to get done by today because tomorrow is the deadline. The clerk who refused to accept my document because I used blue ink instead of black when both colours are acceptable. The police officer who refused to accept my police report because I didn’t give him the evidence of the crime (isn’t it his job to investigate and obtain the evidence?). The customs officer who checked only my bag out of all the passengers waiting to board the plane, for no apparent reason. The list goes on. 

I’m not saying I was deliberately targeted. I am saying that there are tyrants out there who bask in the glory that they have a certain power over people, and they abuse and misuse that power because I guess making other people feel miserable feeds their own need to feel powerful, like alcohol feeds the need of the bibulous. 

It’s all well and good sitting in my armchair and doing a psychological analysis on tyrants - how meaningless or empty their lives must be, or perhaps they forgot how it was to be on the receiving end, or perhaps they are also being mistreated so they are taking out their frustrations on me etc., but it does not detract from the fact that it is me who is undergoing the stress and misery at their hands.

I am being plagued by a tyrant right now. I need Mr. Tyrant’s approval in order to submit a Thing by Timeline. My Timeline was 3 months. I gave Mr. Tyrant the Thing within 2 weeks for his approval. After many reminders, he reverted 1 month later to say I have not addressed the issues properly. The Thing is 20 pages long with about 30 issues, so I don’t know which issues he was having problems with.

Nevertheless, I re-did the Thing as best I could and submitted it to him about a week later. Timeline is now about 3 weeks to go and no news from Mr. Tyrant. After his approval, I need about a week to finalise the Thing before submission. Which means I have approximately 2 weeks left. And no news. 

Why all this unnecessary stress? If you have a problem, tell me what it is exactly so that I can rectify it according to your wishes and the job is done. Good for you, good for me. But here you give me a general statement which leaves me groping in the dark, and you’re taking your own bloody sweet time and putting me under tremendous stress and pressure because Timeline is approaching nearer and nearer, but you obviously don’t care about all that. 

Because you are Mr. Tyrant and you need your power fix 🙄.

Where are all the good people?

I went to my usual hair dresser in Kuantan. Due to the lockdown, his salon was closed for months, so that his credit/debit card machine was not working. I didn’t have enough cash with me. But he knew that I usually paid with a card so he said he will give me his account number and I can transfer the money to him once I am home.

I was aghast. I asked him what if I ran away to Kuala Lumpur without paying? He will never be able to find me. 😁 He said he trusted me; I’ve been going to his salon for years now. I felt quite pleased that I inspired this kind of trust in him. He then said that as much as there are bad people in the world, there are also good people around.

That got me thinking. He must be right. All humans can’t be bad. In fact, I know a few good people. Too few, unfortunately. Because as I look back on my life, I realise the unfortunate truth that most people I have met are bad. I don’t know whether this is due to my bad luck, or my karma or merely my perception of people. 

I have been robbed at knife point, cheated of money, back-stabbed, taken advantage of, bad-mouthed, blamed for things I didn’t do, not given credit for the things I did, been the subject of racial prejudice, made fun of for my skin colour; the list can just go on. 

I had goals and ambitions once. Now my only ambition in life is to become a self-sustaining hermit. The self-sustaining part is the tricky part because it requires me to draw an income which means I have to get a job, which means interacting with people, which inevitably means trouble. 

Whatever the reason, my fault or theirs, all these incidents have made me the cynic and misanthrope that I am today. All said and done, I am glad that some people view me as the good guy. I certainly try. 

Losing my religion

My father is a staunch Hindu. 

This statement needs an explanation. The more I read about religion, the more I am convinced that there are 2 main aspects of every religion: one is the outer ritual practices, and the other is the inner understanding of the mind and the world around one (philosophy / consciousness / psychology). Most Hindus, I find, are more the outer ritualistic kind. My father included. He does all his daily prayer rituals diligently without really knowing what it’s all for. He says this is what my grandfather did so he is doing the same. I am more of the second kind. I prefer to know the purpose of anything that I do. For example if I put a flame near a god I would like to know why. (I have no answers but I do this anyway to appease my father; because I love him with all my heart and this small ritual makes him happy).

I digress. When I was in Kuantan my father was watching a drama on tv about a particular god in Hindu mythology, known as the judge because he delivers karmic consequences, be it good or bad, to all beings in the universe. Since I like knowing about religion I started watching the program with him.

I wish I didn’t. The judge is supposed to be impartial, equal and fair in dispensing justice, without emotional or other interference. But the more I watch, the more agitated I become because even in delivering karmic consequences (karma is supposed to be based purely on action and intention, regardless of extraneous factors - for example, if I steal I will be punished accordingly even if I steal to give to the poor and gain no benefit from the theft, because the act of stealing is wrong) there appears to be imbalance in the rules.

There appears to me to be one set of rules for the rich, the famous, the beautiful, the privileged, the entitled; and another set of more severe rules for the average nobodies like me. I try to console myself by thinking that this is a mere tv series, it is based on myths, and then on interpretation of those myths by various people throughout the centuries, and the true meaning may have been lost in translation along the way.

But there is a nagging thought in my mind that this imbalance or injustice is somehow true, because I see it with my own eyes everyday. People who are rich and powerful tend to get away with a lot more compared to normal average people. For example, the son of a king may get away with a speeding ticket but the same leniency would not be extended to me, the daughter of a staunch Hindu. 

So in the end, I realise that the reason I continue to try and do good and do the right thing is because it is simply that - good and right. Not because I will be rewarded by going to heaven or because my good karma will protect me or bring me some just reward or benefit. It is very disheartening. But I guess I’m only saying that because I am not rich, famous, beautiful, privileged or entitled. If I were, perhaps I would see things differently. Or perhaps not. I will never know. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Blinkers and a muzzle

I have been told time and again to follow the rules and procedures everywhere I go: in school, in university, at work, at government departments, at service providers. A lot of these rules and procedures do not make a lot of sense to me, but whenever I ask questions, the answer is inevitably “I don’t know”, or “I’m just a servant here following orders”, or “it has always been like this”, or the best one “if you want [what I signed up for] then you have to follow the rules”.

It drives me mad. If something doesn’t make sense to me, it has to be explained to me why it is being done that way. But nobody seems to be interested in the why. They prefer to just blindly follow instructions, right or wrong, so as not to rock the boat.

And the sad part is, I am always the villain because I dare to question. Who do I think I am? Everyone is following these procedures so why can’t I? The thing is, I always end up following the rules anyway because I have to look at the big picture which is to get whatever it is that I signed up for. So I keep telling myself that since I’m going to end up following these nonsensical rules anyway, why don’t I just keep quiet and do it instead of asking questions?

It’s like that saying:

“Ours not to question why,

Ours but to do or die.”

From the looks of it, I need blinkers and a muzzle to fit into society 🙄. I have no idea how I even made it this far!