Friendship One day after school, Mark walks to home and spots someone who falls down on the ground, all of his goods are scattered on the ground, including his jacket, books, walkman, baseball bat, and so forth. Without a doubt, Mark quickly helps him and gathers all of his belonging. Once they finish wrapping up, Mark greets and chats with that person named Billy. Over time, they become good friend and hang out together in
the school environment. They even go to the same high school. One
day, about four years after their first meeting, Billy invites Mark to visit
his house. They play games, eat some food, and chat about many things.
As they sit together on the porch of the house, Billy asks Mark: Mark shakes his head. Billy says "I wanted to go home in a hurry so that I could take some sleeping pills of my mother. I was thinking to commit suicide by drinking lots of those pills.” "Oh really!!!" says Mark with a stunning face. "Why would you do that?" Asks Mark further. "Because no one really cares about me, including my own parents. But the intention was eventually abandoned because you helped me without knowing me at first place. At that moment I felt that we would become friends and I would not waste this friendship. " Recalling the story above, generous attitude is very important in daily life. The simplest example that we could learn is to greet others kindly. Not only to train ourselves to become a friendly and hospitable person, but also, who knows that our generous greeting may become a very valuable action to save a person’s life. Of course not all friends can become good friends. In many cases, some people pretend to be best friends. However, in the end, those people only take advantages and may harm others. Therefore, in the Manggala Sutta, the Buddha advises that to gain blessings in this life, at first, one should choose the right environment to hang out with, meaning that one should hang out with people that are wise.
A person who always tries to take advantage of you A person who speaks differently with what he/she does. A person who likes to flatter and pretend to be nice. A person who leads his/her friend to spends wealth just for fun. A person who likes to help without asking anything in return. A person who cares his/her friend condition. A person who shares good advices. A person who always together and loyal no matter his/her friend is happy or in trouble. Inevitably, some people always complain that their friends are
not good friends. However, a good attitude must start from ourselves. There's
a saying that to be a good friend, one should do good deeds to others and perform
appropriately as a good friend. As natural law, common tendencies will bring together two
good friends. In fact, if both parties have different types and trends, their
friendship may not last long. There will be a time, sooner or later, one
of them will be left or abandoned. Friendship is like a plant, to be healthy, tough and to survive in the long term; it should be watered, fertilized, and taken care
properly day by day. Therefore friendship should also be cultivated with willingness
to care each other, right speech and action, and be preserved with fidelity. |