Conclusions

Meditation

Meditation for Beginners

 

Conclusions

 

The persons who possess true friend characters will not be harmful to their natural environment.

 

 

The information and lessons from this chapter can be concluded as:

 

1. Our Human Environment in the Six Directions includes those who are the most influential in our lives. They can lead us to rack and ruin or point the way to eternal prosperity. Even having only a single false friend could be enough to lead us to hell. As witnessed during the Lord Buddha’s time, when King Ajatasattu foolishly believed the advice of a false friend, Deveadatta-and committed parricide, and only later did he realize the gravity of his crime and even though he tried to compensate by making many donations to Buddhism and building the first cetiya, he could not avoid falling into hell at the end of his life. Because having even a single false friend can cause one the greatest harm, that is why the Lord Buddha said that having a false friend is the most disasterous of all wrongdoings. By constrast, Angulimala, even after killing 999 people was able to evade the best part of his retribution as a result of meeting a ‘True Friend’, that is the Lord Buddha himself. The Lord Buddha taught him in a way that led him to his enlightenment. After studying the characteristics of false friends and true friends each having sixteen criteria, we now have two sets of criteria for discerning true and false friends;

 

 Most people have a mixture of the characteristics of true and false friends.

 

 

2. Most people have a mixture of the characteristics of true and false friends. It is hard to find a person with all sixteen of either sort of characteristics. The criteria are intended more as a standard measure which is practical to apply when evaluating peop;es’ virtue or lack of it;

 

3. We can use the criteria to evaluate ourselves, our friends, relatives, those closest to us in the Six Directions, and anyone with whom we associate to see whether we can find any character corresponding to the criteria mentioned. Having identified them, one should practice further by:

 

a) Associating with others in a way by which both we and they can maximize our virtue;

 

b) Associating with others with others in a way by which both we and they can minimize the mutual exchange of latent characteristics of false friends in our character;

 

4. Examining the subject of ‘friends’ we come to realize that everyone living in this world are ‘friends sharing the world’ s resources’ influencing each others’ environment. Developing good behavior patterns will be successful when everyone starts to see others as friends and everybody as a factor contributing to each others’ well being or demise. The word ‘friend’ refers to anyone who shares the journey through birth, aging, sickness and death together. If everyone regards others as ‘friends’ they will be considerate to others, have positive thoughts towards them, he;p each other out in times of need, have mercy towards them, help make a warm and positive community by getting rid of negative attitudes, and thinking positively towards others; everyone, a small component of a global community-the world, will live peacefully and happily together;

 

They can lead us to rack and ruin or point the way to eternal prosperity.

 

 

5. The kind of persons the world is crying out for are those who think positive thoughts, say positive words and do positive things, strictly avoiding all wrong doings and being a true friend. Such a person is able to solve social problems of a community, a nation and the world because they are full of virtue, courage and determination that can bring prosperity to society. Any nation that aims to reach prosperity must be determined to produce as many virtuous citizens as possible, instead of producing merely people with high educational degrees, but who lack the characteristics of a True Friend. Educated people without the characteristics of a True Friend will be neither a True Friend to themselves nor to others. Therefore, it is about time for every nation to give importance to the emergence of True Friend to themselves nor to others. Therefore, it is about time for every nation to give importance to the emergence of True Friends in society so that they can lead our world to prosperity.

 

6.A true friend is the product of a good human environment Every baby is born like a clean slate. However, how each baby is brought up contributes greatly to the type of adult it will become. The behaviour patterns developed depend largely on the person’s human environment in toe Six Directions who have the most influence throughout the person’s life whether they possess the true friend or false friend’s traits.

 

7. The persons who possess true friend characters will not be harmful to their natural environment. They live to do good things for everybody’s happiness. Hence, true friends will not do harm to natural surroundings in case such damage ultimately causes harm to the society as a whole.

 

8. To avail oneself of the characteristics of a true friend, one must be a self-disciplined person. Such behaviour must be taught and developed from an early age.

 

9.One of the most important forms of self-discipline is the self-discipline in earning and allocating one’s income.

 

 

 

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