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Mike Austin wrote: <<I'm just speculating, but maybe speaking the 'truth' here means
speaking that which yields the 'truth'. This, then, depends on the individual and
thus requires skill (and compassion, eh Tang?).>>

Look up the four points of view (siddhanta) of the Commentary on the Great
Perfection of Wisdom,

http://www.kalavinka.org/wk-f01/01-4sid.htm

-the worldly point of view
-the point of view adapted for the individual
-the point of view of counteraction
-the point of view of ultimate reality

The funny part of Buddhist truth, as stated in language, is that it is true
conventionally but untrue ultimately, because it is within thought and language, and
*all* that is in thought and language is at best true conventionally but untrue
ultimately, and the same fate befalls the Buddhist teaching. That is why all thought
and language will be abandoned at awakening, including Buddhist truth.

A year ago, Lee posted Hayes represents "Truth is a Whore sayes Hayes", and I
replied: Hayes represented Dignaga thus (and I concur): "The empirical is beyond
description and beyond understanding". What Hayes calls "the empirical", I call
"sensible reality". What he says next about Dignaga: "What we understand is
invariably a superimposition of categories upon sensible phenomena that can never be
adequately categorised. So all attempts at understanding must be provisional,
fallible and ultimately unsatisfactory", I often say that language and thought are
reasonably successful in helping us survive and communicate (including the
communication inside each of us), but ultimately are incoherent in themselves and
fail to correspond with sensible reality.

Given that Buddhist truth points at Hayes' empirical (my raw sensation), but is
itself within language and thought, it, like everything within language and thought,
must be provisional, fallible and ultimately unsatisfactory.

Tang Huyen