What is a good person and what is a good friend?

[SeriousFun136]

@stu

My problem is that often people talk about kalyāṇamitta as if they can be puthujjana (an ordinary person who has not yet realised any of the four stages of Awakening), so (in this model) we are all good spiritual friends to each other even if we have no realisations ourselves.

For me, this doesn’t seem correct.

I have also wondered this.

@stu

Truly, Cunda, if you’re sinking down in the mud you can’t pull out someone else who is also sinking down in the mud. But if you’re not sinking down in the mud you can pull out someone else who is sinking down in the mud. Truly, if you’re not tamed, trained, and extinguished you can’t tame, train, and extinguish someone else. But if you’re tamed, trained, and extinguished you can tame, train, and extinguish someone else.

Which discourse number is this? Thanks in advance.

@Gillian

@Gillian

Perhaps this is the typical Western self-putdown popping up again?

I don’t know. Maybe.

To be honest, I also had/have this same question. Technical questions like this seem fundamentally important because the directly affect the way in which someone goes about practicing.

For example, if the Buddha’s advice to find good friends is referring to “anyone who has good qualities,” then based on this information, then I would want to find beings everywhere to the extent that they have good qualities and try to make friends with them.
But if good friends refers to “those who have attained at least the first stage of Nibbana,” then based on this information, I would want to go look very specifically for members of the Noble Sangha.

How can we follow the Buddha’s advice if we are not exactly sure what exactly he meant when he said what he said?

Based on the post, I thought the OP was very well grounded in the EBT’s so I didn’t get any sense of “typical western self-putdown” in this post.

This seems to be yet another case in which studying and having a clear understanding of what the Buddha actually says has very real practical implications for how one is to practice.

For example, I am looking for kalyanamittas here:

Good Friends/Kalyanamittas: A Personal Ad

I wish to find and form a close circle of kalyanamittas who share both a mutual interest in studying and practicing the Dhamma-Vinaya of the Buddha together as well as complementary (though not necessarily identical) ultimate aspirations (i.e. the overall direction and destination one subjectively wishes to end up in - to better gauge whether our paths would likely diverge anyway or converge eventually). The former (mutual interest in Dhamma-Vinaya) seems like “a common ground and foundation” w…

If I were to search in accordance with the Dhamma-Vinaya, should I be looking for those who are relatively harmless and beneficial beings or should be looking for those who have attained at least the first stage of Nibbana (i.e. Sangha)?

The answer to the OP’s question could shed some light and clarity on such issues, I think.