The Dhammic Life Which Is Still a Secret
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C00901
“For me a friend is a person I care for, someone I’m attached to. Yet attachment leads to dukkha – I learned that this week – but without attachment the person would not be a friend for me. So can you explain what friendship is for a Buddhist?”
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
If we look at this matter deeply we’ll see that a friend arises only because there is attachment to self, because if we didn’t attach to self there would be no friend. This merely follows the law of idappaccayatā, the way causes and conditions lead to new causes and conditions endlessly. Because we attach to self, we have certain desires and then because of these desires we want someone that is a friend to help us achieve our desires. This is how out of attaching to self, a friend is born. But if one has no more desires and attachments, then there is no need, and there is no friend. However when one is on this more ordinary level of life, when one still has desires and therefore needs friends, it’s important to find the kind of friends who can help us to achieve the things we really need to achieve. These are called ‘good friends’ (kalyāṇamitta), those friends who help us to realize the most important things in life. So this is basically a moral issue. It’s a matter of sīla-dhamma (morality), just dealing with ordinary life in the world. It’s not an issue of paramattha-dhamma (absolute truth, of supreme truth) – the kind that liberates.
This question has to do with life on the beginning level. One should never forget the principle that one must help oneself, that you can only depend on yourself. Therefore a friend is merely someone who helps us depend on ourselves more quickly, more easily. We can never depend on that other person, but a good friend can help us to discover how to depend on ourselves. We should never forget this very important principle of the Buddha’s, “Attā hi attano nātho” that one must depend on oneself, one must help oneself, no one else can help us, there isn’t anyone else we can depend on.
From the retreat “The Dhammic Life Which Is Still a Secret,” as translated from the Thai by Santikaro
Dhamma Questions & Responses sessions were offered by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu in 1990-1991 to foreign meditators attending Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage courses.
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