Honesty is essential for our practice to help us understand and improve our way of coping with the vagaries of life.  First, we need to practice using Wise Speech, a major part of which is truthfulness, an ‘external’ honesty that helps us avoid generating more dukkha for ourselves and those around us.  Then we also need to develop ‘internal’ honesty so that as we practice we can let ourselves see the truth of how our thoughts and emotions arise, affect us, and pass away.

This might sound easy, but it can be very difficult when we don’t approve of how our minds actually work.  The mind is quite capable of lying to itself.  When we turn our attention inward, things can be shrouded, our exploration on slippery ground, or quicksand.  This tendency of the mind to hide things from us is often the cause of the hindrances.  We can get restless and distracted by desires or dislikes, or bored and sleepy, or so frustrated that we doubt the purpose of practicing.

We need to let go of the mind’s resistance to letting us see the truth of how things are in our inner experience.  Will power alone won’t work for this.  It usually just strengthens the mind’s determination to block our access to the truth.  We need, instead, to befriend this aspect of the mind.  We need kindness.  I usually just say we need to be kind to ourselves.  This can be confusing, though, unless we understand how multifaceted our minds are. 

Neurologists have been trying to map the brain but it keeps proving to be more complex.  The Buddha gave us five categories of what we imagine our selves to be, often called the Five Aggregates.  I’m not sure any scheme devised can lay out all the things the mind does. 

The best way to learn its terrain is to concentrate until it’s fairly easy to come back to the breath (or other object of concentration). Then widen our focus to include the thoughts that come and go. Note just their content and then focus solely on the physical feelings associated with thoughts, without returning to the story they repeatedly tell us.  This is a complex exercise to master.  But as we try this exercise over and over, we come to know what I call the geography of the mind.

This can’t be done without loving ourselves – all of our selves – deceitful, badly behaved mind, unreasonable feelings and all.  This is how we are and we are wonderful, lovable beings.  With lovingkindness, we can explore the creepy, scary nooks and crannies of our consciousness.  Without it we may be just wasting our time or worse.  We could be strengthening our aversion to seeing the truth of how things are, moving us further into the realm of Samsara and dukkha.

Practicing Wise Speech develops the skill of being honest.  Practicing Metta gives us the ability to accept the truth with kindness.  However we can increase our ability to be honest and loving will move us further into the realm of Awakening, reducing our suffering as we go.