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Kalyanamitta - Spiritual Friends

together we ride

purrrfect

mates

brothers in alms

One of the very common difficulties that lay people encounter in trying to develop a spiritual lifestyle is isolation. Perhaps you have read a book or been on a meditaion retreat or some other inspiring situation or, on the other side of the tracks, the proverbial sticky stuff has hit the fan - that direct insight into the first Noble Truth. Either way there is some motivation to begin developing a more moral lifestyle, to begin meditating regularly, etc. After a while the initial reason for starting slowly moves into the background. The idea to keep going still seems relevant but the energy to actually do so seems in shorter supply. Somehow where there was always time there now never seems to be any.

Don't despair - help is to hand. Exactly where is not always easy to know but making ongoing contact with others of similar aspiration is virtuallly essential if one is to sustain any kind of spiritual life. Good friendship is more than just personality compatibility. A noble friend will be able to offer guidance and instruction and also to be able to offer criticism where appropriate - as well as friendship and encouragement. The Buddha made the importance of such relationships very clear.
Allow that you may not be able to find people who are on exactly the same wavelength - where do the perfect people hang out anyway?
• join a group of some kind - there are often small meditation groups about. Keep an eye on library noticeboards and the like.
• be patient and tolerant of others that you do meet on the path. Be a noble friend yourself.
• seek out those of gentle speech and moderate habits; those with a sense of shame; energetic in matters of virtue.

Here are a few quotes from the scriptures:

The whole of the holy life:
As he was seated to one side, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "This is half of the holy life, Lord: being a friend with admirable people, a companion with admirable people, a colleague with admirable people."
"Don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. Being a friend with admirable people, a companion with admirable people, a colleague with admirable people is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk is a friend with admirable people, a companion with admirable people, a colleague with admirable people, it is to be expected of him that he will develop the noble eightfold path, and make much of it. . . . And through this line of reasoning one may know how being a friend with such people is actually the whole of the holy life: It is in dependence on me as an admirable friend that beings subject to birth have gained release from birth, that beings subject to aging have gained release from aging, that beings subject to death have gained release from death, that beings subject to sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress & despair have gained release from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress & despair."                SN XLV.2

Keeping company with the wise:
It's good to see Noble Ones. Happy their company always.
Through not seeing fools constantly, constantly one would be happy.
For, living with a fool, one grieves a long time.
Painful is communion with fools, as with an enemy always.
Happy is communion with the enlightened, as with a gathering of kin.
So: the enlightened man - discerning, learned, enduring, dutiful, noble, intelligent, a man of integrity:
You should follow him - follow one of this sort;
-- as the moon, the path of the zodiac stars.
                      Dhp 206

Never with an evil companion:
I'm blind, my eyes are destroyed.
I've stumbled on a wilderness track.
Even if I must crawl, I'll go on,
but not with an evil companion.         Thag 95

"With regard to external factors, I don't envision any other single factor like friendship with admirable people in being so helpful for a monk who is a learner, who has not attained the goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed rest from the yoke. A monk who is a friend with admirable people abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillful."   Iti 17

The Mahamangala Sutta, the Great Discourse on Blessings, is one of the most popular Buddhist suttas, included in all the standard repertories of Pali devotional chants. The sutta begins when a deity of stunning beauty, having descended to earth in the stillness of the night, approaches the Blessed One in the Jeta Grove and asks about the way to the highest blessings. In the very first stanza of his reply the Buddha states that the highest blessing comes from avoiding fools and associating with the wise.