Don't Worry, Be Grumpy

Why We Lie

“Don’t you realize,” said the judge to the defendant in the murder trial, “that the penalty for perjury is very severe?”

“Yes,” replied the accused, “but it is far less than the penalty for murder!”

This explains why people lie so much: the penalty is usually far less when you lie than it is when you tell the truth.

For instance, a few years ago, a young girl came to me because she had become pregnant by her boyfriend.

“Why don’t you tell your mum and dad?” I asked.

“Are you kidding?” she replied. “They would kill me!”

So she lied to her parents instead.

It would be a far happier and healthier world if the value of honesty were raised so high that the penalty when you tell the truth is always far less than when you lie. The only way to achieve this is by giving amnesty, no matter for what, as long as the truth is told.

Then sons or daughters could tell their parents even the most embarrassing things, knowing that they would never be punished, not even scolded, but helped. When children are in big trouble, this is the time that they need their parents the most. Usually, they are too scared to confide and get help. Also, married couples could be totally honest with each other, working through any marital difficulties together instead of concealing them.

To all parents reading this book, please tell your kids that whatever it is that they have done, when they tell you the truth then they will never be punished or lectured but only receive help and understanding.

To all couples, promise each other that honesty is regarded as more precious than anything else in your relationship, so that there will never be any punishment, even for unfaithful behavior, but a forgiveness of each other’s weaknesses and a commitment to work together to make sure they do not reoccur.

Having promised them this, then keep the promise.

Where there are punishments, even scolding, the truth will be hidden.

That is why we don’t do punishments in Buddhism.

After the apartheid years in South Africa, it took the moral courage and wisdom of leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu to establish the first Truth and Reconciliation Commission. They understood that uncovering the truth of what happened in those brutal years was more important than punishment.

One incident from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that continues to inspire me was when a white police officer confessed, in detail, how he had tortured and killed a black political activist. The testimony was being given in front of the tortured activist’s widow.

Her husband had been one of the many who had disappeared. Now, for the first time, she was hearing what had happened to the man that she had chosen to love above all others, the father of her children.

The police officer was trembling and weeping with overwhelming guilt as he forced himself to reveal the vicious cruelty of what he had done. When the confession was over, the widow leaped over the barrier meant to protect the witnesses and ran straight for her husband’s murderer. The guards were too stunned to stop her.

The guilty police officer expected violent revenge at the hands of the widow and would accept it. But she never attacked him. Instead, she wrapped her strong black arms gently around the passive white body of her husband’s murderer and said, “I forgive you.” The two of them stood there in the embrace of reconciliation.

All who were there broke out in tears. They wept, for a long time. Forgiving the unforgiveable shone hope into their future. In that moment, through their wet eyes, they could glimpse the possibility of racial harmony, and the end of fear, in that land.

If the brutal torture and extrajudicial murder of the one you love the most can be forgiven, what is left that cannot be forgiven?

When there is forgiveness, only then will there be truth.