Exploring the Path - Pāli Course

The female slave Khujjuttarā heard these verses and reported them, leading to their collection in the Itivuttakapāḷi.⁶ In these verses, the Buddha stresses the fact that towards the end of one’s life, at the moment of passing away, one may feel repentance by understanding one’s unwholesome conduct.⁷ Conversely, in the case of wholesome conduct, one may be without any remorse.⁸

The demands of day-to-day life produces many delicate situations where one must take care to remain truthful yet neither offend someone nor fall in the trap of exaggeration or playing things down. In the wider sense as well, the multiple influences of daily life with all the multifarious stimuli through modern media tend to lead a person astray to delusion, mental passivity and ignorance— avoiding such stimuli will be beneficial for spiritual growth.

Determination to maintain all aspects of sīla therefore is a huge challenge that involves constant vigilance, ongoing vigour and reflection about one’s intention and volition. Sammāvācā requires not only avoidance of harmful utterances and superfluous chatter (micchāvācā) but also demands one to perform of wholesome speech. The Buddha expressed the need to cultivate both aspects of his teaching as ‘cārittaṃ vārittaṃ sikkhāpada’ (‘the training not only to avoid what should not be done but also intentional performance of what should be done’).⁹

The Vācāsutta highlights five wholesome tools (pañca aṅgā) of noble and untarnished speech that should, if reflected upon, be helpful in various situations of daily life. Aṅga is a term meaning a ‘limb, part, constituent’ as used in bojjhaṅgā (the limbs of enlightenment), which is commonly translated as the ‘factors of enlightenment’.¹⁰ The paraphrase: ‘characteristics of blameless speech’ is used here for the following five aṅgehi samannāgatā:kālena, saccā, saṇhā, atthasaṃhitā and mettacittena to express the meaning for the correct quality of speaking. The commentarial explanation gives the following details:

•  kālena: ‘It should be spoken at the proper time’ - that is someone who speaks timely:

‘Kālena vadatīti kālavādī vattabbayuttakālaṃ¹¹ sallakkhetvā¹² vadatīti attho.’

‘Speaking at the proper time and having properly considered it is the meaning of ‘speaking at the proper time’.’

•  saccā: ‘It should be spoken truthfully’ - that is someone who speaks the truth:

‘Saccaṃ vadatīti saccavādī. Saccena saccaṃ sandahati ghaṭetīti saccasandho. Na antarantarā musā vadatīti attho.’

‘Through accuracy, truth is connected and joined with truthfulness. Speaking connected with and having considered the proper time is the meaning of speaking at the proper time. The meaning is that he does not speak any falsehood even from time to time.’

‘Yo hi puriso kadāci¹³ musā vadati, kadāci saccaṃ, tassa musāvādena antaritattā¹⁴ saccaṃ saccena na ghaṭīyati; tasmā so na saccasandho.

‘Because if such a man speaks some false and some truthful words by concealing false speech, then it is neither connected nor joined with truthfulness.’

‘Ayaṃ pana na tādiso, jīvitahetupi musā avatvā saccena saccaṃ sandahati yevāti saccasandho.’¹⁵

‘If that was not the fact, and for the sake of his life he has not uttered any falsehood then indeed it is connected and joined with truthfulness only.’