About This Answer
A caregiver at a nursing home asks whether small white lies to confused residents are wrong. Ajahn Dtun replies that harmless small untruths do little damage, but truthfulness is better. He has kept the precept since about age seven, and he advises doctors to tell dying patients honestly how long they have.
Other questions follow. To stay motivated, he recommends reflecting on death. Letting go of the body is not an intellectual exercise; it needs the strength of samādhi. He recalls realising at sixteen, during a fever, that he could not order his body to get well. With difficult people, he pays little attention to their behaviour, since their actions are their own. Citta and viññāṇa, sense consciousness, are distinct, he says, though delusion merges them until subtler defilements are worked on.
On the benefits of practice, he says one must bite the apple oneself to know its taste. Walking is a coarse posture, so watch the feet rather than the breath, adding Buddho if thoughts persist. Faith grows from reading how the Buddha and his disciples practised and from seeing suffering clearly.