Foundation of Virtue

Today we’re remembering Ajaan Suwat, the founder of the monastery. He died 22 years ago on April 5th. It’s always good to remember him, because without him we wouldn’t have this monastery. We wouldn’t have this opportunity to practice. It’s good to remember his teachings. It’s good to remember his example. He was a person who embodied the Dhamma in many ways, and he wanted to make sure that we embodied the Dhamma, too. One of the things he stressed again and again and again was that we practice the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma—in other words, not in line with our own preferences, but in line with what the Dhamma actually is.

So what does the Dhamma teach us? It teaches us virtue, concentration, discernment. The virtue there is the basis of everything. If your virtue isn’t strong, and you try to build concentration on top of that, and discernment on top of that, it’s like building a building with a foundation that’s weak. No matter how pretty the stories may be above it, when the foundation is weak, they’re all going to fall down. So you want to make sure that your virtue is pure.

He stressed especially our speech. He noticed that people here in America are very careless in how they speak. Anything pops into their minds, it just goes out their mouths. Of course this isn’t just here in America, but it seems to be more here than other places. He constantly said, “That’s the sign of a fool.”

You think you’ve got an idea; you’re proud of the idea, and it just comes right out. You’ve got to examine it. It’s like getting money. You look at the money carefully to make sure that it’s genuine money before you try to use it.

So what kind of speech do you have? Is it just wooden speech? Is it copper speech? Or is it gold? You want only the gold to come out of your mouth, because then that becomes your kamma. It’ll have an influence on you and on the people around you.

So. Examine your words. The Buddha gives three tests. One, is this true? You want to make sure that everything comes out of your mouth is true. Two, is it beneficial? There are a lot of things that are true that are not beneficial. So you have to ask yourself, “Does it really serve a good purpose to say this?”

All too often, we just think that we can speak in line with our moods. We have to get something out. We feel that we’re bottled up inside if we don’t say everything that we want to say. But you have to ask yourself, “Why do you want to say it?” After all, the whole purpose of the practice is to turn around and look at our wants—which of our desires are ones that we should go with, and which are ones we shouldn’t. Just because a desire comes in doesn’t mean that it should have power. So look for things that are true and beneficial.

And notice that the Buddha never says anything can be beneficial if it’s not true. Sometimes we say, “Well, I’ll say something false to avoid hurting people’s feelings.” But after a while, they begin to suspect that something is up. They can’t trust you. In that way, even if you’re handing out gold, afterward nobody believes it’s real gold because they’ve seen you hand out counterfeit. So make sure your speech is true and beneficial.

And look for the right time and right place. As the Buddha says, there are times when it’s the right time to say gentle things, and the right time when you want to say things a little bit more harsh.

Someone once asked him if he would say displeasing things. They meant it as a trick question. On the one hand, if he said that, yes, he would say things that were displeasing to other people, then the response would be, well what’s the difference between you and ordinary people in the market? But if he said he wouldn’t say things that were displeasing, they had him on record for having said things about Devadatta that Devadatta didn’t like.

The Buddha avoided the trick question by saying that there’s no categorical answer to that question. Then he gave an example. Suppose you have a child, and the child has gotten something sharp in its mouth. What do you do? You hold the child’s head with one hand, and with the other hand you take a finger into its mouth and get that sharp object out, even if it means drawing blood. Why is that? Because the child could swallow it, getting into even greater danger. So for the sake of the child, sometimes you have to draw blood. In the same way, the Buddha said, there are times when you have to speak harshly to people for their own good. But you have to be really, really careful that it is something that they will benefit from.

What this means is that you’ve got to examine your speech before you hand it out to other people. Make sure that it’s genuine gold. And keep on handing out genuine gold. As for things that are just paper or trash, you don’t need to say them. You don’t have to bottle them up inside. Just let them disperse. Think of them dissolving away in the air. In this way, you’re practicing the Dhamma in accordance with the Dhamma. And as you get more careful with your speech, of course that means you’re going to be more careful with the things you say to yourself in your mind.

That becomes an important part of your meditation: the questions you ask, the answers you give—encouragement you give yourself when things are down, the warnings you give yourself when you start getting complacent. This is all a matter of speech.

Discernment is a matter of speech as well. You see things and you understand. You have to ask questions in order to gain discernment.

So learn how to speak in line with right speech on the outer level. It’s going to give you valuable lessons on how to deal with speech on the inner level because you want to think things that are true, and beneficial, and timely.

So don’t overlook the precepts.

Once when Ajaan Suwat was leading a meditation retreat back East, at the end of the retreat they asked him, “Well how do we carry the practice into our lives?” And he said, “Observe the five precepts.”

Some of the people who heard that were upset. They thought that he meant that lay people can’t practice meditation seriously in daily life. But as Ajaan Suwat said, that’s not the case. Observing the precepts is an important way of developing your mindfulness, your alertness, your right efforts. All of these are elements you’re going to need in your meditation. And engaging in right speech makes you honest. When you’re honest outside, then you can be honest inside. That’s when you can see your defilements for what they really are.

So don’t overlook those precepts. We take them every week for a purpose—to remind you that this is the foundation for the practice. Once the foundation is good, then you can build up many stories on top of it, and you don’t have to be afraid they’re going to fall down.