เกณฑ์ตัดสินคือเจตนาและธรรมชาติที่อยู่เบื้องหลังคำพูด หากกุศลอยู่เบื้องหลัง คำพูดนั้นจะให้ความเป็นธรรมและเหนี่ยวนำบุญมาสู่ทั้งผู้พูดและผู้ฟัง แต่หากอกุศลอยู่เบื้องหลัง คำพูดนั้นจะยิ่งซ้ำเติมให้เกิดความแตกร้าว หากไม่แน่ใจว่าเป็นความจริงหรือไม่ ทางที่ดีที่สุดคือไม่พูดThe deciding factor is the intention and the natural force behind the words. When wholesomeness is behind it, the words bring fairness and draw merit to both speaker and listener; when unwholesomeness is behind it, the words only deepen division. If we're not sure something is true, the safest course is simply not to say it.
Someone asked: between gossiping and seeking advice, when we have to mention something negative about another person, what's the line between the two?
The Criterion Is What Lies Behind the Words
The key criterion is the natural force pulling the strings behind the speech. If merit is behind it, it draws in pure energy; if demerit is behind it, it draws in negative energy. Unwholesomeness aims to make the mind gloomy, casting others in a critical light, in order to draw more demerit in. Wholesomeness, on the other hand, wants good things to happen -- it finds a way to be fair to the other party, which draws merit in to cleanse the minds of both speaker and listener.
When wholesomeness is behind it, both speaker and listener feel good; the listener senses the sincerity of the person sharing the information and comes to trust it, and the converon leads toward a good resolution. But when unwholesomeness is behind it, it draws demerit into both parties, making the situation worse and deepening the rift -- because unwholesomeness's whole aim is to cause more and more division, in order to draw in as much demerit as possible.
A Right Way to Give Advice
If isn't accessible in a given situation, rely on , wisdom, and faith instead -- rest the mind in equanimity, then share the facts as they are. What matters most is the intention behind it: do we actually want to see the other person suffer? If we speak in order to genuinely help resolve something, not to hurt anyone, that is a good intention. Goodness comes in two forms: being "proper," which means not breaking a precept, and being "virtuous," which means not violating the -- both of which earn respect and trust.
If we're not sure whether what we're about to say is even true, the safest thing is not to say it. Ask yourself: if you were in that same situation and someone said this to you, could you accept it? If you couldn't, neither can anyone else -- and the karmic result will eventually come back to you in kind. If you don't want to face that result, don't create the cause.
What Does "Don't Take the Fire Out, Don't Bring the Fire In" Mean?
Bad things within our own home or family, if shared with outsiders, get passed on and gossiped about further and further -- the same way something embarrassing happening at a temple becomes known throughout the whole temple in no time. If we don't want to be gossiped about, we shouldn't be the one who starts sharing our own family's troubles with others -- because eventually people will gossip about our family too. And if we exaggerate the story to make it sound worse than it really is, we only hurt ourselves and our family more. Nobody's faults -- whether family or anyone else's -- should be spread around, because they will already receive the results of their own actions. But when we choose to spread it, unwholesomeness uses us as its instrument to draw demerit into ourselves, storing up a cause that will eventually bring others to gossip about us in turn.
On the Harm of Fortune-Telling
Fortune-telling is about knowing the future. In the past, this was done by reading the merit and demerit spheres layered within the inner sphere of Dhamma -- whenever the merit sphere outgrows the demerit sphere, life flourishes; whenever demerit outgrows merit, crisis arises. In the present age, as the proportion of unwholesomeness has grown, reaching that inner sphere of Dhamma has become harder, so people turn to various diviners and predictive arts, which are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.
Human life is bound by the law of karma, which cannot be avoided -- but we can still rely on , cultivating to stay grounded in wholesomeness. When we're in a period where demerit is bearing fruit, wholesomeness helps lighten that result -- from heavy to light, from light to gone. The more skilled we become at staying grounded in wholesomeness, the more the harm is reduced, while during a period when merit is bearing fruit, the results can even exceed expectations. Keeping precepts, cultivating concentration, and developing wisdom continuously draw in merit that weakens unwholesomeness and increases the proportion of wholesomeness within us.