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　　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.

　　道德戒律的修行主导了言语及身体两种外在行为的规范，而对于维持生活所需的部分，道德戒律的修行亦扮演了重要角色。因此修行涵盖了三个面向：正语、正业、正命。现在我们要依照它们在道上所列举的顺序，个别地检视。

　　Right Speech (samma vaca)

　　正语

　　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.

　　佛陀将正语分为四个组成成分：不妄语、不两舌、不恶口、不绮语。因为语言的影响力，并不像肢体行为那幺显而易见，因此它的重要性和潜在力量常被忽略。但是，略微反思，我们会发现语言和它的旁支 —文字，都可能在正负面上具有巨大的影响力。事实上，对生活在非语言沟通阶段的生物而言，肢体语言是重要的。

　　而对于浸濡在口语沟通的人类而言，语言则具有更重要的地位。语言可以破坏生活，制造敌人并发动战争；或者可以赋予智慧，消弭分歧并创造和平，自古以来都是如此的。现代因传播工具、速度、范围的急速扩增，语言的正负面潜能都加倍地扩大。语言能力，无论是口头或书面，常被视为人类特有的标记，基于这点，我们可赞叹，口语须求的这项能力，是促使人类优异的手段工具，而非如我们经常看到的情况 —人类堕落的征兆。

　　(1) Abstaining from false speech (musavada veramani)

　　不妄语

　　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，人们不妄语，避免妄语，说诚实语，及致力于真实、可靠、值得信赖，不做一个会欺诳别人的人。在聚会的场合或人群中、处于亲友群、在社会或在法庭，被传唤做为证人，说出他所知道的事物。如果他什幺都不知道，就会回答「我一无所知」；如果他知道，就会回答「我知道」；如果他不曾目击，就会回答「我不曾看过」；而如果他曾目击，他回答「我看过」。因此，他不会刻意说谎，不论是为了己身利益或他人利益，或其他任何利益。(《增支部》 10：176；《佛陀的话》，页 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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