Buddha - Avoid Fools, Make Wise Friends

In /The Dhammapada/, Buddha says, “If, as you travel, you meet none better than yourself, or equal, you should steadfastly travel alone. There’s no companionship with fools.” So, Buddha’s saying that the fool doesn’t make a good friend, and if you don’t have good friends, he says it’s better to be alone. And even though that might sound obvious, it’s actually difficult to put into practice, because people don’t think about what it means to be a good friend.

When we know what a good friend is, we know what a bad friend is, and when we know what a bad friend is, we can avoid wasting our time and energy in that relationship. So let’s start at the top: what is a good friend? Like Buddha says, I think a good friend offers you companionship. They offer you a relationship where there’s mutual learning, and because of that, there’s a mutual increase in freedom.

The mathematics of friendship work out such that 1 + 1 = 3. Both parties get more within the relationship than they would without it. The relationship allows them to gain greater insight into themselves, each other, and the world. It allows them to learn, expand, and gain a greater freedom from suffering. To me, that’s companionship. So if a good friend gives you companionship, a bad friend doesn’t.

But why doesn’t a bad friend give you that? Buddha says that a bad friend is a fool, but what is a fool? Ultimately, I think a fool is someone who’s self-absorbed. They’re obsessed with their own thoughts. They overvalue what they know and how they see the world, and they undervalue the knowledge of others. They overestimate what they know and underestimate what they don’t know.

And because the fool is so self-absorbed, they don’t pay much attention to others, and because they don’t pay attention to others, they’re less capable of learning from them. The fool is attached to /their own/ point of view, and because of that, they’re not going to step into your shoes and look at the world from /your/ point of view. And if you express a point of view that contradicts their own, they’re likely to get angry or ignore it, and they’re definitely not going to try and understand it.

And since the fool doesn’t want to understand you, they won’t be able to teach you /or/ learn from you. And if they can’t teach you or learn from you, there won’t be any growth in understanding for you or them. And without mutual growth, there’s no companionship. I think that’s why Buddha says it’s better to go alone than seek companionship from a bad friend.

At least if you go alone, you still have the possibility of enriching your own life, discovering a real friend, and you won’t waste time, energy, and attention on a fruitless endeavour. So what are the signs, then, that a friendship won’t work? If someone doesn’t take a natural interest in your worldview, in how you see the world, especially when it contradicts with their own, it’s unlikely the friendship will work.

If they don’t take an interest in understanding you, what can they learn from or teach you? They won’t learn from you, because they don’t have a genuine interest in exploring your knowledge. But if they don’t explore your knowledge, they won’t understand your point of view. And if they don’t understand your point of view, how will they correct it? So they won’t even be able to teach you. The relationship won’t really be fruitful for either party.

So, as Buddha said, it’s better to go alone than seek companionship in a false friend. But it’s worth considering how good of a friend we are ourselves. Do we take a natural interest in the worldview of those around us? Do we try to step into their shoes and see the world from their point of view? Do we explore their knowledge and see what they know that we don’t?

And if we don’t, why not? There’s someone here in front of us with a unique point of view, experiences, knowledge, feelings, and ideas. And through mutual exploration, we can both expand our own views of the world. But if we’re not interested in ...