The 1st Step: Not Associating with the Fool
People aspire to be good and be recognized by those around them. However, not everyone will achieve this. The main cause for lacking such achievement is one's own failure to distinguish and judge each experience and situation in the world to be right or wrong, good or bad, wholesome or unwholesome, proper or improper. For instance, the acts of drinking alcohol, gam-bling, lying, adultery, are perceived as acceptable to do. In actuality, these acts are not acceptable at all,and therefore people suffer the repercussions without understanding the reason why. As a result, they continue on with these wrong acts in their lives. These types of people hardly achieve true accomplishments.
How does one learn to distinguish between good and bad judgements in life?
1) By learning through experience from one's family, friends, or acquaintances.
2) By one's own conscience.
If one is to associate with foolish friends who possess bad discretion, then our thinking, speech, and actions would be compromised throughout our whole life.
In monastic terms, all these foolish acts combineto become "Evil" and the person who follows such bad discretion becomes "the Fool." When associating with the fool, one can absorb their bad qualities and subsequently it can spread from one person to another.
In brief, the responsibility we have, to ourselves, is to recognize the people who are foolish and to not associate with them. Most importantly, if we scrutinize ourselves, and we still exert some characteristics of a fool, we should take the task toeliminate such wrongful qualities.
