Why do we need to identify our false friends?

Meditation

Meditation for Beginners

 

Why do we need to identify our false friends?

 

We have already known them well and for a long period of our lives.

 

Naturally we need to carefully observe the behaviors of those with whom we associate. It may to be easy to be able to tell what kind of a person they are because the persons may appear as our friends when is fact they could be false friends or even enemies. These people are very wicked and cunning that you place your trust in them, It could be too late before we knew them well. Then they already did us harm. Hence it is wise and necessary to study the characteristics of false friends which the Lord Buddha had taught us. The benefits from studying the characteristics of false friends are:

 

Firstly, the descriptions of false friends can guide us to identify some false friends out of our so-called ‘friends’ , if not all. Having the false friends pointed out from our friends, we then should avoid associating with these persons, Because they could lead us to roads of ruins. Travellers would not enter into any place they knew to be of danger. Hence we, as travelers through our lives should try to avoid any path leading to ruin. We need to be careful in this aspect otherwise you may be mistreated by society. If you know yourself well, can tell right from wrong and you are not influenced by others easily, you could help those persons by teaching little by little, pointing them to the right direction. However, if you don’t stand on a good ground, you may absorb their behaviors and before you know it, you already become one of them.

 

Naturally we need to carefully observe the behaviors of those with whom we associate.

 

Secondly, we are now equipped with our filter for False Friends. The tool can be used to filter out sixteen forms of false friend characteristics. However, normally responsible people are conscious of how they behave. These people may not have all sixteen forms of false friend characters. If they possess many more characteristics of true friends (see previous chapter) than those of false friends, and we believe that we could help them fixed their false friend characters, then we can still be around them. Staying in society, we still associate with them, and rely on them sometimes. Though we should not get too close to them. We should continue to help them improve4 their bahaviour patterns when we can.

 

Thirdly, using False Friend criteria, we can examine our owns behaviours to see if there exists any  characteristic which fits these sixteen forms of false friend behaviours.

 

We need to be careful in this aspect otherwise you may be mistreated by society.

 

Being able to recognize our own faults is the most important factor in improving ourselves. It is normal for people to  scrutinize others’ faults, but not their own. Although, we know we have bad habits, we still do them anyway. We might even take the risk of doing something which we knew well is inappropriate, illegal or even immoral. Hence, in filtering out false friends, the first thing we should do is we should use it on ourselves. If we find any characteristics of false friends, we should improve ourselves immediately so that we, too, will not be a bad influence on others.

 

Finally, we can use this tool to filter characteristics of our closest surrounding companions-the people of the ‘Six Directions’. We have already known them well and for a long period of our lives. These people love us and mean us well; however, they may support us in the wrong way and can influence us towards the Roads to Ruin. This is very important. If we are not careful enough, we could easily absorb their ‘false friend’ characteristics and make them our owns. We definitely should help point them to the right direction so that they could improve themselves.

 

 

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