If man had not fallen, the friend of friends would have been his parents. Your parent is the king friend of friends. And the king teacher of teachers are your parents. Do you understand? The origin of all plans are parents. The origin of all lives are parents, and the center of all social movements are the parents. The parents, however, have not been the true parents but the false parents. They have been turned upside down.

So is it between friends. When you visit a friend who is unfriendly and inaccessible, you cannot feel at ease. You would feel awkward. You can feel at ease only in the case that you have strong emotional ties between friends so that you can interfere in your friend's matter freely, and your friend can step into your personal life as well. In order to form such strong ties with your friends you should be tied to them by emotional affection. And then all external matters would be solved. The crucial point is to have strong affectionate ties. (33-133)

We often hear people ask, between friends, whether something interests you. What do they mean with the words? It means that they ask you whether that thing is something your heart or your mind would be pleased by. You should know that, in the word "pleasure," there must be a certain internal connection of the heart. (91-10)

When you need a friend, you want a friend who can shed tears. Yet you would not want such an indecent man who does nothing but weep all day, but want a friend who can shed tears, while on the other hand has lots of laughter as well. It is not good to make a wry face at all times. Even in a deep grief-stricken situation you should be able to find an overflowing joy. Who can be qualified for the blessing of happiness? Anyone who is crying sorrowfully for another who is overwhelmed with grief is the one being blessed. It is you at the place where you want to stay forever that the blessing would call on. Make sense? (36-109)

When you ask yourself who you really want to keep acquainted with, you will know that you don't want to keep company with a small fry. (153-25)

Nobody wants to retreat. Nobody wants to keep company with a retreating person. Everyone wants to be a friend of the man going forward. How about you? Are you now going forward, or retreating? We, more than anything else, should check it. (32-19)

If you want to be a best friend of anyone, you first of all should understand his agony and suffering, and comfort him in his misfortune. Only by doing so could a friend be moved by you. If you have relationship with him through heart and zeal, he will be moved by you, and you by him. (7-306)

If a man makes a sacrifice of his happiness to his ten friends, he will be asked to be their representative when they want to have a central figure. And they will not only choose him as their representative but they will also ask him to be the leader to teach them as their teacher. This is the way it goes. (49-198)

How do you know about good friends? It depends on how thoughtful and how many times they think of you. The more thoughtful and more times they think of you, the better friends they are.

Who should be the best friend in your classroom? If there is one student who is very considerate of others and always tries to help them, but there is another student who wants them to be considerate of himself, the latter would be kicked out while the former would become the master. (177-288)

Let's say there is a man who has ten friends. When this person is willing to live for them in the spirit of self-sacrificing, they would also want to live for him. Moreover, they would want to bring him to their relatives to introduce him proudly. And yet if he would try to make them to live only for him, not only he himself but also all of them should go down. The former is the way for goodness while the latter is the way for evil. (54-29)

When you talk about a true friend, what is the meaning of "true friend"? Let's say you have ten friends. Who can become the most true friend among them?

A plain truth is that the friend who would like to live for others in the spirit of self sacrificing should be the best true friend. He doesn't want to live for his own interest but gives priority to the other's interest. He who is willing to live his life for others from his youthful days to later years must be the true friend of friends. (72-145)

Who is the true friend? He is the man who welcomes you gladly and receives you warmly in the opposite direction of the common people's mind today. If there is a good thing before you, a common person would say it is his, but, on the contrary, to be the true friend, he might as well say to his friend, "This is yours." Everything is the opposite. If there is some tasty food on the table, a common person would say "I will eat this." But in this case anyone who can say, "Take this delicious food," can be the true friend. a common person would say, "This sad thing is yours, and that joy is mine," but the one who can say, "This sad thing is mine, and that joy is yours" is the true friend. (156-82)

If a friend were to be the best friend of yours, the relationship between you and him should never be broken. He must be better than anything else, including your wife, in the world. You cannot throw him away. Even though you were at the risk of your life you could not break off relations with him. It is not because of sympathy but because you are connected from the bottom of your heart which is the source of goodness. Any karma connected to the goodness in your original mind cannot be broken off forever. (42-218)

Who is the happy person? He would be the man who has a friend who would be sad about his mishap. Who is the happy person? He is the man having a friend or children who are willing to take any pains for him at the risk of their lives while he feels pain. He is the happy person. How about you? Do you all have such a friend? You should make a comparative study about people. When you meet any person, you can tell what he is like in the type of your friends, and which type he belongs to among 100 persons you know. Choose several types among them and try them out whether he is a gentle person or a conceited person, or a impatient person, or an irresolute person. (54-177)

For example, when you say, "He is a good friend," the good friend whom I call a good friend can be said to be a good friend only if he would be able to tell you so. But under such a circumstance that "well, he is a tough egg," he cannot be a good friend of you. Therefore, to find out a good friend you must pass the critical point. You should improve your lot. What do you have to do to improve your lot? You should break into sweat. You should not spare yourself. You should pay the price in proper portion to improve your lot. So you need your sweat and tears. (33-317)

When you commonly say "a bad man," what do you mean by that? We call the man who gives the first consideration to only himself and worry about his own interest a bad man. When such man goes into the society he would be branded as a bad man, so also in his family and among his friends. We humans are not destined to think of ourselves only. Most valuable things are not coming out from a self-centered attitude. Even though you have one thousand friends, you cannot make a boast of it. No matter how many friends you have you might soon be left alone unless you can restrain the impulse to assert yourself only. It would however be of no use to perform a sacrificial rite to let them stay with you. All of them would leave if they encountered this insult, "you guy, do this" three more times. You should know that to assert yourself only is the first step to lead to self destruction. (36-181)

When you are going to make friends, it becomes an issue to know whether they would be promising friends or hopeless friends. If you have a relationship with hopeless friends, the more you would have valueless results with you. Therefore, you must build relations with better friends in order to prepare for your future. (32-14)

When you are confronted with any problem or an accident in leading your religious life, you must always check whether it says welcome to you or strikes terror into your heart on the basis of the standard of your mind. When someone comes to you and talks about some problem, awaiting solution, through your religious life you always have to analyze and judge it to see whether your original mind harmonizes with it at the first place where you hear it. (40-68)

Through our lifetime, or from the cradle to the grave, a single word might hold sway over your destiny. Were it not for the single word, you would not be confronted with such a disaster. But in many cases because of a single word people are ruined for their lives. The same may be said of hearing. Being once misinformed, many might be ruined for life. The same may be said for behavior. Because of attending a meeting once, you might make a failure of your life. And in making friends with someone, keeping a bad company might make a failure of your life. There are no end of such cases. Therefore, men of good sense from ancient times teach you to be careful in your speaking, hearing, behaving, and making friends. You should know it is the same teaching applied across the ages and countries of the world.

For a man it is not easy to be considerate of others when he is placed at a disadvantageous position. You are all the same. Don't you agree with me? [Yes]. In such conditions to avoid his own suffering he might make a cat's paw of his friends, or take advantage of the situation, or he might talk and behave in a different way. Such conditions are waiting for you.

Considered in this light, who on earth can you believe in? And who else would you depend on? It is absolutely not easy to follow the right way under such circumstances as I mentioned above. Even though you believe in him as your good friend, you might easily be treaded on and taken advantage of by him as circumstances might require. You are forced to walk through the world like that. Therefore, considering, who you would make good friendships with, or who you have good relationships with is the most difficult question. (91-29)

If you have a friend whom you don't want to meet again, he is only a rash friend of yours. His future looks gray. If you have a friend who, even along in a way of ordeal and difficulty, always gives you something stimulating, something impulsive, or something to make you awake, you should be always willing to follow him even through the thorny path. (42-194)

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