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Okay, on Kalyanamitata, I have a childhood friend whom I care for a great deal, but he is quite base.

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I don't like being around him when he talks about drinking, hunting, etc.

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He does have some potential, but is it worth continuing this relationship?

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I'm going to take a fairly hard-line Buddhist stance here.

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Probably not in the way you think.

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But the hard-line Buddhist stance is that it's not worth keeping any relationship.

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There's no worth in relationships.

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The only relationship that is really promoted by the Buddha is the association with good people.

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So it's kind of radical or incorrect of me even to suggest that no relationship is worthwhile.

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So you would argue and you would say, no, the Buddha said, and this is correct, the Buddha said, good relationships with good people, people who are your equal in morality and concentration and wisdom, in practice and in discipline, or better, so better than you at those things, this is good.

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has potential.

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And any other type of relationship is useless, is harmful, is a drag on you.

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So the association with people who are less cultivated than you.

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Now we'll get back to that because even that sounds not so nice.

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But let's go even harder than that and say no relationships are worth anything because we can say that in an ultimate sense even though it's not how the Buddha would teach.

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We can say it in an ultimate sense and so we can really get a perspective here.

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Because nothing is truly, nothing in this world, nothing that arises has any intrinsic worth.

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In the end even the good things in this world you have to let go of.

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If you cling to them as having some essential worth you will get stuck.

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You will be stuck on them.

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You will cling to anything, even the good things.

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This is why the Buddha taught the simile of the raft.

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A raft is something you use to get across a river.

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It's not something once you get across the river that you put on your back and carry with you.

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So for that reason, even good relationships, you should be able to let go of them at the drop of the hat.

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So how does this relate to bad relationships?

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It sounds like what the Buddha is saying is avoid these people.

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And I think yes, in some instances you should actively avoid such people in cases where they are dragging you down.

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If such a person is dragging you down and you're getting less impure and they're getting

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they're getting less pure, they're dragging it down, they're not becoming any better for the relationship, then you should avoid them.

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But I would sort of guess or suggest that in this case, the difference here

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between this relationship, a bad relationship and a good relationship, the meaning is a good relationship should be cultivated.

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You should seek out such people.

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You should visit them.

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You should incline

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towards the participation in the things they do, the things they say, which means you should listen to what they say.

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So there should be an active participation in the relationship.

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For bad relationships, the general rule of thumb that I would suggest is to not actively pursue them.

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So the sense is they come to you,

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And this is actually how a teacher should behave in Buddhism, not seeking out students, not chasing after them, not pushing them to practice or nagging them about the practice, but letting them come.

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So when a student comes and asks questions and asks for teachings, then the teacher teaches.

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So often you get people who think the other way around, they wait for the teacher to teach them.

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And the teacher's like, why would I bother?

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It's not up to me to chase after my students.

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I often have to remind my students this.

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I'm not going to chase after you.

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If you want to learn, you come and chase after me.

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You can come and, like in ancient times, like I've mentioned before, you had to sit out in the courtyard

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And they wouldn't let you into the monastery.

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They'd say, go away, we won't accept people.

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In order to get into the monastery, you had to actually sit in the courtyard for days, in the rain and the sun, until they'd finally, like Fight Club, like that old movie Fight Club.

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You had to sit there and they'd tell you they're not going to let you in.

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until finally they would see that you're very dedicated.

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But at the very least, you have to make the effort.

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Now, you shouldn't make this effort in regards to people who are

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who are going to drag you down.

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Let's put it that way.

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We're not trying to be judgmental and say lessers or betters.

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People who are not especially conducive towards your own practice.

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There's no reason to cultivate them because seeking them out encourages them on their practice.

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It's like saying to them, yes, what you're doing is good.

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I want to be a part of it.

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now the only option would be yes or no you're doing bad I want to help you with that I want to save you with that save you from that but it doesn't in reality work that way because you're you're letting them get their hooks in anytime we apply ourselves to someone it's kind of it's creating a karma a connection a hook with that person and if it's a person inclined inclined towards

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bad things, then they have a hook in you and they can drag you in a bad way.

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So it's something that should be looked upon with equanimity.

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So you talk about a childhood friend whom I care for a great deal, which is really the problem.

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Because in no case in Buddhism, hardline Buddhism, should you care for anyone.

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What that means is it shouldn't be about attachment.

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If you care for someone, I've gotten in trouble with this before, but I stand by it.

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I did a video on caring.

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You should stop caring.

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You should be uncaring.

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It's just words.

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It's semantics.

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Now, if you care, that means when they suffer, when they're happy, you're happy.

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When they suffer, you're unhappy.

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And so you're dependent on, your happiness depends on that person.

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It doesn't help that person in any way.

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Your caring for someone doesn't help them.

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it makes them feel cared for which is good for people who have low self-esteem and who need the support but it's not a wholesome thing for you to actually care for the person so you can say to the person I'm here for you if you ever need me and that makes them feel good about it but when you actually care

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It's a difference between caring in the sense of an action, like I care for you by cleaning your wounds and changing your bandages, and I care for you in terms of feeding you, and I care for you to take care of someone.

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If you mean it in terms of taking care of someone,

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then care is okay, care is great.

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Even just to talk to the person and say, I'm here for you if you need anything, to care for them by teaching them meditation and so on, and helping them in whatever way you can.

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But to actually care what happens to someone,

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This doesn't help the other person.

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It means that your happiness is dependent on something external.

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It doesn't actually make you a better caretaker.

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Although it does make you more caught up in their happiness and suffering.

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So for lay people that's tough because you have

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family and friends who you very much care for.

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And we do try to encourage people to think just in terms of duties.

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Your relationships with people are your position in life.

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And so you do things for such people because you have duties to your parents, to your families.

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But in the end, no matter what, there will be caring.

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We care for each other.

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If someone suffers, we suffer.

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If someone leaves us, if someone dumps us, if someone dies, this causes us suffering.

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The claim is this is not a beneficial thing.

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It just makes us suffer.

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A needless thing.

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It doesn't make you any better at helping a person out.

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But what that's doing here is it's creating an arbitrary reason to maintain a friendship with the person.

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It says nothing about the quality of a friendship that you care for a person.

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The fact that you care a great deal about this person says nothing about whether it's a good relationship.

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So if I care very much for a vicious pit bull, it says nothing about whether that's a good thing or not.

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Or if I care for a poisonous snake, like in the Jatakas there was this snake charmer who was just in love with his snake and he had a very poisonous snake and he'd play with the snake all the time until one day and they all told him, you're crazy.

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And he said, oh, I care for this snake very much.

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And one day he stuck his hand in the snake's basket and the snake was just in a bad mood and it bit him and killed him.

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It's like, you know, it really says, you know, it's not meaningful to say I care for the person.

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The only question is whether it's beneficial, whether it's good for you, whether it's a good thing, whether it's the proper way of approaching

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the universe, whether it's a part of the cosmic plan, but cosmic plan in the sense of in line with reality as far as bringing happiness.

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And you don't have to distinguish between you and the other person, but just in general, does it get closer to a state of peace or does it incline towards suffering and upset?

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This is how you have to look at it.

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and we're usually not able to do that with relationships where we care for the person because our reason for being friends with them is arbitrary to some extent arbitrary now of course reasons for caring people usually have to do with the happiness that we bring each other so there's that but the caring in and of itself is

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is actually a danger for you, because it means that your happiness is dependent on something else.

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It seems nice, and it's what society teaches us very strongly.

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If you don't care, you're a heartless bleepity bleep.

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But

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The truth of it is, we have to be whole, right?

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We can't be dependent on others if you really want to be happy.

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If you really want to be truly happy, you have to have some kind of equanimous love for beings.

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So it has to be universal.

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If the Buddha's love was universal, he was able to have love for all beings and compassion for all beings without any kind of partiality.

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So he had no caring.

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Buddha didn't care about anyone in the sense of actually being upset if a person didn't get his teachings or didn't like him.

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There was no sense of betrayal when Devadatta betrayed him.

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There was no sense of loss when his two chief disciples passed away.

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because he was free, he was at peace, so things didn't bother him, even though he worked very hard to help the world, but he did it without caring.

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That's awful, I know.

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It's a problem with the English language, the word has become so steeped in goodness, right?

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Caring is good.

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But, sorry, it's not really.

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It doesn't actually lead to happiness.

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Maybe that's a big part of the problem is our culture is so steeped in caring that we get upset very easily.

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Even if I just tell you that,

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We care very much about caring, so if I tell you that it's not good to care, then you right away get upset.

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I think many people will unsubscribe or put nasty comments to my videos when they find out I'm telling people not to care, that caring is bad.

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So this is the problem with caring, is it actually makes you angry.

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leads to lots of trouble.

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When you care about something, it can lead to conflict.

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It does lead to conflict when things go against your expectations.

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So I hope that helps.