Two Books about Friendship

Buddhism has a particular take on friendship, and Sangharakshita, my teacher, founder of the Western Buddhist Order, has a particular take on Buddhism.

Bhante (Urgyen Sangharakshita) has developed an approach which he considers to be particularly appropriate and relevant to people practicing in the West, and he places a strong emphasis on friendship.

These two authors, Subhuti and Maitreyabandhu, are both highly experienced members of the Triratna Buddhist Order, and as their friend, I can attest to the fact that they embody and practice spiritual values within their own personal friendships.

Certainly, we are not natural friends and our friendships attest to these Buddhist practitioners' skill at forming and maintaining friendship. They also illustrate the fact that Buddhist friendship offers far more than traditional or natural friendship, and can help us to develop spiritually.

Although they cover the same subject, these two books about friendship could hardly be more different.

Buddhists often quote the Buddha as saying that friendship is "the whole of the spiritual life". In the first of these two books about friendship, Buddhism and Friendship, Subhuti explores this in some detail, emphasising the importance of personal friendships among Buddhists. He points out that the Buddha considered friendship to be important to everyone, including people who were not spiritually committed.

Subhuti argues that, until fairly recently, friendship held a place of prominence in Western society. He draws from literary sources including Thackeray and George Eliot, as well as classical sources such as Aristotle and Cicero.

Nowadays, friendship has been devalued, having been replaced by sexual and romantic partnership as the primary relationship. The author posits a range of reasons for this, including Freud, the sexual revolution and homophobia, along with consumerism and increased social mobility. He argues that in traditional societies such as India, in which people are more dependent upon social ties, friendship still holds a prominent place in people's lives.

The author quotes Aristotle in saying that there are three types of friendship: that based on pleasure, on use - where one or both parties are useful to each other in some way - or on the good. He states that friendship based on the good is the type of friendship most likely to be long-lasting, and to deepen over time.

Subhuti translates the Buddhist word kalyana as "good-true-beautiful". Thus, spiritual friendship, or kalyana mitrata, is friendship based on shared values and ideals. We respond to the good-true-beautiful in our friends, and they respond to it in us.

As suggested by the title, Buddhism and Friendship explores friendship not just in the context of Western society, but as illustrated within the Buddhist tradition.

The most interesting point which Subhuti makes is that, although practicing Buddhists often think of friendship as part of the Buddhist path, leading to the goal of Enlightenment, it is, in fact, part of the goal as well. He draws on traditional examples such as three brothers known as the three Aniruddhas, and the Buddha's long-standing friendship with his companion Ananda, as examples of Enlightened beings who formed and maintained friendships after Enlightenment.

The Buddha gave talks about ethical Precepts - guidelines for living a moral life as a Buddhist. These are all based on the First Precept, i.e. non-harmfulness, avoiding the taking of life.

Four of the Ten Precepts relate to speech, so important is communication among human beings, both in terms of how we relate and interact with each other, and in terms of our ability to develop.

Subhuti gives a fascinating exploration of the Speech Precepts as they particularly relate to friendship.

Subhuti states that the best friend to have is one to whom one can "unravel oneself". As we develop and mature, different parts of ourselves emerge. Our parents and other family members may not know how to meet or relate to these emerging new "selves"; nor may our old friends.

It is important to have friends who will give one "a recognition of oneself as an individual with a deep, unfolding mind". It is this type of friendship which is fundamental to human existence.

The second of these two books about Friendship, Maitreyabandhu's book Thicker than Blood, comes from a much more personal angle. He explores several of his own friendships within the context of the practice of spiritual friendship.

He argues that friendship comes naturally to children - I don't completely agree with this, myself - but, as we get older, we have to work harder at developing and maintaining friendships.

He writes about the friendships he had as a child, and some of the people he has met and connected with at various stages of his life. He describes some of the pleasures, as well as the difficulties, of maintaining ongoing friendships from a range of perspectives.

Some of these stories are very poignant, as when, for example, in fear of rejection, he came out to his friend as gay, only to be told, "I assumed you were, but it was none of my business".

Thicker than Blood is highly readable, as Maitreyabandhu is a great storyteller and skilfully draws us into his world.

In Thicker than Blood, Maitreyabandhu emphasises that, in order to have an effective friendship with someone, one needs to spend time with that person. This might seem obvious, but in this age of emails, mobile phones and mass communication, it bears repeating.

He adds that when one cares about one's friend, one also cares about the people who are important to that friend - their children, their parents and other family members, and their friends.

The greatest strengths of Buddhism and Friendship are in the anecdotes taken from the author's own life and from the Buddhist scriptures. For example, he describes very movingly his experience as a young boy of being shunned by others whilst at boarding school.

The book could have done with more of these personal examples. My one criticism is that Buddhism and Friendship does not give us enough sense of the author. Subhuti does not tell us much about his own friendships and this is a shame, as he has much to teach us in this area. Some themes I would have liked him to explore include friendships with members of different genders and of different nationalities and cultures, and what to do when we experience conflict with our friends.

Both of these books are very accessible to Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.