Blessing Two:
Associating with the Wise
Associating with the Wise
F. VARIETIES OF WISE ONES
F.1 Inner teacher, outer teacher
Broadly speaking, there are two categories of the wise — the outer wise ones and the inner wise ones. The outer wise ones can be subdivided into the wise who are truly wise and those who are not truly wise. The truly wise are start with the Lord Buddha, the arahants and those who have attained the various levels of Buddhist sainthood. The wise who are not truly wise are those who are as wise as or wiser than us. Examples of these are monks who truly train themselves in meditation. Even though such monks may not be arahants, they come up to the standard of a wise man. You should seek him out for association and familiarize yourself with his virtues. You can only gain from such association. As for your own parents, given that we are their children, we ought to do our best to associate with them. Sometimes we encounter difficulties however. Sometimes our parents have the character of fools. If this should be the case then we have the duty to live in the same household, but with the utmost care not to let those foolish habits rub off on ourselves. If your parents drink alcohol, don’t go prohibiting them from such behavior. It is not your place to do so. However, at the same time you shouldn’t go joining them in their drinking. If your mother loves playing poker, it’s no good telling her to give up. Let her carry on with her gambling — but don’t go joining in with her. Even though we know these are the habits of a fool, they are our own mother and father. We can’t just ditch them. We must carry on living in the same household while taking care not to be infected by their foolish habits.
The wise also extend to our friends and relatives who are a good example to us by their behavior. Even if they might not be right all the time, or they may not be as wise as an arahant, to associate with them is still to our benefit.
In the case of associating with the wise who are not yet perfect, the Buddha taught that we should concentrate on observing only their good points and mimic only these good behaviors. If that person has his faults, don’t waste your time criticizing them for these, because for as long as one hasn’t come to an end of all defilements, faults and weaknesses will always remain. Don’t go looking for peoples’ faults. Look for their strengths and make the effort to instill these strengths in ourselves. In the end we will be like an ocean full of all types of virtue. Don’t go letting someone’s minor fault blind you to all their virtues. If you are only interested in peoples’ faults, by the time you have picked out everyone’s weaknesses, there will be only one good person left in the world — yourself.
Thus the wise in the outside world are of two types: the permanently wise who have rid themselves of all defilements and the sporadically wise who still have defilements remaining. Both types of wise ones are beneficial to associate with.
You may have noticed that sometimes when we think of doing something evil there will be a little voice inside that warns us not to do it. Have you wondered where that little voice inside comes from? Usually we cannot see whose voice it is, but if we meditate until our mind is much clearer, we will be able to see the wise one inside who is the owner of the voice. Information, whether it is in the form of knowledge as a voice or the content of a dream or sixth sense, is transferred down the line from deep inside ourselves, like a baton between the runners of a relay race.
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