True friendship is a pivotal element in the spiritual life. Spiritual practice is not something that is solitary in essence. It’s about how we relate to others in general but also how we relate to a very small number of people in particular in an intense and loving way.
A friend is somebody who is concerned for the good of the other in a mutual relationship that involves real shared action and experience. In other words: friends go through things together. They’re concerned about each other in a loving way. It’s more than having a few common interests like you might have by having a so called “friend” on social media.
It’s not just about pleasure, nor primarily about things like social standing, or personal gain. Really it is a concern for what is truly good. A friend does genuinely rejoice when her friend enjoys a success or a pleasure or a gain or something of that kind and they do so even if there is no benefit to themselves, but this is a result of, rather than a basis for, friendship.
So, friendship is different from being concerned about another for some ulterior motive, such as that this person may help you get on in life. So, if I’m concerned for the other person in the hope of receiving some benefit like promotion, preference or retaining their custom if I sell something, or getting political support, or that sort of thing – it’s not really friendship. This is social networking, public relations. It’s all very well, but it’s not what the Greeks called philia.
Such apparent friendships, well, they’ll disappear if one is not getting what one really wants. Having good relations with one’s clients, employees, allies, social superiors and inferiors and so on, well, it’s wise and pleasant, but it’s not really friendship. These kinds of “friendships” rest on a worldly conditionality. They’re calculated, they’re self-interested.
True friendship transcends this. It’s not a matter of worldly advantage, but of supporting one another’s good faith and character through thick and thin. It’s worth asking oneself, if one has such friends and who they are, and also, if one is that kind of friend oneself for somebody else.
One is concerned for one’s friend’s spiritual well-being. This doesn’t mean necessarily that to be friends you have to be superbly virtuous - we’re all imperfect beings - but concern for the spiritual well-being of the other is something important and it endures notwithstanding their foibles and their follies. At the same time friendship does entail mutual admiration. There are inherent qualities in the other that one esteems and enjoys.
Again, friendship is more than good will. You can have good will towards strangers, as on social media. Friends do things together. A friend is somebody one can rely upon, who knows that he can similarly rely upon you.
Sometimes we do not know who our real friends are until the relationship is put under some sort of stress or test.
So, friends do things together or in some complementary fashion and sharing those experiences cements the love between them giving them some degree of shared experiential world, and in this way, friends come to know one another which is more than simply thinking well of one another. In this covid times this may mean doing similar things and then comparing notes. Perhaps you agreed to both do something or try something and then you talk about it afterwards.
In true spiritual friendship we walk together along the path, we come to know each other deeply, we experience love and we arrive together in the Pureland.
Namo Amida Bu
Thank you very much
Dharmavidya
David
QUOTATION FROM THE LARGER PURE LAND SUTRA
Long life is rare,
And rare it is too, a Buddha to meet,
And how difficult it is indeed for humans to have wise faith.
If you hear of this path, follow with all speed.
Hear the Dharma, keep it in mind.
Revere it, rejoice and mend.
Resolved on this Way, following this Way, We shall be such friends.
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