..續本文上一頁嘗試會走上歧途，阻礙成長。

　　The training in moral discipline governs the two principal channels of outer action, speech and body, as well as another area of vital concern — one”s way of earning a living. Thus the training contains three factors: right speech, right action, and right livelihood. These we will now examine inpidually, following the order in which they are set forth in the usual exposition of the path.

　　道德戒律的修行主導了言語及身體兩種外在行爲的規範，而對于維持生活所需的部分，道德戒律的修行亦扮演了重要角色。因此修行涵蓋了叁個面向：正語、正業、正命。現在我們要依照它們在道上所列舉的順序，個別地檢視。

　　Right Speech (samma vaca)

　　正語

　　The Buddha pides right speech into four components: abstaining from false speech, abstaining from slanderous speech, abstaining from harsh speech, and abstaining from idle chatter. Because the effects of speech are not as immediately evident as those of bodily action, its importance and potential is easily overlooked. But a little reflection will show that speech and its offshoot, the written word, can have enormous consequences for good or for harm. In fact, whereas for beings such as animals who live at the preverbal level physical action is of dominant concern, for humans immersed in verbal communication speech gains the ascendency. Speech can break lives, create enemies, and start wars, or it can give wisdom, heal pisions, and create peace. This has always been so, yet in the modern age the positive and negative potentials of speech have been vastly multiplied by the tremendous increase in the means, speed, and range of communications. The capacity for verbal expression, oral and written, has often been regarded as the distinguishing mark of the human species. From this we can appreciate the need to make this capacity the means to human excellence rather than, as too often has been the case, the sign of human degradation.

　　佛陀將正語分爲四個組成成分：不妄語、不兩舌、不惡口、不绮語。因爲語言的影響力，並不像肢體行爲那幺顯而易見，因此它的重要性和潛在力量常被忽略。但是，略微反思，我們會發現語言和它的旁支 —文字，都可能在正負面上具有巨大的影響力。事實上，對生活在非語言溝通階段的生物而言，肢體語言是重要的。

　　而對于浸濡在口語溝通的人類而言，語言則具有更重要的地位。語言可以破壞生活，製造敵人並發動戰爭；或者可以賦予智慧，消弭分歧並創造和平，自古以來都是如此的。現代因傳播工具、速度、範圍的急速擴增，語言的正負面潛能都加倍地擴大。語言能力，無論是口頭或書面，常被視爲人類特有的標記，基于這點，我們可贊歎，口語須求的這項能力，是促使人類優異的手段工具，而非如我們經常看到的情況 —人類墮落的征兆。

　　(1) Abstaining from false speech (musavada veramani)

　　不妄語

　　Herein someone avoids false speech and abstains from it. He speaks the truth, is devoted to truth, reliable, worthy of confidence, not a deceiver of people. Being at a meeting, or amongst people, or in the midst of his relatives, or in a society, or in the king”s court, and called upon and asked as witness to tell what he knows, he answers, if he knows nothing: “I know nothing,” and if he knows, he answers: “I know”; if he has seen nothing, he answers: “I have seen nothing,” and if he has seen, he answers: “I have seen.” Thus he never knowingly speaks a lie, either for the sake of his own advantage, or for the sake of another person”s advantage, or for the sake of any advantage whatsoever.21

　　于此，人們不妄語，避免妄語，說誠實語，及致力于真實、可靠、值得信賴，不做一個會欺诳別人的人。在聚會的場合或人群中、處于親友群、在社會或在法庭，被傳喚做爲證人，說出他所知道的事物。如果他什幺都不知道，就會回答「我一無所知」；如果他知道，就會回答「我知道」；如果他不曾目擊，就會回答「我不曾看過」；而如果他曾目擊，他回答「我看過」。因此，他不會刻意說謊，不論是爲了己身利益或他人利益，或其他任何利益。(《增支部》 10：176；《佛陀的話》，頁 50)

　　This statement of the Buddha discloses both the negative and the positive sides to the precept. The negative side is abstaining from lying, the positive side speaking the truth. The determinative factor behind the transgression is the intention to deceive. If one speaks something false believing it to be true, there is no breach of the precept as the intention to deceive is absent. Though the deceptive intention is common to all cases of false speech, lies can appear in different guises depending on the motivating root, whether greed, hatred, or delusion. Greed as the chief motive results in the lie aimed at gaining some personal advantage for oneself or for those close to onesel…

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