Blessing Two:
Associating with the Wise
Associating with the Wise
E. ASSOCIATION
E.1 How to associate with the wise (7)
The Lord Buddha taught seven features of behavior which counts as association with the wise. If your association misses out on any of these seven factors, it cannot be counted as fruitful association. The seven features are as follows:
1. Frequently meeting up with them. If you know that someone has the characteristics of a wise man, you ought to seek him out and visit him regularly. If you hear that such and such a temple has wise people going to it, then that should be the temple you are visiting regularly. This is the first step to true association. Without it no association can come about.
2. Make yourself known to them. What this means is that when you have gone out of your way to seek out a wise man, you should make yourself known to them, not sit just out of their line of vision round the corner. Whenever they go to the boxing or the fashion show they are right at the ringside or up against the catwalk, but when they go to the temple and see one of the monks coming, they will disappear to the back row of the pavilion. In such a case, even though they have come as far as the temple where the wise are to be found, they cannot be said to have associated with the wise.
3. Sincerity towards them. If there is any affection in your association, you must be sincere to one another — with nothing behind your back. There is no secret which your other half can’t ask about and get a straight answer. Loyalty means that there is no hidden agenda concerning your association. But even this is not enough.
4. Loyalty towards them. Where in sincerity, your association is bound through affection, in loyalty the association is bound through respect. Thus to make for the best of possible associations you should do nothing to diminish either the love or respect that bonds the relationship. Also you should do nothing to interrupt the train of thought of the wise man with whom you have chosen to associate whether it be through careless speech or otherwise. This is what we call loyalty.
5. Help them in times of need. Whenever we notice that our associate (the wise one) is busy with something we could help with, we should offer our help without reluctance. However, if we know that our associate has something that we could help with and we keep our silence instead of offering our assistance, we can hardly call our association a friendship. Just imagine if a group of so-called friends all come together at meal time but cannot be found when it comes to time for work. Such a group could hardly be called friends.
6. When free joining up to talk and eat together. When the wise have free time they come together to discuss the Dhamma and to clear up their doubts (not to gossip about the neighbors).
7. Reflection on Dhamma and Getting Down to Earnest Practice. This is one of the most important headings. Even if you have diligently followed the previous six steps but omit this seventh step, you cannot call it true association. Also, if you do none of the first six but do the seventh one, it is as good as true association, because Dhamma always has the same flavor — it always gives rise to self discipline [sīla]: it always gives rise to concentration [samādhi]: and it always gives rise to wisdom [paññā]. Thus even if you have never met your wise associate before, even on your first meeting you will feel as if you have been friends for a thousand years, or for many lifetimes — because both of you have Dhamma in your hearts — it is Dhamma that binds your association.
The behavior that we refer to as association means that that whatever happens you will do things in togetherness. If there is work you will work together. Accept each others’ help, accept the same identity, accept the same place of abode, accept work in the same place. If you possess anything, you will be willing to lend it to them or give it to them, giving them possessions or respect. In conclusion the operant parts of the process of association with the wise are sharing, accepting and giving. If you expand upon these three then you arrive at the seven steps described at the beginning of this section.
E.2 Principles of Association
Like all the groups of people closest to us in the world, the best way we can get the virtues of the wise to brush off on us is associate with them as ‘good friends’. The Buddhist teaching most relevant to the cultivation of a fruitful friendship is the ‘northern quarter’ of the Siṅgalovāda Sutta which gives us the following practical advice about how good friends should treat each other:
The Buddha laid down five examples of duties we ought to practice in order to express our responsibility towards our friends:
1. generosity: anyone possessed of Right View [sammā diṭṭhi] is bound to moved to compassion when seeing others experiencing hardship or suffering — and generosity is the way in which he can ameliorate the lot of friends caught in such a situation, while at the same time strengthening his bond of friendship to that person;
2. kind words: if a person is able to relinquish the Four Defilements of Action, and has the altruism of a Good Friend [kalyāṇamitta] he will be of the habit of speaking only words that are polite and true;
3. helping and acting for their welfare: endowed with the characteristics of a True Friend, one will have the altruism to want to do things for the benefit of one’s friends;
4. being consistent: however well one has treated one’s friends in the past, one will not suddenly change to treat them better or worse because of force of circumstances. Just because one gets a promotion in rank which is better than that of one’s old friend, one will not subsequently look down on him;
5. never telling them lies: as good friend what one says will never deviate from the truth.
It is only possible to fulfill the demands of these five duties if one has already had the qualities of a true friend instilled by effective upbringing at the hands of one’s parents, teachers and employers.
In turn those wise friends should practice the following five duties towards us in order to express their sense of responsibility towards us:
1. protect us when we are off our guard: learning that we are in the midst of problems as a result of our own recklessness, if it happens that such recklessness is not in our nature, if a friend is true, they will intervene and help — if they leave us to our recklessness you can know that they are an enemy in a friend’s guise;
2. help protect our property even when we neglect it: such is the behavior of a true friend;
3. be our refuge in times of danger: willingness to let us rely on them is the sign of a true friend;
4. not abandoning us in times of trouble: this is the sign of a Good Friend [kalyāṇamitta];
5. show due respect to other members of our family: friends who not only show us respect, but also respect those to whom we have debts of gratitude, our children and grandchildren as if they were part of their own family — are indeed true friends.
All five duties of a friend are identifying features of a truly Good Friend — if we ever have the luck to come across such a genuine friend, we must take care to associate closely with them, treating them with respect, in keeping with the Buddha’s advice: “associate with them respectfully, like a mother to her sons”
It is pertinent to observe that such a genuine friend could only arise in the world as the result of an amenable environment (see forthcoming Blessing Four), especially those in whose company they grew up, in order for the good habits of those people to have brushed off on him and been preserved in his own personality. It is such people that society and nation alike are crying out for — because such a person has tremendous power of virtue stored up inside them — sufficient power to channel the tide of society and economics around him down the same virtuous path.
E.3 What are the consequences when there are no Wise Ones to be found?
If there are no genuinely wise ones to be found in society or if those posing as ’wise’ fail to cherish others according to the advice of the Buddha, many sorts of harm arise on individual, interpersonal and social levels. Many of the potential problems can be extrapolated to the relationship between government and the citizens it is supposed to be a refuge too. If the government fails to be a Wise Friend to its citizens, it the false friendship brings serious problems on a national level. In conclusion, the harm that arises when there is lack of association with the wise manifests itself on three levels:
1. Losing a sense of responsibility for their own human dignity: If friends lack self-discipline and don’t fulfill their duties towards one another as prescribed by the Lord Buddha, the first level of disaster which will happen to them is that they will lose their sense of responsibility for their own human dignity — this loss giving rise (at the minimum) to the following three undesirable symptoms:
1) Breaking the Five Precepts: Because there is an atmosphere of mutual suspicion, former friends will deceive and lie to each other. The pledges of allegiance they formerly kept to one another will be nullified in the way often seen in political circles;
2) Chronic False View: Lacking discretion as to right and wrong, virtue and misdeed, appropriate and inappropriate and the Law of Karma, there is nothing they will not do as a means to procure power, money and personal profit;
3) Mistreats Friends: They might resort to back stabbing of former friends in order to procure personal ends;
2. Losing a sense of responsibility for the human dignity of others: If friends lack self-discipline and don’t fulfill the duties towards one another prescribed by the Lord Buddha, the second level of disaster which will happen to them is that they will lose their sense of responsibility for the human dignity of others — this loss giving rise (at the minimum) to the following three undesirable symptoms:
1) Harbors bias: They will lose their sense of fairness and will be continually biased in favor of their own cronies — not with altruistic thoughts for even their own people, but in order to pave the way to personal profit;
2) Disloyalty to homeland: Out of selfishness and False View, they will become narrow-minded and unrefined in their thinking. All they will think about is how to maximize the profits they can procure for themselves and their cronies — to the point they will no longer have any sense of loyalty to their own country, religion or nationality — they wouldn’t feel any scruples about making a profit, even if they have to destroy the national heritage to do so;
3) Misuse of rank or position: When they lack any accurate sense of justice, they will attempt to make illegal dealings look legal or outlaw legal things, if it suits them to do so.
3. Losing a sense of responsibility for economic fairness in society at large: If friends lack self discipline and don’t fulfill the duties towards one another prescribed by the Lord Buddha, the third level of disaster which will happen to them is that they will lose their sense of responsibility for economic fairness in society at large — this loss giving rise (at the minimum) to the following three undesirable symptoms:
1) Corruption: When false view and selfishness get the better of their thinking, they will worship money alone — because they understand that the more money they have, the more power they can gain. Money will be the means that they can secure the any position of authority they hold (through bribery).
2) Implicated in dealings with the Six Roads to Ruin: When money becomes important above all else, they will have no scruples about taking shortcuts to find it. Of course the most profitable forms of trading are dealing in drugs, forgeries, arms smuggling or casinos — the fact that they are illegal or exploit the poorest sectors of society — considerations which mean nothing to those so far alienated from thoughts of fairness in economics;
3) Betrays homeland: if such people find themselves in positions of legislation, because of selfishness and False View, if they can make a ‘quick buck’ from foreign investors, they will not think twice about waiving laws which formerly protected their country from foreign exploitation.
The problems of lack of association with the Wise can be summarized down to two main points:
1. Obvious social problems: In countries such as Thailand, social problems which are out of hand are high-level corruption, partiality of the legal system, degeneration into vice and widespread prostitution;
2. Covert social problems: The covert social problems exist in the form of False Friends in positions of influence — whether it be positions in politics, the civil service, government utilities — who have less than scrupulous behavior. Unfortunately what the people see of such public figures — an image of respectability and chivalry — often belies illicit dealings behind the scenes. Such false friendship has its origins in undisciplined parental upbringing, undisciplined schooling and eventually, having become a fool, seeking the company of other fools is the final nail in the coffin of true friendship.
Possible solutions to these problems are:
1. In the short term are to avoid voting those with the character traits of ‘false friends’ into positions of authority;
2. In the long term are to use the nets of ‘sixteen characteristics of true friends’ and ‘sixteen characteristics of false friends’ to identify and replacing the weaknesses in yourself with virtues starting with yourself — associating with the wise so that their good virtues can brush off on you too.
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