Buddhistdoor View: The Morality of Lies and Falsehoods
Buddhistdoor Global | 2016-08-12 |
Hogeweyk, a Dutch care home for people with dementia, is an entire village that provides a façade of normal life for its residents.
Some weeks ago Buddhistdoor published a report about Hogewey Care Centre, a Dutch care home for people with dementia that in 2009 built an entire village that provides a façade of normal life for its residents. The village, “Hogeweyk,” comes complete with a restaurant, gardens, and health workers who assume fictional personas such as that of neighbors or shopkeepers, to help the residents function as if they were still living in conventional society. Dementia care centers elsewhere are also adopting a similar methodology of simulated normality, such as Grove Care in the British city of Bristol.
The Hogeweyk model raises an interesting question about what it means to tell lies or to create falsehoods, ostensibly for the benefit of others. From the perspective of care homes like Hogeweyk, it’s unproductive to remind patients of the “normal” world that they can no longer enjoy and which would only intensify their distress. It truly seems more helpful to provide a therapeutic outlet that might enable dementia sufferers to tell their attendants (who are trained specialists) about the buses they used to catch, or the streets down which they used to walk, even if that outlet is based on fabrication.
In this sense, the falsehood of Hogeweyk differs from the typical deceptions we encounter in everyday life because it has an ethical purpose based on compassion and care. Yet even well-intentioned lies can be morally ambiguous and have unintended adverse outcomes—a white lie is sometimes not even told for the benefit of the person being lied to, but for the liar’s own peace of mind. Telling an emotionally fragile person that their recently deceased loved one is still alive to avoid giving them the potentially devastating truth could have catastrophic consequences. A child questioning the existence of Santa Claus might justifiably ridicule the adult who persists in defending the myth.
Conversely, more misanthropically inclined people might adhere to a somewhat mean-spirited and disingenuous commitment to “telling it as it is” by delivering superficially truthful statements in a callous or hurtful way, without regard for the feelings of others or the context. This is the opposite of a white lie, and can be just as counterproductive and harmful. “Life is characterized by suffering,” the Buddha stated honestly, and since then his teachings have often been misunderstood as being pessimistic. But not only did the Buddha offer a real, practical solution to this truth, he was also infinitely compassionate; he was never an insensitive or hurtful person even when communicating great truths.
In everyday life, it’s usually advisable to tread a middle ground between lying for convenience and unskillful truth-telling. For the Buddhist, this middle ground is known as “skillful means.” In the Lotus Sutra skillful means are famously a concept indicating the Buddha’s ability to teach according to the inclinations and capacities of each being. The well-known 84,000 Dharma gates described in the Pali Canon (later adopted by the Mahayana) was intended to illustrate how many methods of teaching the Buddha had at his disposal, perhaps implying that anything in life can serve as an entryway into spiritual practice.
The concept of skillful means has since been expanded upon in popular Buddhist culture to mean something that is “handled well.” This is an incredibly broad category since the situations in which a Buddhist must necessarily apply compassion and wisdom are endless, and include relatively common contexts such as comforting a child over the death of a loved one or defusing a heated confrontation between friends, as well as more sensitive situations such as handling an emotionally distressed person spewing verbal abuse, or comforting someone who has just accepted that she is extremely disliked. Dealing with these situations requires not merely the blunt instrument of the truth, but the deftness of knowing when and how to wield it.
Skillful means are flexible because human life and relations are messy, subject to chance and circumstance, and riddled with hypocrisies and contingencies that can’t be anticipated by neatly laid out doctrines and philosophies. Therefore, while we should seek to tell the truth whenever possible, what happens when we are confronted by shades of grey? When telling the unvarnished truth is not always the most skillful or ethical thing to do?
Another good example of skillful means (perhaps less dramatic than that of Hogeweyk) is the case of a child in hospital who was unresponsive to a counseling pastor. The counselor decided to use a plush toy, which he imbued with a name and personality, inviting the child to interact with it rather than directly with himself. It helped to give the little girl enough emotional and mental space that she felt comfortable relating her pain and anxieties to the toy, although it was obvious even to her that the pastor was creating a “fiction.”
For a situation as serious as coping with dementia, it becomes clear that extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary skills—skills that many of us might not possess. More often in our everyday lives we encounter a muddled morass of human vulnerabilities that need to be treated sensitively, and this will sometimes mean the need to employ fictions or, put more bluntly, lies. The question is how skillfully and ethically such fictions are deployed.
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I find the title a little misleading The Morality of Lies and Falsehoods, suggesting that there is only one reality, fitting everybody else within our world. When we see harsh reality, does it evenly applies to everyone else?
In the first instance, we must realise that another reality have been created for the sufferers' benefit. It aims to restore a sense of familiarity and predictable environment where the patient can exist and interact comfortably. It is not the cold impersonal or stark reality as we see it and face everyday. Granted, but we are not them, and they are not us, but a sentient being with their individual consciousness. We know full well from the article that they no longest enjoy the full mental or maybe physical faculties you and I have.
A new reality have been created for them, and if they are non any wiser to that fact, then they will suffer no distress. Such is their fortune or good karma that society can afford such effort for them.
We too can create for ourselves an ideal reality, our personal Pureland, if we so choose. There are two realms, one within our mind, the other the physical reality.
It is believed that those whose chose to go Pureland, ultimately will come back for a final rebirth after attaining enlightenment in Pureland.
Why not do it now, reside in your personal Pureland and emerge with equanimity. Little by little, day by day, bit by bit, the Bodhisattva's Way.
But I digress.
I see the second situation as a bridge, a crutch, or device for the little girl. We attempt to reach out to the unspoken mind of the little child, with trust or communication issues. Perhaps we also forgotten how we, as a child used to have imaginary or toy friends where we spoke in our normal tone and voice while we speak on behalf of voice in a different tone and voice.
I can easily imagine using a childlike subservient or non authoritarian as the doll's voice when talking through the toy. On a different note, ever notice how we talk to infants?
In the first instance, I would say it is a new reality for dementia patients as they are probably unable to return to "our" reality.
In the second, it is a make believe world for the children as eventually we expect them to engage our real world when they grow up.
What we should say is we are trying make the world easier for them tto manage, given their predicament.
Hi moderator, I've somehow create double posting upon editing, I would like to keep the bottom one.
Your assistance will be kindly appreciated, with deep thanks!
Skillful means does not include white lies
Originally posted by 2009novice:Skillful means does not include white lies
But what is factually true? We must start from point of view first for further discussions.
Often we use words to fit our narrative, these words of similar but for emotional connotations. Just a few examples:-
Negative:-
Stubborn, obstinate, pig-headed, unaccommodating, inflexible
Positive:-
Resolute, constant,tenacious,uncompromising, principled
Originally posted by Weychin:But what is factually true? We must start from point of view first for further discussions.
Often we use words to fit our narrative, these words of similar but for emotional connotations. Just a few examples:-
Negative:-
Stubborn, obstinate, pig-headed, unaccommodating, inflexible
Positive:-
Resolute, constant,tenacious,uncompromising, principled
Hi Weychin,
I may sound a little... detached.. but skillful means should have no room for any unfactual content... not even to justify or fit our emotions. Check out Abhaya sutta....
Hi 2009novice, thanks for your kind input.
However,the implication of telling lies, white ones or otherwise,whether immoral or not is not in question. It is also not that I am amoral, lacking in basic virtues, that I am unable to determine good or bad conduct.
It is in the context of this article, where I hope to find out the argument of immorality , that they, the methods, are lies, and the people employing them are therefore immoral.
One is a make believe world to allow old people function with normalcy and familiarity hopefully, until the end of their lives. Dementia is a degenerative disease which does not improve with time, only managed. These old folk are mentally incapacitated and will increasingly dysfunctional. They can suddenly become lost in our midst. And it is because we love them, we do not want to see them suffer.
As for children, we did not create a makeup world or imaginary friends, they do that quite well on their own! It is when we want to get closer to them that we take on a persona befitting that make believe world.
How many adults have been scarred for life for having found out Santa Claus is not real? Or Cinderella or Snow White in Disneyland are not real either. We grew out of it, don't we?
What about death, how did you figure out about death? Or really understand the concept, when no is comfortable talking about it?
So perhaps my moral compass is broken, I am unable to see the immorality of the actions, and that they are lies.
Hopefully, others would care to share their rationale, that we could contemplate from a different perspective.
I see the implication that the scenarios are fabricated, therefore falsehoods.
So falsehoods are ultimately deceptions.
An analogy can also be fabricated to draw a parallel, so in a sense not real, so it is also a falsehood too?
What then, about parables?
Hi Weychin,
I heard of a story whereby a lady asked why her son have to die...
and was advised by the Buddha to ask for sesame seeds from a family who have nobody died before...and subsequently.... (I assume you know the story...)
In matters that are unfactual... The Buddha would not say anything... I don't think even parables is allowed too... it undermines the integrity of a person
By writing this post doesn't mean i got higher integrity than you.. haha....
Thank you for patience for bearing with me.
Before giving further examples of skilful means, or expediency, I now refer to the terms upaya kausalya (skrt), and upaya kosala Nana(Pali).
Skilful means applied in this instance and most examples I am aware of originates from Mahayana Buddhism. If you subscribe to this form of Buddhism, then mention and examples of such expediency can be cited from Mahayana Sutras.
If, however, you hold that a traditionist way as the only legitimate view, then further discussion is not fruitful, as I do not accept that being the only position . It invalidates the authenticity of the teachers and their teachings whom I have accepted . Any further discussions will perceived as imposing my beliefs and view over yours.
Traditionist refers to holding hinayana point of view and in no way imply any particular lineage.
My understanding of upaya kosala Nana is that in conjunction with maha karuna, the basic requirement for attaining the paramitas.
Hi Weychin,
No problem... i understand your point of view :)
Mahayana is more flexible. But i prefer to emulate from the suttas... the intention may meant well but the methods we look at is what we have differences
Yup