Reminders

To live a good life we need good friends who can remind us when we stray that this is not the way of peace, harmony, truthfulness and happiness. So we can return to the right path. The Buddha said, “In the life as a student, you need four factors to support you; a good friend, good teaching, good will and good practice”. Well! Of these four, I can say that they are good or right. Let’s think about them;

A good friend is the one who can support us when we get lost in the material world or spiritual world. It can be anybody who is helpful and useful to us; we learn from them with an open mind.

Good teaching can be any teaching which is good and right for learning and practice. It must be helpful, supportive and useful to life and able to bring about loving-kindness, generosity, responsibility, truthfulness and wisdom.

Good will is needed for the learner or practitioner who is going to learn, or do anything. If we do not have good will, we will be easily distracted and deluded by evils. Therefore, good will is really needed.

Good practice is also important because there are a lot of unwholesome practices, nowadays, especially in meditation; some methods cause attachment, egotism, superstition etc. The methods are not all right. Some are not good to learn and put into practice. We must be good students or selectors. Therefore, in the first place, the good friend is needed.

A good friend can be anybody or anything, as I have said earlier. Here is an example of a good friend.

In Ching-Guan city, there was once a well-known Zen master, named Chi-un. When he was young he was a lecturer in Sanskrit. Later on he stopped teaching, shunned society and lived in solitude. Why did he stop teaching and shun society? It was because he got a letter from his mother. When he read the letter, he realised that it was his time to do serious practice. What did the letter say? Here it is:

Dear Son,

I don’t think that it is a good idea to be “a walking dictionary” for others when you can become a good Zen. Teaching, reputation and dignity are endless. I want you to think about stopping teaching and starting to practise intensively in solitude. This way is the path to Satori, enlightenment.

This can be regarded as a reminder from a good friend. Do you have any kind of reminder like this? It is good to have someone like this so you can think seriously about your job, and how to make progress and be happy.