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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: Klein on December 01, 2011, 12:54:03 PM
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I have a friend who can't stop lying. No matter how many times she apologises, she still continues to lie. What causes this compulsive behaviour and what can be done to help this person? This person loves the dharma and always want to volunteer. But this compulsive behaviour is causing a lot of damage to the organisation.
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Usually the core problem of such a compulsive liar is deeper than just lying. Lying is more like the symptom of the underlying problem. A person lie to cover up mistakes or any committed dishonesty. An easy way out instead of taking responsibility. A mistake is usually committed due to laziness, carelessness and lack of care. Dishonesty could arise from wrong motivation. Whatever the reason to lie, the substantial cause mentioned above plays a major role because if the substantial cause is not present, then there is no reason to lie.
Therefore, to help this friend, perhaps, it would help if you find out the underlying cause for her compulsive lying. If she addresses the source of her problem, then perhaps, she would have a better chance of stopping the habit of lying. This is not something that can be changed over night but at least if you can help her identify the source of her problem, she has something she can work on to get out of this compulsive habit.
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Usually the core problem of such a compulsive liar is deeper than just lying. Lying is more like the symptom of the underlying problem. A person lie to cover up mistakes or any committed dishonesty. An easy way out instead of taking responsibility. A mistake is usually committed due to laziness, carelessness and lack of care. Dishonesty could arise from wrong motivation. Whatever the reason to lie, the substantial cause mentioned above plays a major role because if the substantial cause is not present, then there is no reason to lie.
Therefore, to help this friend, perhaps, it would help if you find out the underlying cause for her compulsive lying. If she addresses the source of her problem, then perhaps, she would have a better chance of stopping the habit of lying. This is not something that can be changed over night but at least if you can help her identify the source of her problem, she has something she can work on to get out of this compulsive habit.
Indeed, thank you WT for your insights.
Mostly, lying is a mechanism of "defensiveness", we protect our self from being discovered or identified (wrongly or rightly) as the person responsible.
And a such, it is a habit of escaping responsibilities.
Taking responsibility can help to get rid of the habit of lying.
Lying can also be assisting in the construction of a projection of oneself to others as a fantasy of our mind.
I could say that my father was a rich prince who could not recognize me because I was the fruit of a forbidden love affair, and that I am of royal blood, when in fact I have never known of my father at all... Lying can be like that to. It does not cover a "mistake" of mine, but it creates an illusion that I find flatters my ego.
Whichever it is, lying is a habit mostly destructive to the liar, and often the only solution a liar finds to the devastating results of his lies is ... to lie some more. This makes it very difficult to remove the habit.
Perhaps renewing its refuge vow everyday with conviction would help.
There must be a shift in the mind of a compulsive liar that makes him/her realize that not lying is more reliable a solution than lying!
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sometimes compulsive lying is a sign that the individual may be suffering from a mental issue like schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder. It could be also that the person is in deep denial, if they happen to be unable to face a certain traumatic event in their lives and they lie to themselves.
In general compulsive liars are people who lie to themselves all the time for whatever reason, which is the reason why they lie to others, because they are unable to be honest to themselves. Counselling may help to unravel what is going on, but the caveat is that the compulsive liar needs to know that she needs help.
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Compulsive liars are exactly that! They have a compulsion to lie, sometimes to a point where they themselves can't even keep track of their lies. I believe a compulsive liar is always aware of his or her lying and hence when a compulsive liar says he or she does not realise he or she is lying or that they have no control... that in itself is a lie!
The compulsion to lie most commonly stems from a deep rooted problem and that problem I feel comes from pain. Pain generated by years of suppressed anger, frustration, hurt, etc. And the mind "creates" a perfect scenario in which the person is kept "safe"... so they think.
And this haven they create for themselves only causes more harm as it is a "reality" that is based on a selfish and complete self preservation to a point where no one else matters. Surely this is not the way to get out of our pain. I learnt from a young age that we need to love more and not cause more pain to others if we want love. With love comes love and with pain, anger, frustration, hurt etc... comes just that and more!
Even if what I say proves not to be right at the end of my life, at least I have lived a life that is filled with the emotions I am seeking rather than filling it with more of the emotions that I dread!
So Klein, that is what I would tell your friend. To love more, to share more and to live more... I believe compulsive lying can be stopped as it is a mere thought, a selfish one at that!
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Lying compulsively is a matter of having built-up the habit over a long period of time, we may say several life times.
Nobody engages in non-virtuous actions with the thought that it is helpless and damaging, I don't think so.
When we engage in a non-virtuous action, it is always because we think it is the best thing to do, because we think it is a solution. Our mind has analyzed a situation and has come to the [ignorant and false] conclusion that the non-virtuous action would be better than abstaining from it.
Examples:
I engage in a sexual intercourse with someone's partner, and in the moment I think it's ok, I'll deal with the karma later, for now, this feels like a good thing to do. The train of thought is even more convinced of the validity of this act for someone who has no Dharma knowledge. This is ignorance at work.
I seize an opportunity to use some money that is not mine and justify this with all sorts of logic that I make-up to be stronger than the karma I must face for stealing. This is ignorance at work.
I lie because I think the immediate result of that lie will "save my day". This is ignorance at work.
I think that the person suffering from a compulsion of engaging in a non-virtuous action must establish the firm conviction that refraining from that action is the solution to the problem, always.
In the case of lying: to believe strongly that not lying is more reliable a solution than lying, and that lying is not a solution but a problem.
One lies to get out of trouble. If one can truly realize than refraining from lying is getting one out of trouble, then, I think, the compulsion can be overridden, because the fact is this: WE ALL WANT TO GET OUT OF TROUBLE.
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One lies to get out of trouble.
When put in this way, lying is a form of escapism isn't it? For me when I lie it is because I know I am in trouble and want to use the "easiest" way out without admitting I am wrong --> not wanting to bear responsibility / lazy + ego.
I don't like to lie because I feel it is a betrayal of the other person's trust and digging a hole for my own self eventually... I guess if one realises that lying will cause hurt to the person, and cares about the person's feelings more than his/her ego.. the lying would stop.
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Because of all the lies that were said, that person can't stop doing it because it became habitual. It became something fun and trying to fie further in order to cover the lies previously. Karma from lying may also cause the person to have (mental illness) depending on the weight of the negative karma created. Laziness, ego, pride are also some of the reasons that cause these people to lie as they cant let other people look down on them, create rumors, make them look stupid etc. We should instead help these people instead of making them worse. Some of the ways would be advising them to do purification practices, remind them of the negative karma they are creating which will be very bad in the future or reading the Lam Rim...
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Everyone lies from time to time. Studies show that we lie several times a day, for example, "No, ur dress looks nice!" but actually u think she looks like a drag queen. Well, this is just very minor lie, if were to compare with compulsive lying.
I believe a compulsive liar regards telling lies as a routine. It becomes second nature. They not only bend the truth about issues big or small, they take comfort in it. They feel good telling lies, whether to cover their mistakes, delusions, to confuse people, or merely just to cover the lies he/she told before. Because when u tell a lie, u gotta tell more lies to cover the previous lie so that people won't find out the loophole of your 'beautiful' lie.
To deal with a compulsive liar is quite tricky. Getting them to admit they having such problem is difficult. Sadly enough, when counseling and therapy(meditational or spiritual) don't work, it's really up to themselves to come to a realization one day and hope they would come out from this "comfort zone" of lying, face the world and the truth, with sincere heart.
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Everyone lies from time to time. Studies show that we lie several times a day, for example, "No, ur dress looks nice!" but actually u think she looks like a drag queen. Well, this is just very minor lie, if were to compare with compulsive lying.
Dear hysteric gypsy,
What you mentioned is a white lie and not a lie per se. White lies do not create negative karma, lies do. A white lie doesn't have bad intention to hurt the person, a lie does.
Telling a person that her dress looks nice when it makes her look like a drag queen might be said out of compassion. The white lie is said perhaps to not embarrass her in public or lower her spirits. Therefore, sometimes it is necessary to tell white lies.
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In my opinion, when we lie, its to get into a favorable situations more than getting out of trouble. Because more often than not, people lie about things that won't get them into any serious trouble. If we tell a drag queen look alike that she dresses cool, she will appreciate us because very few people would have complimented her that way. So the reason of the lie would be for her to be happy and favor us.
Another example, If I killed somebody, I would deny it or lie to any other person. But if I was speaking to a fellow murderer, wouldn't want to lie. Because, when I lie to a non murderer, I would be favored. But if I lie to a fellow murderer, I would not be favored.
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I think the issue here is not little white lies but more serious lies that are meant to hurt, avoid responsibility or with schismatic intent. Those are the serious lies that have serious repercussions. People who lie are always with a 'front', protecting themselves from a perceived threat that is often unreal or exaggerated. More often that not, deception is just a tool they have honed over a period of time to avoid seemingly small problems and responsibilities. Before they know it, they are unable to control the lying and nothing loses people's respect more than lying. How can we trust a person who lies all the time. People who lie a lot are very lonely people because they have to keep up the lies and in the end, they always alone because people will not be fooled forever.
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People start lying because they cannot accept the truth of a situation. And they keep lying because more and more their lives become to be constructed on lies that have trapped them in. I guess when you create negative karma, it creates also more causes for more negative karma to be created. After a while, the lies become bigger than the person.
If they were to stop lying, the entirety of their "life" falls apart. I guess it must be quite a miserable life knowing that a person is living a fantasy. Liars are usually very angry people because they feel trapped.
Fear takes over and habitual liars fear that should the truth be known, they will lose everything. They lose self respect and when they lose self respect, they stop trying to be better. They just go along. In general society is not very forgiving because in general society suffers its own illnesses.
It takes very sincere and compassionate friends who on the on hand do not tolerate the lies, but on the other hand, does not give up on the person afflicted with the habit of lying no matter how onerous that friendship has become.
Kindness changes everything.
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I agree with most that is said by others in this tread.
By compulsive, I must take it that it is not about lying because of laziness, to cover up some thing etc. Compulsive really mean lying for the sake of lying. It is the results of "Tendencies similar to the cause" in the Lamrim. This means the person has been lying in his in her past live(s) and it is repeating is an increasingly habitual way.
I think the best way to help from our side is to dedicate our merits generated by our Sadhanas or any Dharma work to this person. We should bring this person to do Dharma work, pujas, purification practices and the like to clear the Karma for lying. If not, I shudder to think of the consequences as the Karma generated for lying can be quite severe.
Basically, we need to nurture this person, don't give up on this person ever. Bring this person to Dharma.
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What this person is doing may be caused by an imprint from her past life. Though she has the karma to be connected to Dharma she may not have the karma to tell the truth. However, her karma from being involved in the dharma, she may have the chance to be a better person and reduce her amount of lying. In buddhism, all is forgiven if you have the motivation to transform and being benefits to all sentient beings. Lying may arise from a different perspective such as to cover up another persons faulty actions, avoid projecting pain to others, protect somebody. It's only bad if the person lies for his/her own pleasure and entertainment.
It's only human to lie and it doesn't take a nighter to change. As a fellow dharma sibling you should assist her in transforming her mind. What you say or do defines what a person is. You must understand the situation from both sides to completely, maybe she doesn't want to lie but her mind is insisting on it. In this case on her compulsive lying, it may be deeper than just lying. It could be a phase of a compulsive disorder.
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There are a number of reasons that people lie.The most common is fear.They are taking shelter from a perceived punishment.It maybe because they know they have done something wrong in a single time,in
which case is not compulsive lying.It becomes a habit if they are always in fear of being punished,which is lying by reflex.Even confronted,they insist the lie is the truth.Learning to lie by modeling is when people see others lie and get with it.They may be prone to lie,
Finally,people lie because if they tell the truth,they won't get what they want.Lying by habit can truly be called
compulsive lying.
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What this person is doing may be caused by an imprint from her past life. Though she has the karma to be connected to Dharma she may not have the karma to tell the truth. However, her karma from being involved in the dharma, she may have the chance to be a better person and reduce her amount of lying. In buddhism, all is forgiven if you have the motivation to transform and being benefits to all sentient beings. Lying may arise from a different perspective such as to cover up another persons faulty actions, avoid projecting pain to others, protect somebody. It's only bad if the person lies for his/her own pleasure and entertainment.
It's only human to lie and it doesn't take a nighter to change. As a fellow dharma sibling you should assist her in transforming her mind. What you say or do defines what a person is. You must understand the situation from both sides to completely, maybe she doesn't want to lie but her mind is insisting on it. In this case on her compulsive lying, it may be deeper than just lying. It could be a phase of a compulsive disorder.
Perhaps one way to deal with a compulsive liar is to make him/her understand that we don't put credit in anything he/she says, as this is the reality.
The effect of lying is that one does not create causes to be trusted and creates causes for people to betray and lie to him/her.
Perhaps within a Dharma environment, the liar may see the reality of the karma he/she creates and make the necessary effort to change her/his behavior.
There is another aspect in lying too, for lying is like the capping over a previous non virtuous action, like a nice-looking wrapping over some garbage, how long would it take for someone to smell the garbage through the nice wrapping?
So instead of dealing with garbage directly and cleaning up the mess, we wrap it up thinking "that will do", but the garbage gets worse and worse with time.
Lying is never a solution but only a procrastination.
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Compulsive liars tells lies as if it is second nature. There are Not bad people just that they need to lie to feel natural when lying and the dangerous part is they find comfort in lying. Most of the time these compulsive liars have lied enough to become habitual like an addiction and some are due to Personality disorders. If we want to help this person, firstly we need to get to the bottom of that person. The underlying problem may shed some light if why they lie. One way is to point out to that person about their lying habit and we need to provide conselling. However, most liars will not take it easily when we point out their weakness. It takes patience to point out their lies on the spot and always show care and be encouraging to them and let them feel that telling the truth is far better. Some people lie because they were severely punished for their mistakes. So they lie to escape. So maybe we change our ways of how we deal with people first then maybe there will be some improvements.
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A compulsive liar is someone who lies out of habit. Once this becomes second nature, we can never be sure if whatever comes out from that person's mouth is the truth or something that he fabricated.
Some people lie just to feel good while others lie to cover up something. This bad habit is actually a weakness as that person cannot see beyond what he is doing and the hurt it is causing to others.
It is like the boy who cried "Wolf".
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compulsive lying can be caused by the ego of oneself. probably she/he wants to look good and just always twist statements to be in the favour of oneself. However, this is small lies compared to more severe ones but nevertheless it is still lying and it is not the kind of behaviour one would want to have because this is habituation. the more we lie, it will surely lead to more serious ones. so compulsive lying has to be addressed in the early stages and one would ask why not compulsive honesty??
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What this person is doing may be caused by an imprint from her past life. Though she has the karma to be connected to Dharma she may not have the karma to tell the truth. However, her karma from being involved in the dharma, she may have the chance to be a better person and reduce her amount of lying. In buddhism, all is forgiven if you have the motivation to transform and being benefits to all sentient beings. Lying may arise from a different perspective such as to cover up another persons faulty actions, avoid projecting pain to others, protect somebody. It's only bad if the person lies for his/her own pleasure and entertainment.
It's only human to lie and it doesn't take a nighter to change. As a fellow dharma sibling you should assist her in transforming her mind. What you say or do defines what a person is. You must understand the situation from both sides to completely, maybe she doesn't want to lie but her mind is insisting on it. In this case on her compulsive lying, it may be deeper than just lying. It could be a phase of a compulsive disorder.
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Lying is one of the ten non-virtuous actions. If your friend had not lied in the past, she will not experience the effects of lying. There are three effects of lying – the ripened effect, the effects similar to the cause and the environmental effect. The fact that she was born as human means that she has not experienced the ripened effect of being born in one of the three lowered realms in this life. However, she has experienced effects similar to the cause and the environmental effect.
The environmental effect for her is that she lives in an environment where people cheat and deceive and there is no one she could trust. Perhaps that is why she finds the said Dharma organisation very accommodating to her. She gains the trust and confidence of Dharma friends easily compared to the place where she might be living where she can find none of these.
She must have lied so much in her past lives causing her to experience the effects similar to the cause which is lying. There are two types of effects similar to the cause – tendencies similar to the cause and experiences similar to the cause. Hence, she experienced the effects that are tendencies similar to the cause by continuing to have a strong compulsion to lie. The lying pattern is similar as in the past and it gets worst each time she lied. This effect makes it extremely difficult for her to avoid creating the cause for many future rebirths in the lower realms.
The effects that are experiences similar to lying is that no one trust what she says and people do not listen to her advice. She needs to cover her acts by continuing to lie to others who do not know her behaviour. But sooner or later her compulsive lying will be exposed. When that happens she has no choice but to either go to another place to continue her bad habituation or resolve to transform herself to stop lying.
There is no point of her apologising if she continued to lie. She must realise her negative actions have severe consequences not only to herself but to the organisation as a whole, and she will face disciplinary actions for her negative actions if she persist to lie within or outside the organisation. If she sincerely regretted her actions and wanted to change for the better, then there is hope that she will stop lying. She can’t transform alone and will need careful guidance and help from her guru and fellow practitioners in the Dharma organisation. She loves Dharma but does she put Dharma into practice purely and sincerely? If she did, in time she will recover from her compulsive lying.
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To add further...
The very fact is a compulsion to lie in itself tells your the state of mind. It is VERY conscious! I do not believe for one moment that a compulsive liar does it out of 'habit' because that mean the person may not be aware but does it out of a habituation.
Compulsive liars do it consciously and with the intent to cover their tracks (previous lies) and that is why it is so dangerous as sometimes they slip as they forget what they have actually said in the past. The truth is easy to remember but lies are hard to keep track of especially if they were made up to cover another lie.
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People who lie are normally due to some of the reason:
1) They have a very huge ego that don’t want to look bad in front of people, therefore they lie hope to cover whatever they have not done that make them lose face.
2) People who are very lazy, because when the things are not done, they do not want scolding or force themselves to do it, then they lie so that they don’t need to do it again.
3) Habit, when someone are so used to lying, eventually they will pick up the habit of lying, they might not do it intentionally, but it has already became a habit that cannot get rid of.
Lying can cause many problems, it created disharmony between people around them, it created loses for the company when we lie, lie can even cause a life of a person. So, sometimes don’t think that this lie I’m telling now is very small matter, but bear in mind that, this might look small to us, it might be very important to other people.
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If you lie to cover another lie, then do you not see the domino effect? One lie leads to another, to another .... it never ends. How many more lies would you need to tell?
Like Carpenter said, some people lie because of their ego, some are lazy and some do it out of habit. NO matter what the reason, a lie means not telling the truth. When that happens, say to cover your ego, and the truth prevails (it always does at the end), does it not make you "lose" more face?
Which is better - lose face now or tell a lie and lose more face later? Either way, you do not win. Karma catches up.
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Lying is the easy way to cover up, hiding the truth of the problems. so they no need to take any responsibility towards it. Its also can be lying to get something from someone.
So the best way is for you to observe your friend that which type of lying she always does, from that you can find the cause and if she is very open mind. You can tell her straight away when she lie so that she know that people are know about her lie and she might think to resolve the cause of it.
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In the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta, while giving instruction to his son Rahula, Buddha said that, “when anyone feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie, there is no evil, I tell you, he will not do.
If we study about karma, the results of negative karma in that first there are the main result, a similar result, a reaction result, and a place or condition result.
If one examines the cause, then there is a direct result of that cause. In the case of lying, the direct result would be being lied to or being blamed unjustly. There would also be a similar result, meaning that the direct result would occur in conditions similar to the original cause. Then there would a reaction effect, meaning that there would be the development of a habitual tendency to lying – which in this case of your friend, has become so strong. The effect of place and habitual tendency associated with lying could include people failing to believe anything the person who lie told them or being wrongfully jailed without guilt.
Unfortunately, there is no other antidote besides being very truthful in all matters, practicing Right Speech even to her detriment, and only she can make this choice. Because only by applying this antidote, she is able to change her habitual tendency of lying and stop creating negative causes which produce suffering for herself. It takes a lot of hard work to purify negative habitual tendencies, but the results are worth it as it will not only reduce our own suffering, but the suffering we cause in others we lie to or about whom we lie.
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Where does compulsive lying stem from? If we understand or perhaps accept where it comes from, then we can begin to know why and how to curb it.
For me, I believe lying, compulsive or not, comes from the egotistical and selfish mind. A need to right and not be wrong, a need to look good, a need to be the one in the limelight, a need to cover a mistake one has made, a need to have something for oneself, etc...
And i trust we all know how lying can be so easy... especially the first one! What becomes difficult in time is the need to have to cover up the lies previously which could have been avoided from that one truthful statement to begin with. So much so, compulsive liars become so caught up in that one lie that has rippled into a multitude of uncountable lies!
All that for just a temporal relief for our egotistical and selfish mind. And the thing is, the compulsion to lie can be stopped immediately by correcting the initial lie but that would take a huge blow to the ego and selfish mind which perhaps the person that has now become so "conditioned" to lying cannot or will not accept.