“Good and wise friends”, zenchishiki, in Japanese Buddhist Thought

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to consider one of the aspects of the understanding of friendship in Buddhist thought (according to Japanese sources) in comparison with the meaning given to the concept of friendship in Christian thought. In Ja­panese Buddhism, the term zenchishiki (Skt. kalyāṇa mitra) means a “good and wise friend” in general, and in a narrower sense, someone who helps the dying person meet death with the right thoughts. The tasks of a friend at his deathbed partly coincide with “care for the sick”, partly opposed to it. Zenchishiki main­tains the proper mood of the dying at the hour of death; if in the case of caring for the sick, it is a matter of bodily suffering that can be weakened, then in the case of zenchishiki, it is about suffering that cannot be canceled; in the first case, the stronger takes care of the weak; in the second, two mortals are on an equal footing, although one had to die before the other. The Japanese instructions for death hour rituals formalized the role of zenchishiki to a large extent, and its original meaning was lost. The question of friendship at the hour of death, of good and bad friends, is again discussed in essence by Kamo no Chōmei in Hosshinshū (1210s). He shows zenchishiki at work, gives examples of how peo­ple choose their friends for the hour of death, talks about the experience of friendship or enmity of a person with himself: relationships with other people are built on this experience, and this experience itself changes under their influence.