If you were sitting in the park and a terrified man ran passed you and then a few minutes later another man carrying a knife ran up to you and asked if you had seen which way the first man had gone, would you tell him the truth or would you lie to him?

QUESTION: If you were sitting in the park and a terrified man ran passed you and then a few minutes later another man carrying a knife ran up to you and asked if you had seen which way the first man had gone, would you tell him the truth or would you lie to him?
ANSWER: If I had good reason to suspect that the second man was going to do serious harm to the first I would, as an intelligent caring Buddhist, have no hesitation in lying. We said before that one of the factors determining whether a deed is good or bad is intention. The intention to save a life is many times more positive than telling a lie in circumstances such as these. If lying, drinking or even stealing meant that I saved a life I should do it. I can always make amends for breaking these Precepts but I can never bring back a life once it is gone. However, as said before, please do not take this as a license to break the Precepts whenever it is convenient. The Precepts should be practiced with great care and only infringed in extreme cases.