Buddhist
Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Buddhist Hour Script
327 for Sunday 2 May, 2004
This script is entitled:
Friendliness - The First of Our 5 Styles
Today we are going to talk about practising and
developing the first of our five styles of friendliness, cultural
adaptability, professionalism, scholarship, and practicality.
On
1 February 2004, during the Buddhist hour, we outlined The Code of
Conduct for Members and Students of the Chan Academy Australia,
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. as recommended by our late
Founder, Master John D. Hughes.
This Code of Conduct is
comprised of 12 items to be incorporated into our daily Buddha Dhamma
practice, and reviewed regularly. The 12 items are as
follows:
Practice and develop morality.
Practice and
develop generosity.
Practice kindness, in the Pali language metta.
Practice and develop refuge in the Triple Gem.
Practice and
develop Buddhist meditation.
Practice and develop merit making.
Develop your scholarship.
Whenever you take food or liquid, do
"Five Reflections on Food".
Support Buddhist
Organisations locally, nationally and internationally.
Practice
and develop our five styles of friendliness, cultural adaptability,
professionalism, scholarship, and practicality.
Plan to become
debtless.
Write a life plan.
Be careful what you wish for,
it will come true.
Our Members and students successfully live
their lives according to Buddha Dhamma by following the above
recommendations. Their lives improve and they become happier.
The
tenth item in our Code of Conduct is to practice and develop our five
styles of friendliness, cultural adaptability, professionalism,
scholarship, and practicality.
We aim to develop these five
styles, each for himself or herself, to work in and generate harmony
no matter where we are.
Today we look at the first of the five
styles, which is friendliness.
Most human beings are not born
friendly. Young babies display anger. Friendship is developed with
rigorous training. If human beings were born friendly, our
civilisation would not have a history of warfare.
Living in
delusion of their own ill-will, most people respond to the myth of
having a 'permanent friend'.
There are many cases in history
where the false friend directed nations to war with other
nations.
For all but a few, this myth does not come to
reality.
However, there are training systems taught by
Shakyamuni Buddha which can make this mythical friendship an
actuality in this world.
The training creates a state of
mental health that goes beyond 'simple loyalty' and has nothing to do
with 'blind loyalty' or 'blind attachment' or some sort of fixation
that is without any real reflection or understanding on what is
happening in the mind.
There may be comfort in a notion that
there is someone who you can trust and call on to help you when in
need. However, is this notion ever likely to be actualised in your
human life?
There is a saying known by followers of Buddha
that 'friends become enemies and enemies become friends'.
One
of the major errors Buddha warned his followers against was the
danger of eternalistic thought.
To take refuge in a friend is
an error of mind. You must learn to be a friend to yourself.
Your
friend may die tomorrow and you may not know his or her place of
rebirth and in any case he or she most probably will have forgotten
everything they knew about you by that time.
What happiness
can be found in that?
If you are inclined to a sense of irony
you might say you can always rely on your enemies to continue the
attempt to thwart you in your work, pleasure and sleep. They will not
fail to annoy you if you let them.
However, it is not useful
to push this example. If you are inclined to be of a hateful
temperament the thought of your enemies will cause you to heat up and
that will only bring sickness and shorten your life.
What
happiness can be found in that?
Rather than being led by the
continual flow of kammic inclinations that brings friends together
out of past causes, it is possible to create good causes that builds
true and wise friendships.
It is a matter of knowing the
right priorities and the correct order to practice them.
Friendships
based on emotional maturity are not flawed whereas friendships that
operate from a base of kammic outcomes, which are essentially
conditioned by views and opinions (pali : sanna), expectations (pali
: sankharas) and feelings (pali : vedhana) are flawed.
The
normal interpretation to which persons refer to as 'friendship' is
one based upon 'having something', such as the ownership of the other
person where reciprocity is a condition of the friendship.
It
is not possible to understand friendship without first experiencing
it, each for himself or herself. Our experiences so far have been
flawed because of the many causes coming back to us now which were
created in past lifetimes.
The need to build friendships is
supposedly nascent in all persons, but it is better to treat that as
fiction until we have developed stable, friendly disposition towards
ourselves.
Generally we do not want to be alone, but in fact
we were born in pain, alone. Neither our mother nor our best friend
could be born for us and we are not spontaneously born beings, we are
womb born.
No one can escape death and we die alone.
No
one can delegate our death to a 'best friend'.
Your friends
probably won't be able to guide you when you die even if they were at
your deathbed.
Friendliness (in pali : adosa) is a wholesome
state of mind (pali : kusula cetasika) and the way to attain this
wholesome state is taught at our Centre.
With regular
training, it takes about four to ten years.
Over time, we have
developed savoir faire for increasing the depth of knowledge fields
and friendliness on our web sites.
In the case of our flagship
publication Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, we know how to increase the
depth of knowledge fields we present to our readers in our
publications.
In the case of the Brooking Street Bugle, we
know how to increase the very human approach of the publication.
To
encourage our Internet visitors to return to our web sites, we have
decided to concentrate on practicality and friendliness on one site,
Brooking Street Bugle, found at www.bsbonline.com.au and scholarship
and professionalism on another, Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, at
www.bddronline.net.au
We all have friends of one sort or
another. Wisdom is knowing how to cultivate the right kind of
friends.
'The perfect friendship is that between good men
(women) alike in their virtue.' Aristotle 340BC
Friendship
comes from two persons practicing the same set of abilities. One of
these abilities is the practice of friendliness. Friendliness is one
of the 24 wholesome minds to be cultivated in Buddha Dhamma. The
first of the building block towards the cultivation of these
wholesome minds is confidence (saddha in Pali).
This practice
is a pre requisite of a much higher form of emotional maturity known
as caga (pali). Caga is the best and most powerful tool to cultivate
togetherness sufficient that the persons meet in a future life as
close friends or husband and wife who can live peacefully together
for a long time.
After using the practice of friendship,
persons can develop metta ( in Pali) translated as
lovingkindness.
Well kept gardens welcome new visitors. One
mental factor needed to greet new persons is friendliness.
We
all have friends of one sort or another. Wisdom is knowing how to
cultivate the right kind of friends.
'The perfect friendship
is that between good men (women) alike in their virtue.'
Aristotle
340BC
Friendship comes from two persons practising the same
set of abilities. One of these abilities is the practice of
friendliness. Friendliness is one of the 24 wholesome minds to be
cultivated in Buddha Dhamma. The first of the building block towards
the cultivation of these wholesome minds is confidence (saddha in
Pali).
This practice is a pre requisite of a much higher form
of emotional maturity known as caga (pali). Caga is the best and most
powerful tool to cultivate togetherness sufficient that the persons
meet in a future life as close friends or husband and wife who can
live peacefully together for a long time.
After using the
practice of friendship, persons can develop metta ( in Pali)
translated as lovingkindness.
Our policy favours teaching in
small groups even though the economic cost is high because the small
group dynamics can more easily evolve to personal contact on a first
name basis, than if we taught a crowd of thousands. Personal
abilities may be stored over time and new skills taught and
retained.
But a strong beginning is needed at the commencement
of practice.
Friendship is a deliberate choice about
helping certain others in suitable ways. Not all persons can be your
friend. Some persons do not wish to be helped by you or anyone else
so they cannot be your friends. They exist outside your peer group in
a class of persons who are about to lose rebirth as a human. They
might be born as animals.
Assembling in real friendship is an
active choice that overcomes laziness to help those who may wish to
become our friends in future. We encourage corrupt persons who refuse
to attempt to do this to leave and find other organisations, less
demanding than we are in this regard. We cannot tolerate the poison
they bring here because it helps no one.
In time, the joyous
effort of being friendly to other beings arises from actively
engaging in helping them. It is this energetic application of the
joyous practice of benefiting living beings that leads one to good
friends.
You cannot acquire good friends by theory or money,
only by actions. Through expelling laziness, all physically related
things can be used to give rise to moral states. This may be as
simple as offering tea or coffee or soft drinks to other Members.
This act brings ten blessings. We offer many drinks to Members and
visitors year. It is a very important part of our culture to make
persons feel comfortable.
Over time, from repeating mindfully
these disciplined single acts, comes the knowledge of the basis of
true and wise friendship conditions. They create the conditions
conducive for 'adosa' in Pali - meaning no hate. But we must find the
Middle Way in such things. Not to hate means not to be too lazy, and
to be friendly and active in serving others.
Venerable Master
Hsing Yun explains that we were born with hands to work, legs to
walk, eyes to see, ears to listen and a mouth to speak. He teaches us
that when we do not use what we are born with, we become useless. If
we become lazy, we will lead disjoint lives.
An amusing story
is told by Venerable Master Hsing Yun about a lazy couple who had a
dog.
1.Once there was a very lazy family whose parents would
not do any housework. They asked the children to do [the work]. The
children refused to and made the dog do the work. The poor dog had no
choice, so it swept the floor with its tail, wiped the furniture with
its body, and watered the plants holding the hose in its mouth. One
day, a visitor came to the house and was surprised to find the dog
doing all the chores. "Oh! The little dog is so capable, it can
do housework!" The dog replied, "I had no choice, they are
lazy and made me do [it]!" The visitor was shocked and
exclaimed, "The dog can talk!" The dog quickly responded,
"Shhh! Don't let them know that I can talk, or else they'll make
me answer the phone too!"
It is evident that the dog
lacked friendship in its family setting. The dog's good actions were
a chore. How many of your friends are like the dog?
To
increase the practice of our friendliness we must reduce or overcome
being lazy. For example, do you know that some persons have great
thirst? If you offer someone a cup of tea do you offer them a second
or a third cup of tea? In a busy life, we find at our Centre it is
not uncommon for a person to arrive somewhat dehydrated. They are too
busy at work to keep up their fluid balance. In the long term, this
causes them to be unwell. We often act in friendship to re-hydrate
busy persons who come to visit us. They are easier to teach if we
make them comfortable. We believe that attending to physical comfort
wants is vital before we counsel persons.
Buddhist texts, such
as the Dhammapada, explain to us the beneficial outcomes which arise
from the cultivation of friendliness.
Venerable Doctor K. Sri
Dhammananda Nayaka Maha Thera has written a commentary of his
translation of the Dhammapada primarily for the benefit of modern
readers who have not had the opportunity to read the original Pali
version. His commentary entitled The Dhammapada contains stories,
beautiful illustrations and comprehensive introduction which
elucidates the wide scope and meaning of the 423 verses of the
Dhammapada.
The Venerable Maha Thera notes:
"The
reading, understanding and appreciation of the Dhammapada in its
classical form generally presents no difficulties to traditional
Buddhists who are familiar with the cultural milieu in which it was
composed. However, modern readers, especially those who come from
non-Asian religious backgrounds, may be skeptical and wonder whether
the stories which relate the circumstances under which they were
uttered represent the actual historical occurrences or whether they
are merely fanciful folktales imagined by their authors.
They
would find some of the stories trivial, repetitious, and even far
fetched. It is true that these stories are not completely free from
mythology, legend and exaggeration.
Possibly the best
attitude to adopt is to keep an open mind and concern oneself more
with the moral of the story and the point that is being
illustrated."
Over 200 English translations have been
made of this most popular Canon over the last century. The Dhammapada
(The path of Dhamma).
There are 423 verses in the Dhammapada.
(in Pali language). One translation of Verse 291 reads :
He
who seeks his own happiness by inflicting pain on others,
being
entangled by bonds of enmity,
cannot be free from enmity.
In
Pali this is:
Para dukkhupadanena - attano sukkham icchati
Vera
samsagga samsattho - vera so na parimuccati
We would gloss
this translation to read 'he' as 'he or 'she', since Buddha Dhamma is
not sexist.
The story which accompanies this translation of
verse 291 is a striking example of making the point about how a real
endless chain of sad effects can follow unfriendly acts.
The
story runs:
"Once there lived a woman in a village near
Savatthi. She kept a hen and every time it laid an egg, the woman
would break it up. The hen was very angry and as a result, she was
reborn as a cat and the woman was reborn a hen in the same house. The
cat ate up the eggs of the hen.
In their next existence, the
hen became a leopard and the cat became a deer. The leopard ate up
the deer as well as its offspring. Thus their feud continued for
several existences.
At the time of the Buddha, one of them
was born as a woman and the other as an ogress.
On one
occasion, the woman was returning from the house of her parents to
her own house near Savatthi. Her husband and her young son were also
with her. While they were resting near the pond by the roadside, her
husband went to bathe in the pond.
At that moment, the woman
saw the ogress who appeared in human form and she recognised her as
her old enemy. Taking her child, she fled from the spirit straight to
the monastery where the Buddha was expounding the Dhamma and put her
child at his feet. The ogress who was in hot pursuit of the woman was
prevented from entering the monastery.
Summoning the ogress
to his presence, the Buddha admonished both of them for their long
and bitter feud, "If you two had not come to me today, your
enmity would have continued endlessly. Enmity cannot be appeased by
enmity; it can only be appeased by loving kindness."
Reflecting
on the admonition, both realised the futility of their hatred, both
admitted their mistakes and resolved not to continue with their
senseless feud."
We teach Members how to break the
endless chain of family feuds they set up in past lives between their
present family relations.
Often we tend to choose selected
Members of our biological family to be true friends. This may or may
not be successful. Why do we like some of our family Members more
than others? This is kamma from past lives - how we treated them then
may be repeated in this life. If we treated them badly in the past,
we might not be surprised they dislike us now.
At our Centre
we practice to override our kammic impulses of like and dislike
towards our in-laws and others.
Members seek to cultivate
family actions that are friendly and we think most Members might be
expected to be a good friend to at least some non-family Members who
are Members. This shows up on team projects.
Our Members are
instructed to establish themselves in mindfulness with the thought
"Let goodly co-mates in the righteous life come here in the
future, and let those that have already come live happily". This
teaching is in accordance with the seven conditions of communal
stability explained to Venerable Ananda by Buddha at
Digha-Nikaya.
The wording is expressed in quaint language of
'co-mates' because the translation was done about 80 years ago but to
us, it has a deep field of meaning.
Abandoning false
friendship is not an end in itself in Buddha Dhamma but a stepping
stone means towards better accomplishment of a clear mind.
To
attain a clear mind, many of our regular actions must be changed in
the correct order.
Firstly, we must decide we deserve to
practice for our happiness. We choose to fix ourselves up by
behaviour change. Secondly, we decide it is mental weakness to
decline to move away from enemies who masquerade as friends.
For
example, persons who drink alcohol or use non-medical drugs ought
never to be cultivated as true friends. We cannot support those who
want us to admire their vices. If we reinforce their erroneous views
we do not help them towards a sober life.
We are under their
harmful influence. If we think we are too weak to control our minds,
it is better we avoid such persons completely. We cut them off. It is
mental weakness to give in to the familiar. It is perhaps a bit too
dramatic to say our false friends feed on our blood (life force) like
vampires but this expression does focus on their potential harm to
our well being.
Blind loyalty to a corrupt companion as seen
in some marriages is a form of martyrdom that has no place in Buddha
Dhamma. The divorce rate appears to represent a social trend
operating relatively independently of the state of the law and does
not appear to have changed much in a century although the recorded
figures may have.
When we cease to associate with our false
friends who lack precepts we are turning towards the Middle Path and
we trust we will meet more Noble persons in the future. This is a
fact that happens when we change our culture.
If we stay in
the delusion that low friends are a blessing to us, we are operating
on a system that is contrary to the essence of Buddha Dhamma.
We
cannot blend parts of incompatible systems with success.
Merging
techniques grounded in incompatible conceptual frameworks is fraught
with risk.
Although such merges may appease a predilection for
experimentation or eclecticism, it seems likely that their long term
effect will be to create a certain 'cognitive dissonance' that will
reverberate through the deeper levels of the psyche and stir up even
greater confusion.
Karmically, we are driven to like or
dislike persons. However, it is incompatible with Buddha Dhamma to
have love for the wicked. Such relationships are the cause of
dissonance, or mental instability in the short term and sorrow in the
medium term.
Friendship is not an end in itself in Buddha
Dhamma. In the end, we might be said to transcend friendship. It is a
means to accomplishing a clear mind. But, for the present, if the
friendship means are flawed, the friendship end will not be attained
by us.
The properties of a sound friend are clearly defined in
the Buddhist Canon and are well known. Such friends in Dhamma help
our practice and advise us on the right path.
Persons who in a
supposed friendship cannot control their anger lose all the benefits
of making merit. We must avoid them till we are mature.
Next
week we will examine the second of our five styles, cultural
adaptability.
May our listeners arrive at the position where
they cease associating with persons who do not keep five precepts.
May they associate with beings who keep five or more precepts and
have wisdom to share.
May you live a happy and contented life
with goodly co-mates now and in the future.
May you be well
and happy.
This script was written and edited by [the late]
John D. Hughes, Pam Adkins, Frank Carter, Leanne Eames, Evelin Halls,
Jocelyn Hughes, Lisa Nelson, Julie O'Donnell, Anita Svensson and
Pennie
White.
References:
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio185.html,
Avoiding Mental Weakness Arising from Poor Choices in
Friendship
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio316.html,
Morality Ð the Foundation Stone of Buddha Dhamma
practice
http://www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio131.html, The
importance of cultivating 'true and wise friends'
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