“With regard to external factors, I don’t envision any other single factor like friendship with admirable people as doing so much for a monk in training, who has not attained the heart’s goal but remains intent on the unsurpassed safety from bondage. A monk who is a friend with admirable people abandons what is unskillful and develops what is skillful.”
— Iti 17
I have been puzzling over this impulse to find or even create a lay Buddhist organization that would serve both as a ground for personal development in the Dhamma as well as promote acts of charity and service in line with the Teachings and in the spirit of the brahmaviharas. What I am beginning to see is that I need to make a fat gayer effort at cultivating those friendships and acquaintances I already have. To do otherwise strokes me as disingenuous and wrong. May I seek to associate evermore work the wise and leave the company of fools.
Cattāri Brahmavihārā 
Leave a comment