Good Friends and Bad Friends
When traveling a long road, go alongside good companions and often cleanse your eyes and ears. Even when you stay, you must choose your companions carefully, and now and then listen to things you have not yet heard.
Thus even the worldly books say:
The ones who gave you birth are your parents,
the one who completed you is your friend.
One who keeps close to the good
is like one walking through mist and dew —
though the clothes do not get wet on the spot, little by little they grow damp.
On the other hand, one who befriends the wicked
nurtures bad views and commits evil deeds morning and evening —
in the near term, reaping retribution before one's eyes, and in the long term, falling into rebirth after death.
Once you lose the human body, it is forever hard to be born as a human again.
Though earnest words grate on the ears, how can you not engrave them on your heart?
Wash the mind, cultivate virtue, conceal trace and renown,
refine the spirit in purity, and cut off the noisy realms in the heart.
If you would practice the Way through Seon (Zen) and instantly transcend expedient means, place the mind at the mysterious ford and probe the subtle and marvelous to the very bottom.
Resolve deep meanings and awaken to the true source;
widely inquire of good teachers and keep close to good companions.
by_Buddha indramang(佛敎)
