okay good evening everyone welcome to our evening Dhamma so last night one of the things that came up was friendship
Friendship with the good, friendship with the evil.
Good friends, bad friends.
Thought I'd do to spend a little bit of time talking about friendship according to Buddhism.
Friendship's a curious thing.
I would say friendship
in many cases, is something that misleads us from right and wrong, from good and bad.
We find ourselves caught up with people because they're my friend.
It's a curious phrase.
It's a curious excuse or reason for doing something.
Now, if we mean that
We owe them something, a debt of gratitude perhaps.
That's reasonable.
But it tends to be more than that.
We identify with individuals.
From Buddha's perspective, it's quite possible that we've had some connection coming from past lives with certain people.
You notice how
Sometimes you're just unable to make a connection with people.
You might think, well, that's someone I'd like to get to know, but maybe they don't want to have anything to do with you.
Or you look at someone and there's just no connection.
Just faces in the crowd.
When you talk to them, there's no connection.
But other people, you find yourself caught up with them perhaps your whole life.
and you identify with them as being a friend.
Even with a debt of gratitude, though, I don't think there's any reason we should let that color the way we relate to others.
Let people drag us down the wrong path just because they've done good for us in the past.
We don't want to abandon them.
certainly not the right way, it doesn't help us, it doesn't help them.
Even spend all our time and energy trying to help an individual who doesn't want to be helped.
They're going down a destructive path and spend all your energy trying to dissuade them even when the evidence clearly
shows that they're not to be dissuaded from their path.
Friendship is taken quite seriously.
It's something important in Buddhism, something we have to see in its proper light.
Friendship is
Well, two things.
First of all, friendship involves friendliness.
And ideally, we're friendly towards everyone.
It would be nice if we could all be friends.
There's no question about that.
We should be a good friend, really to everyone.
And having the attitude of being friendly towards all people, I think, is perfectly valid.
There's never a reason to be cruel or mean or unkind to others.
Sometimes your kindness takes the form of limiting your engagement with people for their benefit, for your benefit, for the general goodness of you both.
but it should never be cruel or mean.
And sometimes, sometimes karma and past life relationships means, well most of us, it means we have to be involved with people who we wouldn't otherwise be inclined to be involved with.
And in fact that makes it all the more important to be kind and to be friendly because
It'll be a source for constant or common conflict.
If we have bad karma with someone and our inclination is to constantly be in conflict with them, then that should be a very important part of our meditation practice, is learning to overcome that conflict.
learning to change the course of our journey in samsara so that we don't get caught up in the same cycles of vengeance and conflict that we were caught up in before.
But the second thing is that it's important to be careful.
Careful who we
whose company and whose friendship we cultivate.
For some people we be a good friend and that can be great if we have something to provide to them and if they're keen to improve through our friendship, that's great.
But then there are people who seek only to
to drag us down, whose very nature is detrimental to themselves and to those who would call them friends.
And those people you have to be careful with.
You can be compassionate and kind, but you should never consider them as proper friends.
So the Buddha talked about
In the Dīgha Nikāya he talked about different types of friends.
Those who appear to be friends but are not really friends.
And these are the most common mistaken friends that we come across.
If someone's unfriendly and someone is clearly not your friend, you're not likely to
to see them as your friend, but there are ways by which, as I said, we mistakenly come into friendship.
The Buddha outlined a number of these.
He talked about the friend who only takes
the taker.
So people who are constantly after you for benefit, for their own benefit.
And you can see this, you can see the insincerity and the sort of the mental illness involved.
It's quite pitiful, really, when people are not able to give.
It's a common, you might say, mental illness of sorts.
I phrase it in this way because normally we think, well, that person's just selfish and mean, and we get very upset at them.
But you really shouldn't be.
You should pity such a person, a person who constantly wants, who constantly takes.
They take everything.
They'll give you little useless things, useless help,
and expect much more in response.
They'll help you.
When they do help you, they help you out of fear.
They do it not because they're keen at all or interested at all in your benefit, but because they know they feel that they have to in order to get from you.
And the Mooch, someone to be pitied,
not pitied by giving them whatever they want.
Of course, the worst thing you can do for someone, anyone, is give them whatever they want.
But we understood that this is a person who needs a different kind of help, probably need to be cut off.
It's only a person that drags you down.
You don't help them by giving them everything.
The second one is a person who talks.
In Thai they say ,, which means they're only good in speech.
They never actually do anything friendly or helpful to their friends.
They talk about good deeds they've done for you in the past.
They remind you of all the good things they've done for you.
And they make grand promises about the future.
It's funny, there was a man who did this to me in Thailand.
We were in Thailand and this was I don't know how many years ago, but
Not so many years ago.
And he talked such a good game.
He told me about all the millions of dollars that he used to have and that he was going to have.
And he promised.
I helped him.
I was helping him get into being a monk.
He was a temporary monk.
And he said, oh, when I disrobe, I'm going to make all this money and I'm going to build you a meditation center in Canada and talk to all this.
And I only really half believed him, but I thought he was sincere.
I just thought, oh yeah, well, you know, who knows the future.
But I was like, great, well, if it happens, it happens.
But it turns out he was just, it was a total scam, really.
He was really just, I don't know, it was bizarre, because I never ended up giving him, and I didn't have anything great to give him, but...
In the end, it just turned out to be his way of using me.
It seems like the sort of thing that he does.
Really interesting case.
Pitiful, really.
It's unpleasant to think that people get in this state where they will manipulate their fellow humans.
I mean, this is, of course, common for me living in a monastery.
I don't see it nearly as often as most, but
We get so, what's the word, inured to it or desensitized to it.
Or we think it's somehow just the way people behave.
It's how you can't get by in the world without it, which is really unfortunate because it's such an insane way to live.
How can you possibly think that this is the right way to be, the right way to go?
clearly people who don't have a sense of clarity of mind.
Some people just seem to be unable, even though they might pick up the practice of meditation, they're unable to straighten out their minds.
like those Nigerian print scams.
They say, give me some money and I'll give you a lot more.
I mean, our first inclination is to get angry at these people, but it's just so incredibly sad and pitiful that they live that way.
The third is the flatterer.
This should be recognizable to many of you.
This is a person who tells you what a great friend you are and how wonderful you are and praises you and somehow thinks that that's worth something and therefore they should get something in return, right?
Usually that's how this goes.
They feel like flattering you.
By flattering you, well, even just by flattering you, that makes them a good friend.
So they'll praise your good deeds, they'll praise your evil deeds.
The good things you do, they'll praise.
It's very dangerous.
It's clearly a sign of some mental imbalance or some problem.
You might even recognize this in yourselves.
We do this sometimes.
Flattering others, feeling that it makes us a better friend.
Feeling that somehow that'll make them like us more.
It doesn't mean you shouldn't compliment people.
In fact, it is a great thing to appreciate other people's good deeds.
But it should only be their good deeds, right?
You know you're a flatterer.
You know someone's a flatterer when they praise the bad things you do.
when they praise you to your face and disparage you behind your back.
It's a sign that they're just a flatterer.
There's no substance or any wisdom behind what they say.
There's no goodness behind it either.
The fourth is the person who
the person who follows you, or leads you, or is your fellow in ruin.
So this is the person who, the friend that we can all remember having, who was our friend in crime, our partner in crime.
When we get drunk, they get drunk.
They encourage us to get drunk.
We encourage them to get drunk, and they encourage us.
And we go...
wasting our energy and our lives away in gambling and drinking and carrying on friends in debauchery.
That's probably the one that's the worst, the most dangerous.
It's what we see probably most often where
Friendship leads the friends to ruin.
They lead each other down the wrong path.
It's a problem.
It's a danger, right?
Because it's very easy to pick up such friends.
How do we know?
And this is the power of friendship.
Friendship is about encouraging each other.
It's very easy to get a friendship, to cultivate a friendship, to have friends who will lead you and encourage you to lead them down the wrong path.
And if and when you decide that you've got a moral compass and you start to get an idea of what's right and what's wrong, what's good and what's bad, what's to your benefit and to your detriment, this is something that shakes up a lot of friendships.
Practicing meditation is sure to shake up old friendships.
Because you start to realize that you weren't helping each other.
You weren't bringing happiness, peace, freedom from suffering to each other.
You were only entangling each other up in conflict and evil, for lack of a better word.
So those are bad friends.
Now, positively, the Buddha offered some advice on how to find good friends.
He gave a list of four good friends.
First is someone who's helpful.
And this is a great friend.
Someone who supports you.
When you don't notice something's wrong, they protect you.
They protect you, they protect your
They protect your life, they protect your possessions, they will be conscious of your benefit.
I mean that's a rare thing, a great thing.
Something to be emulated, something to be respected.
Someone who looks after you, someone who thinks of you and your benefit and your detriment.
And in times of danger, they are a refuge, a person who you can go to when you have problems.
Someone who goes the extra mile.
When you ask for help, they give more than what was asked.
This is a sign of a good friend, a sign of someone who is really rare and to be emulated, to be praised, to be associated with.
Not just because of what you can get from them, but because this is someone with a good heart that should be emulated.
And if friends, any two friends are like this, then they both, of course, gain.
And we're always helping each other.
We both gain.
The second is someone who is unmoved in good times and bad, right?
Because you've got the fair weather friend, I think is the word.
Someone who, in good times they're with you, but when things go wrong, they're out.
Someone who doesn't stick with you when the going gets tough.
Someone who doesn't stick with you when problems arise.
Well, this is a person who's not like that.
A person who tells you their secrets, guards your secrets.
Who does not let you down in misfortune.
Someone who is with you through thick and thin.
Who might even sacrifice their life for you.
And that's the sort of friend that is hard to find.
Someone who
cares for you.
Someone who has this wish to see you happy.
And that's what friendship is for, right?
That's what true friendship should be for, not like any relationship.
Not, what can I get from this person?
That doesn't work.
Any two friends who are inclined to wonder what the other person can give to them,
will be a friendship of always lack or wanting.
Whereas if both friends are thinking, what can I do for this person?
How can I make them happy?
What can I do to bring good to them?
Then both gain.
The third is a friend who
points out what is good.
And this is the best friend, number three here, but it's really the one that in Buddhism, when we talk about a good friend, I mean someone who points out good, someone who teaches or instructs, advises you, someone who you can go to for advice, who has a good head on their shoulders and much to say about right and wrong, good and bad, that is of benefit, that's of value.
Perhaps not someone who preaches, but someone who is good for giving advice.
Someone who has their head on straight, who knows.
Who has things to tell.
They keep you from wrongdoing.
They support you in doing good.
They give you encouragement when you do good things.
They tell you things you don't know.
Now that's a rare friend, right?
Someone who has
who is able to teach you, to give you knowledge that you didn't have.
And finally, they lead you to happiness.
They lead you on to what is good.
It's the measure of wisdom, right?
It's the measure of a friend who is wise,
is that the things they tell you bring you peace and happiness and freedom from suffering.
And the fourth type of true friend is the sympathetic friend, one who sympathizes with you.
They don't rejoice at your misfortune, they rejoice in your good fortune.
Someone who has mudita,
True mudita, right?
Not just someone who says it, but someone who's really happy when they hear.
Someone who you know when you tell them good things that you've done, good things that have happened to you, that you know that they're happy for you.
They stop others who speak against you.
When someone says something bad about you, they protect you, they correct them.
And when others speak in praise, they agree, they commend such people.
It's a fairly simple and not a terribly deep teaching.
I think it's important we go over various aspects of Buddhism.
This is a very practical teaching, one that most of us can relate to.
But the deeper teaching, I think, is about how the mind works in cultivating friendship, both being friendly and in clinging to people, identifying, this is my friend, which is, of course, problematic.
Of course, it's great to be friendly.
It's good.
It's wholesome to be friendly towards all.
But to cling to someone just because they're a friend, it's never a good reason in any way.
at any rate, in any case.
Even good people, we shouldn't cling to them just because they're our friends.
We should cultivate their friendship because it's for the ultimate gain.
Cultivating peace, happiness, freedom from suffering.
So there you go, a little bit on friendship.
Thank you all for tuning in.