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which arose whenever you saw or heard some-
thing that was 'pleasing'. 
Each group disagreed with the others because it 
was obvious that an image pleasant to one person 
may not be pleasant to another. A sound pleasant 
to one person might not be pleasant to another. 
Something that creates a pleasant mood today 
might cause an unpleasant mood tomorrow. Thus 
there is nothing to make anything discussed a 
'blessing' without doubt. The debate went on and 
on without any sign of coming to an end. It is just 
like people in the present day can still not agree 
as to what is truly a 'lucky charm'. 
Eventually the problem was only resolved by 
taking audience with the Buddha. A representa-
tive asked the Buddha the nature of blessings and 
his reply is what is now know as the Mangala Sutta 
— thirty-eight blessings divided into ten group-
ings. 
B.2 Definitions: The Word 'Blessings' 
Some may still wonder about the meaning of the 
word 'blessing' [mangala]. Some people think a 
blessing must be an object or an action — but by 
our technical understanding of the word, we trans-
late it as 'a cause of prosperity, progress and happi-
ness'. If you want to know the definition, you could 
say that the progress towards happiness that a 
'mangala' will bring is four-fold: 
1. progress through acquired wealth (worldly treas-
ure, heavenly treasure and the treasure of Nir-
vana). 
2. progress through wisdom, which is the means 
by which obstacles in life and evil are abated. 
3. progress through virtue through the channels of 
body, speech and mind, at the basic, intermedi-
ate and advanced levels 
4. progress through the three benefits: benefit in this 
lifetime, the next lifetime and in the hereafter. 
A blessing is a sign that positive development is 
about to take place (to a person, society or the 
world). Unlike such principles as that of deserved 
fate, the logic of blessings is forward looking, sig-
nifying that something good is about to happen. 
B.3 Principles of Ethical Learning 
A working computer has two important parts: hard-
ware and software. The hardware of the computer 
is the wiring and the circuitry. The software is the 
programming that we install on the computer. The 
hardware of a computer is neutral, but what makes 
the difference between a beneficial and a degrad-
ing computer is the type of software installed. If 
you install working programs, the computer can 
be useful. However if you install violent games, vi-
roses or pornography then the computer becomes 
a source of degradation. The worth of the compu-
ter thus depends on the software. 
A drinking glass is also neutral. What makes the 
difference between a beneficial and a degrading 
glass is the sort of drink you put in it. If you put a 
nourishing drink in the glass such as milk then the 
glass will be an uplifting one welcomed by every-
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one. However, if you put alcohol or poison in the 
glass, then the glass is immediately eyed with sus-
picion. The worth of a drinking glass thus depends 
on its content. 
In the same way, a human being has two impor-
tant parts: body and mind. By body we mean all 
Orientation 21 
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the blood, bones, muscles and organs associated 
with the physical body — even the brain, which is 
a physical organ. By mind, we mean the knowledge 
and attitudes that constitute our consciousness. The 
mind is like "the ghost in the machine". The physi-
cal components of the human being are also neu-
tral. The difference between a human who is up-
lifting and one who is degrading depends not on 
the body, but on the mental component. Unfortu-
nately, the software of the human mind is not pre-
installed from the factory! When we are born we 
are born along with an ignorance about all aspects 
of life. From the time we are children, we spend 
our life learning in order to fill the gap in our knowl-
edge — to provide ourselves with the knowledge 
we need for life. The path of our subsequent des-
tiny depends on the sort of knowledge we fill our-
selves with. We can fill ourselves with either: 
• accurate knowledge: positive knowledge which 
is creative and uplifting for ourselves and oth-
ers, or; 
• inaccurate knowledge: negative knowledge (com-
parable to lies to the soul) which is harmful to 
ourselves and others. 
Our knowledge increases as a result of influences in 
our surroundings. The first and most fundamental 
influence on our learning is the sort of people that 
make up our environment. The second most impor-
tant influence is the environment in general. Together, 
these two influences have the potential to instil us with 
Right View about the world (effectively our core val-
ues and assumptions about the world and our atti-
tude to it). 
The first group (see p.25) which concerns the acqui-
sition of discretion concerns our understanding of 
what is wrong and what is right. Even if someone is 
knowledgable,if their discretion is faulty, their future 
is unlikely to be bright. On the contrary those with 
good discretion but who lack education, at least they 
will not become a burden on society. It is the basis of 
Right View [samma dipthi]. Simply avoiding associ-
ating with fools will bring us wealth, because we have 
no risk of spoiling our reputation, our wisdom is also 
not at risk and may be improved — virtue of all sorts 
will start to flow in our direction. This is the result 
even of following thefts! blessing — what more will 
be the benefit of practising all of the blessings in their 
entirety. The benefits will be not only to ourself, but 
to society and to the world as well. 
The second group (see p.65) concerns consolidating 
upon the goodness of the discretion you already have 
through the environment which we inhabit, from the 
habits we have built up for ourselves in the past and 
by setting a proper aim in life. This style of teaching is 
characteristic of the Buddha who taught virtue in a 
way that becomes successively more complex. 
The third group (p.139) concerns how we can make 
a contribution to society by our skilfulness, so that 
we ourself do not become a burden on society and 
can at the same time be a refuge to ourself in terms of 
earning our living. 
The fourth group (p.139) progresses from being able 
to help ourselves to being able to help other people as 
well. The first people who we must help are those to 
whom we are indebted: our parents. If we have new 
people to whom we owe our efforts towards virtue, 
such as our children and our spouse. Furthermore, 
we have to be able to divide our time so that neither 
our responsibilities in the work and in the home are 
neglected. 
The fifth group (p.183) builds on the strength of vir-
tue we have built up for ourselves in the home, ex-
panding the scope of our virtue wider into societywith 
generosity, public works. If you have already got your 
life under control, you will be able to do something 
for the benefit of society with some sort of efficiency. 
Those who try to help social works when they have 
not yet got their own personal affairs under control, 
may create disasters rather than helping others.Those 
who want to give advice to others but who are un-
able to speak politely, may make enemies instead of 
improving the quality of society. 
Higher groups of blessings deal with the more 
subtle aspects of training the qualities of the mind 
in purity. 
B.4 38 Blessings as an ethical system 
We find that the Manual of Peace lives up to the de-
mands of an ethical system as follows: 
1 Progressive & Sequential: The thirty-eight bless-
ings are arranged according to the degree of di f-
22 A Manual of Peace: 38 Steps towards Enlightened Living 
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ficulty in practice: the easier ones come before 
the harder ones. The sequence of blessings be-
gins with external practices, i.e., dealing with 
gross social behaviours but gradually leading up 
to the more internal and subtle ones. Following 
these sets of virtues gives one an impression of 
climbing up a flight of stairs leading to salva-
tion. If you don't associate with the society of 
the fools, then you enhance the process of asso-
ciating with the wise. When you are dealing with 
the first Blessing, you are creating conditions to 
fulfill the second one. One can say that at the 
same time you respect those who are worthy of 
respect. It starts with number one. While you are 
working to develop number one, it is already 
doing the groundwork for number two and 
number three — it's progressive. One blessing 
conditions the next progressively. By doing the 
first Blessing, you are committing yourself to 
many subsequent Blessings thereby. By associ-
ating with the wise, it is opening you up to many 
good things; you learn from the wise, you 
progress — all good things come from associat-
ing with other people. So, by practicing one 
Blessing, it will eventually lead to practicing all 
of the Blessings. And by doing one, you prepare 
for the other; they are inter-related. This logic is 
very beautiful, it leads you ownwards step-by-
step. It allows you to improve, socially and spir-
itually, hand in hand with each other. It is like a 
self-catalysing process in chemistry or a positive 
feedback process in physics. This makes salva-
tion via the thirty-eight blessings a kind of up-
ward spiral, where you move upwards to Nir-
vana, the highest goal in Buddhist spiritual cul-
tivation, starting from the simplest blessings, and 
gradually perfecting yourself. 
2 Self-Catalysing: When one kind of living bless-
ing comes into existence or is practiced, it will 
support other kinds of virtues to manifest them-
selves, and the manifestation of any one bless-
ing will lead to development of the next higher 
blessing in the sequence. 
3 Exhaustive: Other mechanisms of spiritual val-
ues can easily be accommodated within it 
4 Holistic: Blessings assume the presence of a 
deeper unseen network of causes and effects 
which interact together in cycles of positive feed-
back for the ethical development of society. Bless-
ings can be used as a non-subjective socio-ethi-
cal checklist, that cuts through self-centred ness 
that might otherwise lead to superficial social 
changes (an individual's prosperity, for exam-
ple, being misunderstood as a sign of social de-
velopment) because social development that is 
unethical is by this philosophy, a contradiction 
in terms. It also provides a holistic mirror to view 
one's own personality and development. 
5 Multi-level: It covers the full spectrum of human 
relations from the interpersonal, through the fa-
milial, occupational and communal levels to the 
social. It offers a holistic perspective of a world 
governed by interrelating conditions. 
6 Non-discritninatoty: This philosophy makes no 
distinction between men and women, lay prac-
tice and monastic practice. The set of virtues is 
not restricted to a particular sort of person or so-
ciety, but it can be treated as the common good 
that is shared in a particular community or even 
by the whole of mankind. 
7 Multi-Factorial: The Thirty-Eight blessings are 
a means-ends model of ethics. The ethics of the 
Blessings escapes the rigid linear dimension of 
'means' and 'ends' in favour of a multi-factorial 
causality model. The weakness of consideration 
in terms of 'means' and ends' is seen when try-
ing to establish definitions in a complex multi-
factorial situation. With the lighting of a match, 
for example, can we say that the match is the 
means to the production of fire? Are not oxygen, 
friction and a striking surface also means to the 
production of fire? If the friction is not sufficient 
to cause ignition, can it still be considered a 
means? Is a match struck in a vacuum still a 
means? Is not Oxygen also an end for the proc-
ess of photosynthesis too? ... but simultaneously 
the means for ignition? How would linear eth-
ics tackle the problem of 'auto-catalytic' phenom-
ena (better known as vicious circles). If defini-
tions of means and end are so difficult to pin-
down in such a simple scientific situation, it is 
hardly surprising that ethics based on 'means' 
Orientation 23 
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and 'ends' are virtually impossible to apply in 
multi-factorial social scenarios. Unfortunately, 
the problems found in society are almost always 
the vicious circles that make application of eth-
ics so difficult. To the question of whether bless-
ings are 'means' or 'ends', it must be answered 
that they are both. Putting any one of the thirty-
eight blessings into action will contribute to-
wards social development. At the same time, the 
existence (or coming into existence) of any of the 
thirty-eight blessings is itself an indicator of so-
cial progress. Blessings also help to avoid the 
dilemma of justifying unwholesome means by 
wholesome ends. 
8 Facilitating Practical Outlook The practice of 
blessings are effective through reversal of posi-
tive feedback loops of decay through the setting 
in motion of positive feedback loops of develop-
ment: firstly, to check the downward spiral and, 
secondly, to turn the spiral upwards. Action for 
social problem solving can start by the effort to 
replace any one of the thirty-eight counterparts 
of the blessings by a blessing. Problem solving 
can start with the local application of any bless-
ing. The blessings encourage personal commit-
ment instead of passing the buck. Once the first 
blessing comes into being, then it will cause an 
upturn in society, which will ease the accumula-
tion of the next blessing in the sequence. The 
end-point, said to be the biggest blessing of them 
all, is to bring all thirty-eight blessings into be-
ing in society. 
9 Transcending Values: The Manual of Peace does 
not focus merely on the values of action based on 
moral principles or intention for the actions, but 
rather on the modes of our relationships in soci-
ety, environment, family relations, education, 
communication and spirituality. Yet, the scope of 
application of blessings can even expand to cover 
the whole of the human race, with all lives shar-
ing their part in the single commonwealth of 
morality—the Global Community. 
10 Highlighting Opposites: Blessings also reveal the 
flipside of blessings — the 'Bad Omen' or 'social 
curse', which are the sign that something bad is 
about to happen (omens of forthcoming decay). 
Where there is no development, there must be 
decay, and to this end the opposites of the thirty-
eight blessings are representedby a set of thirty-
eight identifiers, like tips-of-the-iceberg, which 
signal thepresence of a nest of much deeper-
rooted but invisible social problems. The nature 
of such problems is, again, that of negative feed-
back loops or 'vicious cycles' which lead toward 
decay. Unsolved, such curse will spread, into ever 
broadening circles of repercussions with their own 
vicious cycles. A comparable example in science 
might be the thermodynamic model of loss of 
entropy through the dissipation of heat. 
These are characteristics of the Manual of Peace. In 
the chapters that follow, each of the thirty-eight 
Blessings of Life will be explained in turn. 
24 A Manual of Peace: 38 Steps towards Enlightened Living 
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e 
--% 
The First 
Group of Blessings 
"Turning your back on unwholesomeness" 
Goodness doesn't come unpackaged. It comes as part and parcel of 
the person who does good deeds and and who exemplifies those 
good deeds. Goodness is transmitted between people by the exam-
ple a good person sets for others and by a good person's teaching 
and criticism of the behaviour of a person whose level of goodness 
is lesser. Goodness is like the food which we eat. It strongly influ-
ences of our view and understanding of life and the world.To begin 
with we have no idea what goodness is. Some people tell us that 
such and such a thing is good. Others tell us that something com-
pletely different is good. Who should we believe? And when we 
ask them why they consider such and such a thing to be good, no-
one seems to know the answer. Thus if we want to learn how to do 
good deeds, we have to start making decisions about our lives even 
from the time we are still unable to tell the difference between good 
and evil. Although we cannot tell the difference between good and 
evil, there are certain indicators that allow us to tell the difference 
between people who habitually do good and people who habitu-
ally do evil. The first step on this path is the identification of the 
people who habitually do evil and we make our first step towards 
goodness by avoiding such people. Our next step towards good-
ness is to associate with people who are habitually good. The third 
step is to honour those who are habitually good so that we can start 
to observe the faults in ourselves, by comparison with the higher 
virtue of those who are worthy of respect. Thus, the first group of 
blessings is thus almost entirely concerned with being selective 
about our friends. 
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Blessing One: 
Not Associating with Fools 
A. INTRODIRMON 
A.1 First Step on Journey the Most Important 
For the Manual of Peace, although all of the bless-
ings are important, all of the latter thirty-seven 
hinge on the first. Thus you could say that of all the 
blessings the first is the most important. It is like 
the first tread of the steps leading into a house. If 
you cannot climb this first step, you will spend the 
rest of your life at the foot of the staircase with no 
way of getting into the house. You can also think of 
this blessing "Not Associating with Fools" as be-
ing like the first step on a long journey, without 
which the voyage can never begin. 
13. DISta, I ()\: 111 . DIPOR I INCE & FORMA DON 
B.1 The importance of calibrating discretion 
No-one wants to make a mess of their lives. Every-
one wants to feel that they are profiting from the 
years that pass them by — to give them a sense of 
success and achievement in their lives. HoweveK, 
the way each person defines "success", "profit" or 
achievement in their life will dictate what they chan-
nel their efforts into. A businessman defines profit 
in life in monetary terms so he devotes his time and 
effort into earning as much as he can. A criminal 
might define achievement in life by "cracking the 
most impenetrable safe in the world" or "cutting 
the most corners possible" to maximise the amount 
of stolen goods he can a mass - so he spends all 
his waking hours planning his next robbery. A 
criminal doesn't particularly want to live his life 
dishonestly, but he thinks that being a criminal is 
good enough. Although everyone seeks success (in 
their various ways), in the long run they may be 
left with regrets in their mind. If you ask why a 
difference of definition of success in life can make 
such a difference to one's destiny, it is because this 
"common sense" about the world dictates the de-
cisions we make about the world — and these de-
cisions drive all that we say and do. In the Manual 
of Peace we call such common sense "discretion" —
it is the basic understanding by which we judge 
each experience and situation in the world to know 
whether it is likely to be beneficial for us or harm-
ful. 
B.2 Discretion doesn't come unpackayed 
Discretion is a personal quality we acquire, test and 
calibrate as a result of the experiences we meet in 
life. It is not a quality we can get by reading about 
it, buying it, downloading it or memorizing it. It 
can only come as the result of our transactions with 
real people. It is a quality often unspoken, but eas-
ily learned by example. Thus discretion doesn't 
come loose, but is part and parcel of the exemplary 
people who possess it. 
B.3 Two Formative Influences on our discretion 
There are two major influences on the formation of 
discretion in a person. The first major influence is 
Blessing One: Not Associating with Fools 27 
EFTA01129129

the example of those people we are closest to, such 
as our family and friends. The second major influ-
ence on our formation of discretion is ourselves. 
Sometimes we call it the ability to be a good teacher 
to ourselves [yonisonzanasikara]. Even if you have 
been listening to advice for good or bad friends, 
you always have to consider advice and justify it to 
yourself before getting down to following the ad-
vice. If you have accurate discretion when you con-
sider things, even given faulty data, you will have 
the common sense to see through the discrepan-
cies and come out with the right decision required 
by the situation — unlike the man with unreliable 
discretion, who even when given reliable data, will 
come to the wrong conclusion. 
Usually we have to learn discretion from the ex-
ample of other people by transactions with them 
first, before we can calibrate our "auto-didactic" 
discretion and come to accurate conclusions inde-
pendently — because in the beginning we have no 
idea what constitutes a sensible decision and what 
constitutes neglect. Thus when we are learning dis-
cretion, at first we are very vulnerable to the exam-
ple set by others. The example they set us may cali-
brate the way we think for the rest of our life. Thus 
a correct example has the power to correctly cali-
brate our thinking for the rest of our lives — but 
conversely, a faulty example may damage the way 
we think for the rest of our life. 
C. PROCESS OF ACQUIRING DISCR1;11ON 
C.1 Benefitting from others without catching 
their bad habits 
Every time we have a transaction with a person 
it is like a negotiation or tug-of-war between us 
to see whose discretion will brush off who. In a 
situation where people are unable to recognize 
good or bad examples of discretion, then the ex-
change of "discretion" will be like osmosis —
flowing from a point of high concentration to a 
point of low concentration. If Person A has a lot 
of good discretion and Person B less, then Person 
A's good discretion will tend to brush off on Per-
son B. If Person C has a lot of bad discretion and 
Person D less, then Person C's bad discretion will 
tend to brush off on Person D. In practice though, 
as adults with a degree of life experience, we don't 
passively let others' habits brush off on us. If we 
are able to recognize good habits and good dis-
cretion then we will open ourselves up especially 
to absorb them. However, if we recognize bad 
habits and bad discretion, then we will try to pro-
tect ourselves from picking those habits up. Thus, 
normally we are selective— and try (to the best 
of our ability and discretion) to pick up good hab-
its while avoiding the bad ones. In this way, we 
can have transactions with others without losing 
our own virtues under their influence. You can 
compare it to visiting someone in hospital who 
has a fever. You can visit them, talk to them and 
console them — you can do all these things with-
out catching their fever, but you would try to 
avoid having them sneeze over you. 
There are some sorts of patients and some sorts 
of illness, however, that are so dangerous that 
we cannot afford to have any transaction with 
that person. Such diseases like the plague are so 
contagious, that it is not safe for healthy people 
to transact (specifically come into physical con-
tact) with them. Such patients, by the nature of 
their disease need to be nursed in an isolation 
ward with no visitors. If they were animals, they 
would be put in quarantine. When considering 
the transmission of discretion, there are some 
cases of those so contagiously infected with 
faulty discretion that despite our immunity or 
our efforts to be selective, we will nonetheless 
be infected by their faulty discretion. Even if we 
started with healthy discretion, it would be un-
dermined by the strength of negative discretion 
of those people — what more the danger if we 
are still inexperienced and impressionable (per-
haps still children or lacking world experience) 
and don't even know what it means to be selec-
tive? These quarantine victims of faulty discre-
tion, whether intentionally so or not, are the first 
and most fundemental obstacle we will meet as 
we try to acquire blessings — in the Manual of 
Peace we call such people by the technical name 
of "fools". 
28 A Manual of Peace: 38 Steps towards Enlightened Living 
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D.1 Definition of a Fool 
A fool is someone wicked, or weak, or feeble. They 
are made feeble by the fact they habitually think, say 
and do things that are unwholesome. The root of the 
lack in common sense by which they can justify 
such unwholesome behaviour is the fact that they 
don't have their mind centred or under their con-
trol. To call such a dangerous person a "fool" might 
seem like an understatement — because some fools 
might look like a proverbial giant punching sand-
bags, a frightening prospect for a rhinocerii, let 
alone a fragile human being. Thus, how come we 
use the term "feeble" for a fool? A fool is made 
weak like a person made weak by a serious disease 
— we do not fear him on the basis of his strength 
or knowledge or ability to think — but because his 
disease is dangerous. 
13.2 Four Human Strengths 
Human beings have four different sources of power: 
1. Physical Strength: different people are endowed 
with different degrees of physical strength. Any-
one with plenty of muscles and no disabilities is 
endowed with the first storehouse of power. 
2. Strength of Knowledge: derived from one's back-
ground of education and the experience of pass-
ing years. Having the ability to apply educated 
reasoning in useful subjects is the second store-
house of power. 
3. Strength of Thought: Some people go through 
the same number of classes together. They have 
an equal amount of knowledge, but their ability 
to think through things using their knowledge 
may not be equal. Some people know so much, 
but it is of no use to them when they come to 
think things through. Someone may know how 
to mend an engine but sits idle all day long. Why 
don't they offer their services as a mechanic? Or 
earn their living in the engine business? Sitting 
around all day long, waiting for someone to come 
along and find work for them...? We can blame 
this on their having knowledge but not using the 
knowledge as part of their thinking. Thus, if any-
one uses both their strength of knowledge and 
their strength of thought, they are at great ad-
vantage because they are endowed with the third 
storehouse of power. 
4. Strength of virtue: When one has both the 
strength of thought and mindfulness of what one 
is doing, when one is using one's knowledge and 
thought to perform good service to oneself and 
others, one is endowed with the fourth store-
house of power: strength of virtue. 
The human being has the potential to be endowed 
with all four storehouses of power: physical 
strength, strength of knowledge, strength of 
thought and strength of virtue. 
Even if someone is endowed with (some of) these 
storehouses of powet, if their judgment is faulty, 
they will not be able to put their power to full use. 
If, for example, a foolish guy is physically strop , 
and may be qualified as a professor with a 
with plenty of knowledge, but without the ability 
to think properly, he will be want to apply his mas-
tery of chemistry for dishonest purposes (e.g. dis-
tilling heroine). Thus even if you are endowed with 
only some of the four powers, you can still be clas-
sified with the fools — and those powers are not 
used to their full potential. At the most a fool can 
use only three of the storehouses of power. They 
can use only three of the four. Like a four-cylinder 
car in which only three of the spark plugs fire — it 
is of no use to anybody. If you have a four-cylin-
der car, all four need to work in order to get ben-
efit from any one of the four. Thus, if you know 
your 'cylinders' are damaged, you don't need to 
wait until none of them are left firing before you 
go for mending! 
In conclusion, when we define the meaning of a 
fool as someone weak or feeble, we can see more 
clearly now that it means that they are weak or 
feeble in doing good deeds. Now that we know 
about the risk they present to our discretion and 
know a little about the reason for a fool's weak-
ness, the next challenge that faces us is how to pro-
tect ourselves from them. As we shall see, we first 
need to be able to recognize fools - if we can rec-
ognize them, we can more easily protect ourselves 
from their influence. 
Blessing One: Not Associating with Fools 29 
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E. RECOGNIZING FOOLS 
3. 
.E.1 You cannot tell a fool by external appearances 
When identifying whether someone is a fool or not, 
we cannot base our judgement on external appear-
ances — we must base our judgement on internal 
features. The things we should avoid basing our 
judgement on include gender, age, lineage, nation-
ality, connections, knowledge, job or wealth. Al-
though fools are characterized by their habitually 
evil actions of their body, speech and mind, because 
all of these three come from within they might not 
be obvious to us, especially if we are still at a stage 
in our spiritual maturation when our discretion is 
4. 
still inaccurate. Appearances, gender, age, lineage, 
nationality, connections, knowledge, job and wealth 
are only indirectly connected with the quality of 
the mind. When we want to identify a fool, we need 
to look for behaviours that betray their underlying 
quality of mind. The sort of behaviours that are most 
clearly identifiable are those that come out in the 
context of our interaction and friendship with them. 
£2 How to Tell a Fool 
We are not mind readers who can observe how oth-
ers think. All we can observe are the things which 
others express openly — that is others' words and 
actions. Even fools have chinks in their armour 
which will be revealed as we interact with them —
in fact there are five in all: 
1. They like to persuade others to do evil things: 
Not only does a fool persuade others to do evil. 
He will also exemplify those evil deeds for oth-
ers to follow. He might skip work on the slight-
est trivial pretext and persuade his colleagues to 
do the same. 
2. They like to interfere with things that are none 
of their business: A cleaner has the duty simply 
to keep the office clean, but if instead of doing 
her duty, she leaves her work undone and spends 
her time rummaging in the wastepaper baskets 
for trade secrets, already you should be suspi-
cious that she is a fool. A student has the duty to 
study, but if instead of studying their subject they 
waste their time on protests against the govern-
ment — then again they might be a fool mas-
querading as intelligentia. 
5. 
They like anything that is improper: Fools have 
a dislike for anything that is right and proper. 
They like playing with fire. They like taking 
drugs. They like gambling. They like fighting 
fish. They like the opportunity to put a spanner 
in the works. You can be sure that anything they 
like has someone on the receiving end of their 
suffering. Even if they take the chance to ordain 
as a monk, they will end up being the one to 
cause a schism in the order. Their predicament 
is the same as the one illustrated in the ancient 
tale of the angel and the worm. (See §G.1 below) 
They get angry even when spoken to decently: 
Suppose a mother warns her daughter to dress 
modestly before leaving the house in case the 
neighbours gossip. The daughter might reply an-
grily that this is how modem people dress. Her 
mother gave her a perfectly reasonable piece of 
advice but her own daughter answers back with 
the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. Sup-
pose a father advises his son that he should be 
revising instead of going on outings so close to 
his examinations. "How can you say that?" 
might shouts the boy. "Didn't you go for out-
ings when you were younger?" Often the other 
person knows that they are in the wrong, but 
when they are found out and their fault is dis-
covered, they lose their temper — the mark of a 
fool. A fool is like a person covered in open 
wounds. If he bumps into something even only 
lightly, it hurts. For a fool, his mind is covered in 
wounds, and when confronted with the truth, it 
hurts. Sometimes even just a glance is enough to 
provoke him to aggression. 
They refine to comply with rules and regula-
tions: Fools heeds neither the laws of the coun-
try nor the local customs. If you meet someone 
who refuses to comply with the regulations, you 
can be 99% sure that you are dealing with a fool. 
If it wasn't for the law, there would be a lot more 
opportunity for fools to express themselves 
through the performing of evil deeds. The law 
forces fools to have to express themselves less 
freely or in secret. The law will thus obscure from 
the public eye the real nature of a fool's mind. It 
is for this reason that we have to notice the marks 
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of a fool from the first four sorts of behaviour 
mentioned above. 
If you come across any of these five features, then 
it should already be ringing warning bells in your 
head. 
.E.3 The sixteen ways a fool might treat you 
Some people who may appear on the surface to be 
friendly, might be fools masqueradingas friends. 
The Lord Buddha called such people false friends 
[mittapatirapakal and categorized them into four 
types each with four characteristics — giving a to-
tal of sixteen forms of behavioural characteristics 
to look for. With friends like these, who needs en-
emies? 
1. The Mercenary laiiitadatthuharal 
2. The Man of Empty Promises luaciparama] 
3. The Flatterer [anupplyabhatzi] 
4. The One who Leads you down the Road to 
Ruin rapayasahoyaj 
1. a mercenary is one who: 
1. tries to appropriate your possessions; 
2. sacrifices little in the hope of gaining much; 
3. helps others only when threatened by the 
same danger; 
4. only makes friends to serve his own inter-
est; 
2. a man of empty promises who: 
1. tells you how sad he is not to have been able 
to share with you something that has already 
run out; 
2. promises to share with you things they don't 
yet have; 
3. tries to win your favour with empty prom-
ises; 
4. has excuses every time called upon to help; 
3. a flatterer who: 
1. toadies to your evil-doing, 
2. toadies to your doing of good; 
3. sings praises to your face; 
4. gossips about you behind your back. 
4. leads you down the road to ruin by: 
1. being your loyal drinking companion; 
2. being at your side when you roam the streets 
at unseemly hours; 
3. frequenting games and shows with you; 
4. joining you at the gambling table. 
Such behaviours illustrate sixteen ways in which a 
fool will unwittingly reveal his lack of responsibil-
ity. Besides leading us to ruin, such people lead so-
ciety unfalteringly in the direction of deterioration 
in a way which is hard to remedy. If you come across 
any of these sixteen features, then it should already 
be ringing warning bells in your head. 
R AVOIDING THE INFLUENCE OF FOOLS 
E1 Putting fools in quarantine 
In the words of the old Thai proverb: 
"Always keep a safe distance — give a hound 
an armslength, give a monkey six feet but for a 
fool a hundred thousand miles may not be 
enough." 
Just as mentioned earlier, when a person has such 
a dangerously contagious disease as faulty discre-
tion, we have no alternative but to isolate them. 
However, as we shall see it is not physical distance 
which we use to isolate a fool — it is more on the 
level of interaction. We have to be careful getting 
to familiar with them — that is effectively how we 
keep "psychological distance". 
E2 Association Defined 
When we talk of associating with others, what are 
the limits of our definition? In fact there are seven 
different ways in which it is possible to associate 
with others: 
1. Meeting up with fools. This can be called associ-
ating with fools but it is only association in its 
most rudimentary form. Of course such associa-
tion might not lead to anything. After all it is just 
our visiting them and their visiting us. We may 
not even particularly enjoy each others company. 
2. Getting closer. This is once you start getting more 
familiar with the fools you meet up with, start 
lending things to one another, talking on sub-
jects of common interest, and following common 
pastimes. 
3. Feeling a liking for one another. This is once you 
Blessing One: Not Associating with Fools 31 
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start to get more familiar, you start to believe that 
you have common tastes. You start to believe that 
you yourself like anything that they like. 
4. Respecting them. After a while, you start to find 
that you respect that fool for his particular skills: 
(e.g. his skill in gambling) and you start to think 
what good luck it is to have this fool as your ac-
quaintance and an example to follow. 
5. Moral Support. After having admired the fool 
for a long time from a distance, you start to be-
lieve anything they think. 
6. Joining in. After sharing the same opinions for a 
long time, you start to join in with their activi-
ties and follow the same way of life. 
7. Influencing and instilling behaviour to one an-
other. In the final stages of association, it is im-
possible to tell the difference between the fool 
and his associates. It has also come to the stage 
when it is impossible to reverse the effects of the 
fool on his associate. 
Thus for any reader who realizes that they are un-
der the influence of a fool they should realize too 
the danger of even casual contact with the person-
ality of someone who is a fool. There will be an 
unavoidable escalation of intimacy even without 
realizing it. 
£3 Practising non-association in everyday life 
If you want to avoid associating with fools in your 
everyday life, apart from avoiding social contact 
with fools as already mentioned, it will be neces-
sary to give special attention to the following is-
sues: 
2. 
3. 
4. 
1. Prohibit yourself from every sort of evil and from 
all of the roads to ruin: Don't go thinking that 
5. 
the odd game of poker amongst close friends, or 
just to keep your hand in, can surely be of no 
harm to anybody. Prohibit yourself right from 
the start. This way you will save yourself from 
tears in the long run. Even if you are someone 
with weak tendencies in the direction of being a 
fool, such as liking to get up late and ignoring 
the alarm clock you have set for yourself, you 
should get tough with yourself right from the 
start. Prohibit yourself from doing even the most 
minor unwholesome deeds. 
Make the break from any evils you may have 
committed in the past It doesn't matter what 
sort of bad habits you might have had in the past 
— don't give yourself even the smallest chance 
to relapse. Don't even speak of those things any 
more. 
Make Your performance of good deeds continu-
ous. There is no need to think over your past fail-
ures or entangle ourselves in the guilt of your 
past bad deeds. Starting from today, you must 
practise generosity, keep the Precepts, meditate 
and do the daily chanting — continuously. In this 
way the scars left by our old way of life will 
gradually heal leaving only good behavior in its 
place. 
In the case you have to associate with a fool be 
especially careful. Sometimes we are put in the 
situation where we have to associate with fools, 
even though we don't want to. Sometimes, for 
example, we find out that even our own boss is 
involved in corruption. If we refuse to have any 
part in his dealings, we might get sacked. What 
should we do in such a situation? If we do eve-
rything he orders, in the end we will pick up his 
bad habits. Our ancestors had a simile for warn-
ing us in such a situation. They said you should 
be as careful 'as if you were warming yourself 
before the fire. If you stay too close to the fire for 
too long, you will get burned. If you keep too 
much distance, then you will be left shivering in 
the cold'. Thus, just as with the fire, you need to 
keep the appropriate distance from the fool —
not too near and not too far. 
You can associate with a fool only in the case 
that you are sure you have the capability and 
steadfastness to help them. Jumping into the 
water to save a drowning person is only sensi-
ble if you are able to swim — otherwise you get 
two drowning people! Whether you can really 
help a fool or not depends whether your own 
virtue is sufficiently steadfast to allow you to 
help them unscathed. If you are not yet suffi-
ciently steadfast then keep your distance— even 
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if they are your own relatives! If you come across 
a friend who takes no heed of your warnings, 
however many times you might tell him, you 
have to resign yourself to helping him out in-
stead when the suffering from their own mis-
takes starts to sink in— when the circumstances 
make him a little more ready to listen. However, 
if he is not such a bad guy, and you are able to 
make some impression on him, then try to help 
him — try to keep him from going under. It's 
not that you should be hard hearted, but you 
have to know our own limits and if helping a 
fool is beyond your capability, you have to with-
draw our help and keep our distance in order to 
survive. 
F.4 Interaction without Transaction 
Some texts summarize the functions of association 
as two fold. Others summarize association as a path-
way as follows: joining, receiving, and giving. 
• Joining means eating, sleeping and investing to-
gether. 
• Receiving means taking someone on as one's 
spouse, one's child, one's employee or as one's 
extended family. The point where we start to 
associate with them is the point when we take 
them on. 
• Giving means that after joining them and taking 
them on, we give something to them. Such giv-
ing includes giving them consideration, praise, 
encouragement, lodging, food or payment. All 
of these are included in the definition of associa-
tion. 
If you are associating with fools on any of these 
three levels you should be warned to withdraw 
yourself before sustaining any further damage. 
F.5 The Varieties of Fools 
Some people think that they already have enough 
discretion to choose their friends and thus overlook 
the importance ofthe first blessing. In fact, even 
though we may be experienced and adult there is a 
fool with whom we have to associate cautiously 
throughout our life — that is our "inner fool". In 
conclusion, there are two different types of fool in 
the world — the fool in the outside world and the 
inner fool. The inner fool is the little"devil" that 
seems all too ready to justify your doing the things 
for which you should know better. They are the er-
roneous discretion that creep into our heads, and it 
is our task to put an end to the arising of such fools 
in the mind. 
Further to the temptation to be complacent about 
our ability to recognize fools, it should be added 
that parents have a special responsibility to their 
exemplar-sensitive children to be cautious about the 
sort of friends they associate with — and even to 
choose a school and teacher for their children to 
help them to avoid associating with fools. This sub-
ject is dealt with in more detail in Blessing Thirteen 
— nevertheless a little extra attention on this front 
right from the beginning of our study of the bless-
ings can help to ensure a bright future for them —
preventing tears when it's too late to reverse the 
problems (like drug-addiction). 
G.ILLUSIKA I WE EXAMPLES 
G.1 The Angel and the Worm (traditional) 
Once upon a time there were two young men who 
were friends. How they came to be friends no-one 
knew, because one was found of doing meritorious 
deeds, while the other did only evil deeds all his 
life — like cockfighting, fish fighting, taking drugs 
and alcohol. 
When he was working as a merchant, he would 
sell only fake goods and stolen goods. When he was 
a teacher, he wouldn't teach normal subjects to his 
pupils — he would teach all the shortcuts and loop-
holes in the law. 
Even with such different tastes, the two friends 
managed to maintain both their identity and their 
friendship until they both passed away. When the 
good guy died, he was reborn as an angel in heaven. 
The bad guy was reborn as a worm in a lavatory. 
One day the angel was wondering what had be-
come of his friend. The angel checked every level 
of heaven but could not find his friend. He checked 
the human realm, but again his friend was no where 
to be found.The angel made a further check and 
was surprised to see that his friend had been born 
as a worm in a lavatory. The angel wondered what 
Blessing One: Not Associating with Fools 33 
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he could do to help his friend, and tolerated the 
revolting smell of the lavatory out of compassion 
in order to stand at the edge of the toilet bowl and 
make himself known to his friend. Standing at the 
rim of the toilet bowl, he changed himself into his 
old human form. 
"Old friend do you remember me?"asked the 
angel. 
"Of course," said the worm."We used to be 
friends a long time ago." 
"O! Worm! Now I am an angel. Today I have come 
to do you the biggest favour of your life. I have come 
to invite you to join the heavenly host. However, 
there is one condition. If you want to be an angel 
you have to keep all the precepts without breaking 
any of them from this day onwards. You must think 
only meritorious thoughts and do meritorious 
deeds and before long we'll be able to abide in the 
same heavenly host" 
"What's so great about being an angel?" asked 
the worm. 
"You can get whatever you wish instantly sim-
ply by thinking of it. As soon as you think of an-
gelic sustenance, ambrosia manifests itself. If you 
think of clothing then instantly you are clothed in 
angelic apparel. If you think of a heavenly man-
sion, then a heavenly mansion arises instantane-
ously. All you have to do is have the intention and 
hundreds of good things will come your wsL 
"In that case I don't want to be an angel.. bet-
ter off as a worm thank you." 
"What do you mean?" asked the angel. 
"If you are an angel you have to make the wish 
before you get what you want. As a worm I don't 
even have to make the effort to think. Excrement in 
the toilet just keeps on flowing into my mouth. Just 
leave me alone because ■ 
better off as a worm." 
In such a case it is obvious that he is so used to his 
foolish ways that in the end he is beyond help. 
G.2 Metaphor. Leaves wrapping a stinking fish 
Another parable used by the Lord Buddha is that 
of the leaves wrapping a putrid fish taking on the 
same putrescant smell of the fish itself. 
6.3 Metaphor: Burning hovel next to a palace 
Our ancestors had a parable. They said that to as-
sociate with a fool, no matter how good we might 
originally be, is like building a palace next door to 
a hovel. Whenever the hovel catches fire, no matter 
how safe the palace is from fire, as soon as the hovel 
goes up in flames the palace bums down as well, 
just like the virtuous person destroyed by associa-
tion with fools. 
G.4 Maheiltassapa's Kuti Burned Down by 
Foolish Student (Kutidussaka Atoka J.iii.71) 
In the time of the Lord Buddha, there was an elder 
monk of unblemished virtue named Kassapa. He 
was respected by all of the enlightened monks and 
other members of the monastic community. Even 
the Lord Buddha's closest disciple Ananda, had 
great respect for Ven. Kassapa. 
It was the norm for the elder monks of the com-
munity to accept newly-ordained monks as their 
disciples, in order that those new monks could re-
ceive training. Some of the elders accepted more 
than others in keeping with their ability as teach-
ers. Ven. Kassapa accepted three or four disciples 
but it turned out that among their number was a 
stubborn monk, Ulualcasaddaka who would lis-
ten tono-one's advice. On winter evenings it was 
the duty of the disciples to boil water for the elder 
monks for them to take a bath in comfort. The stub-
born disciple would never boil water for Ven. 
Kassapa in accordance with his duty. He would al-
ways leave the chore of boiling the water to his fel-
lows while going himself to invite Ven. Kassapa to 
wash as if he had boiled the water himself. 
Everything else the stubborn disciple did was in 
the same vain. Instead of going on alms round, if 
he fancied something special to eat the stubborn 
monk would claim to temple supporters that Ven. 
Kassapa wanted such-and-such to eat and when 
they brought such-and-such a food to offer, he 
would eat it himself. 
Ven. Kassapa knew what was going on and 
warned the stubborn monk,"to be so lacking in re-
spect is not in keeping with having ordained as a 
monk. You must train yourself better than this in 
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future."Kassapa warned the stubborn monk con-
tinuously, but the only effect of the criticism was to 
make him feel as if his master was singling him out 
unfairly for criticism.The more advice he received 
from his master, the more victimized he felt. Instead 
of feeling grateful for all the special attention his 
master had given him, he planned on getting his 
revenge. He planned the following day instead of 
going out on almsround with the rest of the disci-
ples for the master's breakfast, 
stay behind, 
let the master go for almsround mself and burn 
down the master's kuti while he was gone. In this 
case it is clear to see the behaviour of a fool who 
repays a master's advice given with the best of in-
tentions, by burning down his master's house. Ven. 
Kassapa came back from his almsround to find only 
ashes where his kuti had stood. The disciple had 
run away. 
The Lord Buddha heard the story and disclosed 
to Ven. Kassapa that the stubborn disciple had been 
a fool causing damage not only in this lifetime, but 
in previous lifetimes as well: 
In that previous lifetime, Kassapa had been born 
as an oriole while the stubborn monk had been born 
as a monkey. The two inhabited the same tree. The 
oriole wanted to waste no time in building a nest 
to protect itself from sun, rain and dust — but at 
the same time the oriole warned the monkey, he 
ought to build himself a nest against wind and rain, 
sun and dust, because he had perfect gripping 
hands like a man, and could build a nest even more 
easily than the bird with her beak. The oriole told 
the monkey to build its own nest again and again. 
but the monkey never took any notice. When it 
came to the monsoon, the oriole ducked into the 
shelter of its nest whenever it rained, while the 
monkey sat out in the rain sobbing. The oriole felt 
sorry for the monkey and thought the time had 
come to tell the monkey to build a nest. Perhaps 
now that* had a good soaking see the value 
of the advice. Thus the oriole po
s head out of 
its nest and told the monkey ,"you ought to build 
yourself a nest against wind and rain, sun and dust, 
because you have perfect gripping hands like a 
man, you can build a nest even more easily than I 
can with my beak. As soon as the rain stops build 
yourself a nest !" 
The monkey replied,"If I wanted to build a nest I 
could build one easily—but even though my body 
is like that of a man, my intelligence is the lesser." 
"You're a strange case," said the oriole. "Some 
days you go around destroying the nests of oth-
ers but when it comes to the monsoon, you're the 
only one without a roof over your head. This is 
the destiny of one ungrateful for the generosity 
of others. You had better start improving your-
self!" 
The monkey was stirred to anger by the criti-
cism. Soaked to the skin by rain and only insulted 
further by a bird from inside the comfort of a dry 
nest, the monkey climbed up the tree to the ori-
ole's nest and pulled the nest to pieces. 
As a monkey he had pulled the oriole's nest to 
pieces. As a human, he put his own master's kuti 
to the flame, even though his master had spoken 
only kind words.These are the identifying features 
of a fool and are the reason why we have to be-
ware of this type of person. 
Blessing One: Not Associating with Fools 35 
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36 A Manual of Peace: 38 Steps towards Enlightened Living 
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Blessing Two: 
Associating with the Wise 
A. INTRODUCTION 
The second Blessing of the Thirty-Eight, concerns 
how in our self-cultivation we can successfully close 
the door on unwholesomeness in our lives, to pre-
vent ourselves from slipping any further back on 
the slippery slope of spiritual entropy. At this point, 
when our discretion and sense of conscience is still 
not very accurate, we are not yet sufficiently versed 
in spiritual ways to become a Wise One ourselves. 
However, what we can start by doing is to learn 
how to recognize others who are, and to associate 
with them so that some of their discretion may 
brush off on us. 
A.1 Difference between knowledge and wisdom 
A wise one is distinguished by his or her wisdom. 
Before starting this blessing it is important to define 
this wisdom dearly because being 'wise' is not the 
same as being 'educated'. 'Wisdom' as intended in 
this blessing is the discretion as to what is real 
'profit' in our lives as outlined by omission in our 
description of fools in Blessing One. In fact, being 
educated is also a blessing, but its details can be 
found in Blessing Seven. The word "wise one" of 
this Blessing comes from the Pali word "parglita" 
better known in our language as "pundit". Some 
people believe that you can become a "pundit" sim-
ply by getting yourself a graduation certificate from 
a reputable university. In fact if you get yourself a 
good degree and set yourself up in business and 
make a success of it, you will earn praise and re-
spect from many other people. However, there are 
no small number of the more unscrupulous 
amongst these who find themselves behind prison 
bars inspite of all their academic knowledge. Thus 
in spite of all their good intentions it is reasonable 
to assume that such graduates are not truly wise 
but are only wise in the ways of the world. The sort of 
wisdom we are interested in, in this section, is the 
sort of wisdom that will, at the very least, keep you 
out of jail and ensure wholesome profit for the 
owner both this lifetime and in the here after. This 
sort of wisdom is called spiritual wisdom. The best 
example of the wise man in the present day must 
have both wisdom of the ways of the world and 
spiritual wisdom to a true example of a wise man. 
B. 'I HE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A FOOL & 
A WISE ONE 
We are all people alike, equipped with a body and 
a mind, so what can be blamed for the different 
amounts of success people meet with as they go 
through their lives? Why is it advantageous to as-
sociate with one sort of person and not another? If 
you look at people just on the surface, the reason is 
not obvious. You have to look deeper. 
B.1 People distinguished by quality of mind 
In these days of human rights, we do all we can to 
make people equal, but it is not always so easy. 
Blessing Two: Associating with the Wise 37 
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When it comes to differences of wealth or access to 
education, it makes sense to give people the maxi-
mum of opportunities to help themselves. But 
where the system of rights breaks down is when 
people no longer want to help themselves any more 
— or when people don't even want to live their lives 
by the rules of decency that bind society together. 
Of course there are some people who claim that 
even criminals should be given full human rights 
and who spend their time feeling sorry for sen-
tenced murderers. However, for the most part we 
accept that when a person's behaviour deviates into 
violence or vengefulness or cruelty so far as that of 
a wrong-doer, no matter whether the police catch 
him or not, that they are no longer dealing with a 
person like you or me any more. There is a "screw 
loose" somewhere in the thinking of such people. 
Even though they might have two arms, two legs 
and a head just like you or me, but there is a differ-
ence of mind so great that it makes that person dan-
gerous. Whats more the deviation of thinking of 
such people is (as discussed in Blessing One) so con-
tagious that it brushes off on the people who asso-
date with them. 
B.2 Effect of differences in the quality of mind 
It is differences of mind' that distinguish such peo-
ple from the rest of the world whose lives are gov-
erned by disaetion.To pinpoint why a fool suffers 
from faulty discretion, is hard to explain to a person 
who has never tried meditation. The difference be-
tween the mind of a fool and the mind of a wise one 
is a difference of quality. The mind of a fool is one 
where the thoughts are confused — a mind which is 
unyielding and blind. Such a mind is dull and can-
not think constructively about any subject. Such a 
mind is blind to reality. If you were to compare such 
a mind to glass, you could compare it to opaque or 
frosted glass. Whatever you look at through glass of 
this type will appear distorted, dark and formless. 
By contrast, the mind of a wise man is like crystal 
clear glass. Everything viewed through the glass is 
crystal clear. Like a dear mirror, you can even see 
yourself as you really are. 
1. The terms 'mind' or 'mental' are used in the Asian sense 
meaning the abstract phenomena of'spirit' or'awareness' rather 
than the western concept of 'brain' or 'nervous system'. 
38 A Manual of Peace: 38 Steps towards Enlightened Living 
You might doubt that the mind, as an abstract phe-
nomenon, could have such a powerful influence on 
our destiny — but the mind is in fact of utmost im-
portance because every dealing we have with the 
world must pass through the channel of our mind. 
Consider looking at the world in the minor. What 
ever is situated in front of the minor will show its 
reflection instantly. Furthermore, a mirror only the 
size of the palm of your hand is large enough to show 
the reflection of an entire mountain! All it needs is 
for the mirror to be really dear, that's all, in order to 
be able to show instantly the reflection of any object, 
indiscrirninable from the real object itself. In the same 
way, all it takes is for the mind to be really clear and 
it too can instantly hold, examine and understand 
anything and everything as it really is. All of this is 
by contrast with the man who has a clouded mind 
(who we have compared to a dull or frosted mirror) 
which can do nothing to facilitate clear understand-
ing, who cannot comprehend dearly because his own 
mind is clouded. Because the mind of a fool is dis-
torted, he sees the world in a distorted way. When 
everything he sees is distorted, how does he interact 
with the world? The answer to this question is, "in 
the way he thinks is appropriate" —namely, accord-
ing to thought, speech and action which are distorted 
from the norm. On the contrary, because a wise man 
has a mind that is crystal dear like a diamond he 
sees the world dearly — as it really is. Thus, he can 
deal with the world in a way that is appropriate on a 
more cosmic level than the fool who is locked up in 
his own selfish view of the world. 
Meditation is the main means by which we can 
upgrade the quality of our mind. Once we realize 
the peril of having a mind which is dull, clouded 
and of generally low quality, we can start to appreci-
ate why meditation is so important in the preven-
tion and cure of problems in our lives. 
B.3 The Ups and Downs of the Mind from Day-to-Day 
Very few people are out and out murderers and 
plunderers. At the same time very few people are 
completely pure in mind. The ones who are already 
"arahants" have no need to waste time reading a 
book like this. 
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An example of ups and downs in the quality of 
mind of someone like you or me, who lies between 
the extremes, is the man who gets up in the morn-
ing with the best of intentions and enthusiastically 
prepares almsfood to offer to the monks. At the time 
he is preparing the food his mind is as clear as that 
of a wise man. However, even before the monks 
have arrived on almsround, he has lost his temper, 
shouting at his children and his state of mind has 
been reduced to that of a fool. When the monks ar-
rive, his mind is back to a state of clarity as he gives 
the alms and pours water from the vessel to trans-
fer the merit — he has recovered for himself the 
clear mind of a wise man. But as he is leaving for 
work he spoils his state of mind again, shouting at 
his kids for being late for school. As soon as he 
leaves the house, he gets his temper back. In the 
best of moods he makes the intention to do the very 
best he can at work that day — to make every penny 
of the wage he receives from his employer worth-
while. The black clouds in his mind go over the 
horizon and he's back in the frame of mind fitting 
for a wise man. But alas, another car cuts in in front 
of him, someone overtakes him on the inside and 
thoughts of revenge stir up a storm of road rage in 
his mind spoiling his quality of his mind and the 
rest of his day. Don't worry this man is not some-
thing special. When talking about such imperfec-
tion of mind it is not the same as mental illness —
merely inefficiency in our quality of mind. Most of 
us have the same ups and downs in the course of 
making our way through life in the real world. 
B.4 Varieties ofpeople 
If we were to divide people according to the qual-
ity of their minds, being very simplistic we can di-
vide people into a minimum of three different types: 
1. Those whose mind is usually clouded — the 
fools; 
2. Those whose mind is usually clear — the 
wise; 
3. Those half way in between whose mind is not 
entirely dear, but at the same time their mind 
is not completely obscured by clouds. 
This third category represents the majority of good 
intentioned people in the world. We're not yet free 
of mental defilements and for this reason we earn 
the special name of kalyarjabala. "Kalyaga" means 
beautiful or good. "Bala" means the fool. Together 
the two words mean the good-intentioned fool. 
Sometimes a fool, sometimes a wise man—but not 
a 100% accomplished example of either of the two. 
Another term often used in Buddhism for this sort 
of person is aputhujance. The root meaning of 
"puthu" is 'thick'. The root of "jana" means per-
son. Such a thick person doesn't mean that he lacks 
intelligence, but conveys instead that he has a thick 
rind or peel — and the thing that makes it thick is 
the defilements in the mind. In the case of those 
whose layer of defilements is not so thick that they 
can still listen to reason, they can be referred to as 
kalyagaputhujanct, because they still have some 
hope of scrubbing through those defilements to 
reach the innate wisdom that lies within. The first 
step for a kalyagaputhujanct in working his way 
towards his own inner wisdom is to be able to rec-
ognize the wise men amongst his acquaintances so 
that he can pick up on the good character possessed 
by a wise man as his standard in elevating the qual-
ity of his own mind. 
L. Mali\ MO I 11L 11 ISE ONE 
We can define the Wise One in any one of four ways. 
In effect, the definitions overlap — they differ only 
in emphasis: 
C.1 Defined in terms of discretion 
A Wise One is one who has the discretion to dis-
criminate what behaviour is wholesome and what 
behaviour is unwholesome, specifically: 
• knowing what constitutes good and what con-
stitutes evil; 
• knowing what constitutes right and what con-
stitutes wrong; 
• knowing what constitutes merit [purifia] and 
what constitutes demerit [papa] 
C.2 Defined in terms of behaviour 
A Wise One is someone who habitually thinks, 
speaks and acts in a good way. All of the features of 
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a wise man discussed so far have all been his exter-
nal characteristics — but on closer inspection it 
turns out that the wise man has several spiritual 
features that distinguish him from the ordinary fool: 
1. The wise one is wont to think habitually in a good 
way: His habitual way of thinking comprises at 
minimum: non-greed, non-hatred and right view. 
Going beyond this, his thoughts are downright 
wholesome and include loving kindness (in place 
of non-hatred), generosity (in place of non-greed) 
and right view (in place of wrong view). 
2. The wise one is wont to speak habitually in a 
good way: The wise man is apt to be well spo-
ken in diametric opposition to the fool who has 
only a babble of insults to decorate his intelli-
gence. There are four ways in which the wise 
speak good words: 
1. He avoids telling lies. The wise one will al-
ways speak the truth. He is always a man of 
his word. 
2. He avoids divisive speech. The wise man by 
contrast will always be the one to mend the 
differences between others by his words. He 
will be the one to forge harmony within a 
group. 
3. He avoids the use of swear words and harsh 
words. No matter how angry the wise man 
is, he will not even consider insulting others. 
The wise man gives careful thought to the 
every word that escape his lips. 
4. He avoids idle chatter. If the wise man knows 
what he has to say is without use, he will keep 
it to himself — he will maintain 'noble si-
lence'. 
3. The Wise One is wont to do only good deeds: 
The wise one likes to perform physical good 
deeds with an emphasis on being compassion-
ate [meta /karuna], getting down to earning an 
honest living 'summit ajiva) and marital fidel-
ity. The fool by contrast is continually killing, 
stealing and committing adultery. 
C.3 Defined in terms of virtues 
A Wise One is wont to demonstrate the following 
four virtues: 
1. Gratitude IkataiiiiEJ: He recognizes the debt of 
gratitude he may have to others 
2. Self-Purifying lattasuddhit He purifies himself 
of all evil 
3. Purity Iparisuddhij: He purifies others of all evil 
4. Endearing Isafigaha]: makes himself useful to 
society 
CA Defined in terms of the profit sought from 
life 
In Blessing One we have already seen that the dis-
cretion concerning the nature of profit in life for a 
fool is different from that of a Wise One. In Bud-
dhism we have two definitions of profit in life: profit 
in the short-term and profit in the hereafter. 
CA.1 Material profit defined (A.iv.281) 
The Lord Buddha taught four ways in which the 
wise one accrues benefits in the present lifetime (in 
Pali the ditthadhammikatthapayojana). In Thai 
culture they are colloquially referred to as the 'four 
chambers of the millionaire's heart' or more sim-
ply, the way to set yourself up in life. As we have 
said, sitting idle will do nothing to ensure your com-
fort in life. Comfort doesn't come unearned.Thus 
comfort in one's old age must come from hard work 
in one's youth, when one is still physically strong 
enough to be productive in one's work. The wise 
will, while they are young, store up the means to 
live comfortably in their old age when they are no 
longer able to earn. There are four virtues for ac-
cruing benefit in the present life. These are: 
1. Diligent Acquisition [uftanasampada] i.e. not 
being too lazy to go out and earn a living. Wise 
is the man who applies himself to the task in 
hand (not sitting around all day and waiting for 
money to appear magically) 
2. Stewardship Iarakkhasampadal means both 
saving and protecting what you have earned 
3. Associating with Good Friends Ralyatta-
mutual means the same as associating with the 
wise — that is the title of this Blessing — and to 
avoid associating with the evil — especially the 
sort that are always trying to persuade you to 
go and gamble or go down to the pub. 
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