I hope you are all well. Today I am participating in the "Pick a Word, Paint a Story #08" contest organized by @senehasa. The three words to choose this week are FRIEND, FLOWER, and BIRD. Out of these 3, I am choosing the word friend. Because I have a lot to talk about friends.

Are you a true friend..?

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I would like to ask you first if you are a true friend. Ask yourself this question. Then your mind will answer it. And do you have true friends..? I know that we all have friends as many as the hairs on our heads. But are they all good friends..? That is the question. No matter how many friends we have, only a few of them are friends who do good in our lives. Do you know that there are 8 types of friends in this world..? So you and your friends definitely belong to one of these 8 categories. Today, in this article, I am going to talk about those 8 types of friends.

These eight friends are mentioned in our Buddhist literature. Our teacher, the Lord Buddha, in the Sigalovada Sutta, has classified the friends in this world into 8 categories, of which 4 categories are good friends and the other 4 categories are sinful friends. Let us now see what are the categories of sinful friends and wholesome friends.

The four categories of good friends

• The first friend is called a helpful friend. When a friend is in trouble, he considers that trouble as his own and provides the friend with the necessary help at that time. Here, he dedicates his time or wealth for his friend. So, such friends belong to the category of true friends.

• The other friend is a friend who is equal in happiness and sorrow. Such friends are close to us in the happiness as well as in the sorrow of our life. They do not abandon us in sorrow. When we are in sorrow, they work to build our mind. They do not leave us alone in sorrow.

• The other category of good friends helps us to make our life in this world as well as the hereafter better. That is, when we are about to do something bad, they tell us the consequences and save us from the mistake. They always advise us to engage in good deeds. Such friends explain to us clearly what is good and bad and always motivate us to direct us towards good things.

• The last category of good friends is compassionate friends. These friends always look at us with compassion. They show compassion to us when we are in trouble. No matter what we do, they look at us with compassion.

So these are the people who are good friends. If you have friends like this, then you are lucky to have such a good friend.

The four categories of sinful friends

If you have a friend who falls into these four categories, I'm sorry to say that you are an unlucky person.

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• The first category of friends that falls into this category is the selfish friend. This friend always acts thinking about himself. He does not think about his friend. He always acts selfishly to achieve only his own things. He also steals his friend's things.

• You have come across many friends who only say things in words. Such friends are called vachiparam. They always treat their friends only with words. They say with their mouths that they will help friend, give them this, do this work. But they never do those things for their friends. They deceive their friends with their words.

• The other group of friends flatters their friend. They approve of the good things as well as the bad things in their friend. When the friend is not there, they blame the friend along with others. When the friend is there, they praise the friend's virtues.

• The last category of sinful friends is the hellish helper friend. Literally, he uses his friend to do wrong things. He teaches his friend wrong things. He always encourages his friend to do wrong things. He takes the friend to hell.

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These are the eight categories of friends. So the friends you have may have one or more of the above characteristics. It is actually a very difficult task to identify the people around us. But when we are in trouble, we can know who really loves us.

A good friend who loves us and wants our progress never leads us to do bad things. He does not talk us into using alcohol or drugs, stealing, or traveling aimlessly. He does not destroy our wealth. He protects our wealth. He protects our things as if they were his own.

A good friend is obtained through the merit we have done in previous lives. So if you have such friends, you should protect them.

Finally I would like to invite my some of friends @arshani, @sualeha and @enamul17 to participate this contest

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🌼Thanks for reading🌼

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