WSW 41: Have Short-Lived Friendships, Make Ridiculous Claims

We are up to verse 82. We’ve been looking at two translations that I had done, one is the old translation back from the 1970ies, I think 1974, which is a looser poetical version of it and then the recent version that I did last year which is more literal. Verse 83 in the old version:

We do not think of friendships as long-term commitments; we treat old companions with thoughtless neglect. And when we are making new friends with a stranger, we try to impress him with grandiose ways. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern. Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.

In the new, more literal translation, it’s verse 82 (the numbering is slightly different):

Since the future duration (of our friendship) is short, we cast off at a distance former friends. Since our new friendships are copious, we lay out before all of them empty promises of fun. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.

This verse is speaking about friendships, and we have had a bit of discussion about friendships in the past. Here it’s talking about how we don’t really think of our friendships as being a long-term commitment; it says that the future duration of our friendship is short. We think of friendship just as a short type of thing and then “we cast off at a distance,” so we forget about former friends. That actually is a very interesting point, a very interesting topic, which is, how long do we consider friendships for? Is this something which is a long-term thing, or do we cut off old friendships? We often move to different locations, we often become involved in different things and what about these old friends? 

For instance, where are the friends that we had when we were teenagers if now we are an adult, if we’re several decades away from that? It’s very interesting; now I’m in my early sixties, but I had a very close friend in my 20s and we moved apart. I moved to India and didn’t see him very much, but I always wanted to keep in contact with him and just find out how he’s doing. So, basically, I would call him maybe a couple of times a year – something like that. It was really very funny because sometimes, in the more recent years, since an awful lot had happened to him over the years and our ways went quite differently, he would always ask me, why do I call him. I would always say, “Well, you’re my friend and I like you and even though our lives have gone in different directions, I’d like to know how you’re doing,” and like that. Recently I was in London where he lives, and we arranged to meet. The meeting was okay – I thought it was fairly friendly although it was quite apparent that we had different points of view about different things – and we parted. Then I got a letter from him saying basically that there is no point in meeting or having further contact in the future: “We really have grown apart and it’s not that I am angry with you, or displeased, or anything like that, but I see no point in continuing the friendship.” I could accept it, but is this the type of attitude that is helpful to have? Can you just end friendships like that? It doesn’t mean that we need to speak with the person every week, but is there something wrong with continuing the friendship? Do we just discard, throw old friends into the garbage when our paths have parted, when we don’t have so many things in common except our shared history of maybe twenty, 30 years ago when we were close friends?

We want to be open to a continuing positive connection but not as a missionary. I mean, I’m not going to convert this guy; although he is very appreciative of the various things he’s learned from me from Buddhism, that’s not his path, which is fine. I certainly don’t have any expectation that he would follow a Buddhist path, none whatsoever. What is the reason why we would stop a friendship, why we would end a friendship on good terms? We’re not talking about ending it with being angry with the person but just sort of dropping communication. The text says it’s from grasping on to a strong solid “me.” So how could we understand that? Daniel?

One of the things that he had said – not in this time but another time – was that he was afraid that he would undermine my faith in Buddhism. He has very strong views, he’s extremely intelligent and extremely into his own views about things and he would be very skeptical and critical and always challenge me in my Buddhist views. He thought it would be destructive to me if we had a close friendship. Now, I wasn’t looking for a close friendship. We only spoke maybe twice a year, like on our birthdays. If I ever went to London, we usually met for an afternoon, and I go to London very rarely. Could you have an altruistic reason for ending a friendship? If we are harming the other person by being their friend, then maybe that’s a reason for ending the friendship. What about hanging on to a friendship just because of nostalgia, which is more a type of clinging rather than continuing to be interested in the welfare of the other person because you like the other person? Otherwise, you never would have been friends with them. 

I think that one of the big principals that we need to follow, then, in friendship, is really caring about the other person. It doesn’t matter what we really share. I think sharing the caring is very good. I have a friend who lives in Venezuela, an old friend. We’ve been friends for 30 years; I’ve visited him many times, but I haven’t been there for quite a while, especially with the regime change in Venezuela and we speak on the phone maybe once or twice a year, something like that. But our conversations on the phone are basically a caring conversation: “How are you?” I know all his family, his mother, his brother and sister and all the children and so on and the conversation is basically, “What’s been happening with your family? How are you? How is your business going?” Similarly, he knows the people in my family and also asks all about that and it’s not that we’re having any deep and meaningful conversation about anything; it is basically just caring – “How have you been in the last six months or so? What’s been happening.” This I find very wonderful because I really care about him and his family, and he cares about me and my family and that’s enough. That I think is a good enough basis for the friendship, although he lives in such a completely different world from mine, not just geographically (he’s a big businessman.)

That’s the first part of the verse. The second part is, “Since our new friendships are copious, we lay out before all of them empty promises of fun.” In other words, we make a lot of new friendships, we go around finding new friends and what we’re saying that we’re going to offer them is fun. That’s the whole point of our friendship: “Let’s have fun together, we’ll go out, we’ll drink a couple of beers” – if you’re into that. Here it uses the words “empty promises of fun” – is that a basis for friendship? The fun that we will have; and when we’re no longer having fun together, when it’s no longer fun to be with you – like when you’re sick or depressed – then it’s finished.

I think we all know this type of friendship that is all based on having fun together. But then, is it okay to have fun with the other person? This gets into the very strange question, philosophical question, of what fun is. I have some friends whom I just love to be with because I really like them and it is fun to be with them no matter what we do – even if we’re, as I said, going to the launderette. Does it have to be entertaining to be with a friend? Not necessarily. If the friend is sick and in the hospital, it’s not exactly fun to go visit them; and when it’s no longer fun anymore to be with this person, you find another person and say, “Oh, we’ll have so much fun together, blah blah blah.” 

Let’s try to go on to the next verse. This is verse 84 in the old translation which is:

We lack clairvoyance, yet lie, feigning powers and then when proved wrong, we must bear all complaints. We have little compassion for those who are near us; whenever they blunder, we are quick to lash out. Trample him, trample him, dance on the head of this treacherous concept of selfish concern. Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher who slaughters our chance to gain final release.

In the new translation, verse 83:

Since we lack clairvoyance, we must readily accept deprecation for our lies. Since we have no compassion, we snatch away the trust (in us of others) in their hearts. Crash, really crash down, right on the head of (this) ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.

The first part of this is that we don’t have clairvoyance – in other words, we don’t have extrasensory powers or anything like that and so we have to accept being made a fool of, basically and put down by others for our lies. In other words, this is talking about a situation in which we pretend to have spiritual powers when we don’t. Of course, when we pretend to be able to do that, then when other people find out, we make a fool out of ourselves. Why do we pretend that we have these powers? That’s because, again, we’re thinking of this “true self.” Pretending that we have powers doesn’t necessarily mean that we imagine that we have clairvoyance, or that we’re sitting with a crystal ball and saying that we can tell the future or tell somebody’s fortune. It could also with astrology; it could be with anything. 

So, this is talking about pretending that we have more knowledge than we do and that we are so high because we have this knowledge – whatever it might be, as I say. It can be extrasensory powers, spiritual knowledge – “I’m so wise, I can tell you this or that;” or telling the future, doing a mo – prognostication with whatever means that might be – the I Ching or whatever, reading somebody’s astrology chart – all these sorts of things. We run the danger of making a fool out of ourselves because what we say turns out to be wrong. If we are engaged in such practices or other people ask us for our advice about that, because we happen to know astrology or we happen to know one system or another, then I think it’s very important to say, “Maybe this is so; don’t take this as being definite of what might happen.” This I find is very true. I’ve studied a bit of these systems, especially astrology and sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes it not accurate at all. It’s the same thing with the I Ching – I’ve studied that a great deal as well – and numerology and all this sort of stuff. 

One has to be very careful not to claim that one has powers. We claim that we have them when we don’t – maybe many of us don’t have that experience of going around claiming that we have these extrasensory powers. But I think it also comes into promising more than we can deliver. There’re some people who say to me, “Oh yes, I’m going to make a translation, I’m going to do this or that,” and then one or two years go by, and they have produced nothing. What does that show? They have made a fool out of themselves, saying that they can do something when they can’t. So, we have to be very careful about the claims that we make. Or claiming that we can fix something in the house when we have no idea how to fix it – I mean, this happens with the computer a lot. Somebody comes in and says, “Oh, I can fix that,” and they mess up your machine even more than before. This happens quite frequently, actually. So, one has to give a warning before: “I’ll try, but I’m no expert.”

The second part of this verse is, “Since we have no compassion, we snatch away the trust in us of (in us of others) in their hearts.” What does that mean? That means others trust us in a friendship, let’s say, but if we don’t really have compassion for them, then we let them down. I have a friendship, for example, with somebody – I mean, the person looks at me as their teacher, actually, but it’s also a friendship – and this person I find very annoying. There’re some people you just find annoying to be with – the type of questions they ask, the type of this or that – but this person trusts me very much. He’s not the type of person that I would enjoy hanging out with, but I maintain the friendship with him because I care very much about him. He comes to me with his problems and for advice and comfort and this and that and I have that because he trusts me. So, this is the point: if somebody trusts you and is in a friendship like that, even if you find the person annoying and they’re not somebody that you really like to hang out with, still we need compassion. 

If we don’t have that, what’s the reason? We’re thinking of the solid “me:” “I find this person not very much fun to be with and so I don’t care if they trust me or not; I don’t have time for you.” It’s very funny with this person because very frequently he’ll call me just when I’m about to go out or just when I’m really busy and have to finish preparing for a class or something like that. I mean it’s really karmically very funny. That’s why I say I find it annoying because it’s always the wrong time, but yet I don’t reject him and I say to him, “Look, I have to prepare a class. I’ll call you after class” or “Is it some real super emergency?” This is very important: when other people actually trust us as friends or trust us in terms of coming to us for advice, then even if it’s inconvenient, it’s very important to take care of them. 

I would think that it’s especially true with children. I think with your own children, it’s a little bit easier: even if you’re very busy and your child comes and needs comfort or help with this or that, we’re more willing to drop what we’re doing because we really care for the child. This, I think, we need to carry over with others. Now, with your child you’re willing to drop things; with other people maybe you have to say, “Look I can’t drop this right now, but I’ll get back to you.” Then you actually get back to them; not just “I’ll get back to you” which means piss off, I’ll never going to get back to you – the “Don’t call us, we’ll call you” type of attitude. That’s very important in a close type of relationship where there is trust. Compassion always has to be there and the wish for the other person to be free of their difficulties. When we have somebody close to us who is having difficulties – it’s not that it’s just in friendships when we’re having fun – we have to be there and willing to help in whatever way we can, even when it’s very inconvenient. 

So, that’s this verse: “Since we lack clairvoyance, we must readily accept replication for our lies. Since we have no compassion, we snatch away the trust in us of others in their hearts.” In other words, we destroy their trust so that they no longer will trust us. If I say, “I can’t be bothered to help you now, don’t bother me,” then they lose all their trust in us, all their faith in us and that’s terrible. If we’re not able to help them, then you need to say that immediately; “Listen, I’m not able to help you with that, but here’s a suggestion of what to do” or “I’ve no idea what to do, but why don’t you ask someone else for advice” – suggest somebody. To show that we still care – that’s important. Otherwise, “Crash, really crash down, right on the head of this ruinous concept! Deal the death blow to the heart of this butcher, a “true self,” our foe.”

Let’s think about this for a few moments more and then we’ll end with the class.

We think whatever understanding, whatever positive force has built up from this, may it act as a cause for not only us but everybody being able to reach enlightenment for the benefit of all.