Don't Associate With Fools

"A brief chat about associating with the wise while setting aside fools (and that which comes with it)" was the description for this Insight Timer live talk on April Fools Day. Inspiration came mostly from this line in the Maṅgala Sutta: "Please don't associate with fools. Please only associate with the wise."

Transcript

Hulnus,

Welcome.

This is Josh Tipple,

Integrating Presence.

And today I'm on WisdomApp and on Insight Timer.

And the title is called,

Don't Associate with Fools.

And on WisdomApp I'm calling it,

Veto Fools.

And the description I have here is a brief chat associating with the wise while setting aside fools and that which comes with it.

So I'll kind of get into,

You know,

Why this is,

What inspired this,

And then some personal experience,

And then what happens when really making a firm resolve to associate with the wise.

So just to do a definition here of a fool,

Is a person who acts unwisely or imprudently a silly person.

So one of the dictionary definitions for it.

But I'm also going to include here those who engage in deceit in order to fool another.

And by deceit the definition is the action or practice of deceiving someone by concealing or misrepresenting the truth.

Years ago when I worked in the online world,

I followed some of this April Fool's culture,

And Warren Ellis,

A comic book writer,

Called being on the internet today like amateur hour.

And so,

You know,

What is the big deal?

This is all just fun and games,

Right?

April Fool's Day,

You know,

What's the harm in it?

No harm,

Just people having jokes,

You know,

Ha ha,

Big deal,

Right?

Well,

I don't know.

I remember one time Google,

You know,

Even the huge companies get in on culture of fooling people,

And being foolish or trying to deceive people,

And then making,

Trying to make one look clever and smart by fooling another.

I don't really get it.

I mean one year Google had this thing where they were going to print out the entire internet on paper,

Which would,

You know,

It seems kind of funny and maybe it is,

But what happens if the internet goes down?

It doesn't actually seem like a bad idea if that was happening.

Maybe,

I don't know.

So what inspired this is from the Mangala Sutta.

The historical Buddha says in this discourse,

He says,

Please don't associate with fools.

Please only associate with the wise.

And then before he was said to gain full enlightenment,

When he was still an unenlightened bodhisattva,

And the Jataka 480,

The birth story of a kitti,

He makes this firm resolve and quote,

May I not meet with a fool?

May I not hear from a fool?

May I not associate with a fool?

If I need to converse with a fool,

May I not take delight in his speech,

And may I not follow and act according to his speech?

The other day,

Or actually it was last night,

I was kind of looking through some Dharma books to donate,

And I just happened to come across this passage here on fools,

So it kind of did my work for me.

I didn't even have to go to the internet.

And I came across this saying of the elder Vapa,

In the Theragata stanza 61,

About knowledge and knowing.

So who knows,

Knows who knows.

Who knows,

Knows who doesn't know.

Who doesn't know,

Doesn't know.

Who doesn't know,

Who doesn't know,

Doesn't know who knows.

So this is kind of profound wisdom of knowledge and not knowing.

So,

You know,

Why wisdom and the whys?

You know,

What's the big deal?

Why not,

What's the big deal hanging around with fools?

Why do you want to hang around the whys?

Hopefully this seems completely obvious to people that they will immediately see the value in this,

And this needs not further explanation.

I'm just going to read a really brief paragraph out of expectation derived from one's point of view,

This book here,

That speaks to this.

Sometimes we are not ready to listen to the whys.

This is something that happens with all of us in life.

Often we meet with fools.

We speak with them and we enjoy speaking with them.

Sometimes we meet with the whys,

But we feel doubt.

We look at the whys with strange eyes.

We think,

My point of view and his point of view are not the same.

What is he saying?

Rooted in your ego,

You want to deny.

You want to disagree.

You want to object.

You want to oppose.

Hence,

We all need to be careful.

We all need to be wise.

We all need to make an aspiration like the one the Bodhisattva made in one of his existences.

So I don't know.

I mean,

That really doesn't really drive it home for me.

So I'll just talk about kind of my personal experience.

This was mostly in high school though,

You know,

So this is kind of excusable.

It was challenging for me.

I was voted actually the most gullible in high school.

And so in my defense,

I would say though,

Not that I really need to defend,

But to speak to that,

It's like,

Why would anyone want to sit out to deceive someone to make them gullible?

A quick aside,

I just heard somebody coming in the building here saying,

Knocking on the door saying housekeeping,

Like a joke,

Right?

You know,

In a way it's kind of funny,

But just even though the person probably even know that they were just messing around,

It's still,

It's based on,

Okay,

Will I deceive this person or not?

Will they buy into my silly deception?

And so it just seems like what's the point?

But back in high school,

Voted the most gullible,

Maybe on an unconscious level,

I was seeing all the activity around me and actually seeing it as foolish.

And then seeing this level of competition to do these things that seem foolish.

So what was I going to do?

I was going to one up that and just be even more foolish,

Kind of outlandish,

And act even more foolish than,

You know,

All these silly pursuits that people were doing in high school that a lot of the,

Especially the academic stuff,

Really hardly anyone really wanted to be doing it.

You know,

It was just kind of a stepping stone for some kind of potential in the future,

Which a lot of that probably didn't pan out the way people wanted to either.

And there really wasn't really a keen desire interest to be engaging with what was one was engaging with if there was even kind of a,

It was just the amount necessary to get by.

There really wasn't any kind of enthusiasm with it a lot of the times.

Now I can't make a general sleeping statement because I did have some really cool teachers,

A couple of really cool teachers I really resonated with,

But I would say for the most part,

It was just seeing more foolishness.

But then,

You know,

That's not the wise response though because I would have loved with my knowledge and wisdom now to have somebody call me out directly and say,

Hey Josh,

You're acting like a fool,

Quit being foolish.

This isn't doing anybody any good.

But you know at the time,

I don't know if it would have done any good anyway because I didn't really have the wisdom to see that that was wise,

Right?

And then a really brief story,

My grandfather though,

He had this dog called Buster and it was a rat terrier.

Actually,

He had several of these rat terriers,

But he all named them Buster.

One would pass away,

He would get another one that looked almost exactly the same and call it Buster again.

And he had it on this huge line outside in the country.

It had this room to just run,

Run,

Run,

Run,

Maybe a hundred yards or so,

Or it seemed like that when I was a kid and then back and forth.

Sometimes when I would visit,

This dog Buster would run or whatever Buster version it was,

Would run back and forth just at full speed.

And my grandfather,

And then barking at the entire time,

And my grandfather would just yell at him,

Fool,

Fool,

Fool.

And I just thought that was so amusing.

I'm not gonna go into any interpretation.

You can interpret that how you want.

Again,

In my defense with this,

We do live in a culture of deceit somewhat.

People will lie and deceive to get what they want to get ahead.

And it doesn't really matter if it's how big the lie is or how small to a lot of people as well.

It's enforced in media and culture to deceive another in order to get ahead.

It makes one look,

I don't know,

Like they're smarter or more capable somehow.

If they're deceiving someone.

And there is this one exception,

Right?

Someone might need to tell a lie in order to save a life.

We hear this as an acceptable exception to deceit.

However,

At the same time,

Yes,

I can see that in certain instances it would have to be case by case basis.

But this is a slippery slope in general,

I feel,

Because it kind of gives way to all manner of unwise justification for deceit.

Oh,

You know,

I did this in order to,

So and so,

You know.

Probably wouldn't have liked to do that,

But that was,

It was for a greater good.

Well,

The greater good of who,

Right?

At the expense of what other goods.

The metta sutta or the sutta on loving kindness where the Buddha says,

Let none deceive another or despise anyone in any state.

So this really resonates with me.

Let none deceive another.

The way it's interpreted there,

I wonder if this means,

Okay,

Are we going to step aside and let others deceive others?

Or it says,

Let none deceive another.

At what length should we go to stop deception?

I don't really have a good answer to that,

But if it's interpreted that way,

Let none deceive another,

What can I do to stop deception and do it skillfully,

Wisely,

Kindly as well?

What happens when we make a firm resolve to associate with the wise and set aside fools?

For me,

It doesn't mean no humor,

Right?

There's still going to be humor.

We don't have to try to fool people in order to be funny or be deceptive,

Even if they know we're kidding.

That's another,

I still do that every once in a while,

Right?

But there's still going to be humor.

For me,

There was this transition period where when I really saw the value of associating with wise people and setting aside foolish people,

It was a transition period where there was,

I lost friends,

But I made other ones too,

Eventually,

Made wise friends.

And so it was kind of lonely at a time,

But it also freed up a lot of time to do a lot of study and practice too.

It's all about letting go,

Right?

We let go,

Let go,

Let go,

Let go of some foolish people in foolishness.

But at a certain point,

There's only so much we can let go of.

It just keeps coming back.

Whenever what we're trying to let go of will eventually let go of us,

Right?

That's the kind of 180 way of looking at it.

Sometimes what we're trying to let go of,

We don't really have any more effort or power to do so when the time's right,

Whatever we're trying to let go of will actually let go of us in a manner of speaking.

When I was searching out for this stuff too,

I also came across some Bible verses,

Which I don't normally do,

Even though I was raised in a loosely Christian tradition.

But I found these interesting.

So this is Proverbs 1320,

And this is a Geneva Bible translation.

There's a few English translations that came before the King James,

And those are interesting since the modern translations,

From what I understand,

Tend to play off the King James translation.

He that walketh with the wise shall be wise,

But a companion of fools shall be afflicted.

In one way,

That's good wisdom,

But it seems to be almost framed in do this or else kind of thing.

And that kind of turns me off a little bit.

I don't have any more time here,

But I was going to read something from the Wycliffe Bible,

And that was a pre-King James translation,

And just show how much the language has changed.

English language has kind of been degraded.

But I'm just going to read Proverbs 14,

7 through 17 real quick from MSG.

And I hadn't heard of this one.

It's a modern translation.

Escape quickly from the company of fools.

They're a waste of your time,

A waste of your words.

The wisdom of the wise keeps life on track.

The foolishness of fools lands them in the ditch.

The stupid ridicule right and wrong,

But a moral life is a favored life.

The person who shuns the bitter moments of friends will be an outsider at their celebration.

Lives of careless wrongdoing are tumbled down shacks.

Holy living build soaring cathedrals.

There's a way of life that looks harmless enough.

Look again,

It leads straight to hell.

Sorry,

It's um.

.

.

Okay,

So 13.

Sure,

Those people appear to be having a good time,

But all that laughter will end in heartbreak.

Sift and weigh every word.

A mean person gets paid back in meanness,

A gracious person in grace.

The gullible believe anything they're told.

The prudent sift and weigh every word.

The wise watch their steps and avoid evil.

Fools are headstrong and reckless.

The hot-headed do things they'll later regret.

The cold-hearted get the cold shoulder.

So I don't have time to go through here and analyze and pick out what I might have talking points on,

Criticisms and praise,

But there it is.

May you all be blessed with ideal and optimal wisdom.

May you know and associate with the wise,

And may you set aside fools and foolishness.

For your benefit,

For our benefit,

For the benefit of all beings everywhere.