book review: radical friendship by kate johnson
20 Jan 2025
What are the main ideas?
- despite how meditation gets most of the focus in american buddhist community, the buddha’s teachings focus mostly on being in relationship
- radical friendship is the practice of developing the inner spiritual capacities that allow us to show up for our own liberation and the expression of these capacities in all of our relationships as we show up for each other
- meditation is making friends with yourself
- learning to be friends (with yourself, with others) is counter-cultural in this era because our dominant culture would rather people be at war within themselves. that discontent, when encouraged, is profitable. and our capitalist economy would rather people buy things or experiences to attempt to address the discontent.
- these are the elements of a “friend worth associating with” according to the buddha:
They give what is hard to give.
They do what is hard to do.
They endure what is hard to endure.
They reveal their secrets to you.
They keep your secrets.
When misfortunes strike, they don’t abandon you.
When you’re down and out, they don’t look down on you.
A friend endowed with these seven qualities is worth associating with.
—Mitta Sutta, the Buddha
If I implemented one idea from this book right now, which one would it be?
practice meditation as if i were befriending myself. i.e. if i experience something in my meditation practice and i can imagine what i would do/want for a friend who i saw having that same experience, can i offer that to myself?
How would I describe the book to a friend?
this book on radical friendship is such a needed plot twist on the dominant buddhist culture of today. rather than focus primarily on liberation from the individual perspective, kate turns the lens towards interrelationship as the bigger part of the path. the book is straight forward in its lay out: a clean opening, one chapter per quality of friendship as named by the buddha, a simple yet expansive conclusion. if/when i’m ready to focus on improving my capacity to be a friend, this book would be SO helpful. i would hold a chapter each month: i’d focus on the prose as a reflection on my capacity for that friendship quality, and use the practice she lays out as my daily practice.
ps - i love that she has a page that lists out where to find all the practices! game changer.
reminder: book review structure
words / writing / post-processing
342w / 14min / 4min