Topics Include: 1) The fundamental importance of right speech in terms of its foundation in truth. The fundamental importance of truth in the whole spiritual process in terms of seeing things as they truly are. 2) How karma unfolds in our lives in terms of the relationship between our feelings, our thoughts, our speech, our actions and how we manifest in the world. The presence or absence of consonance and how it can lead to awakening or suffering. The fundamental importance of truth. 3) Morality and ethics and the sense of agency: the contrasting views of western and Buddhist thought. 4) Morality as less as a system of constraints, but as a purification of the mind that prevents negative emotions from arising and the promotion of harmony in the world. 5) The five forms of right speech: abstaining from false speech, abstaining from slanderous speech,abstaining from harsh speech and abstaining from idle chatter. 6) Abstaining from false speech and its implications for our current political situation.How alternative realities are created. 7) Understanding the commitment to truth as the manifestation of the truly spiritually realized life.
January 9, 2021
58 min.