Abstract

This paper aims at a cross-cultural comparison between friendship in Aristotle and friendship in Buddhist traditions. Aristotle’s thorough analysis of friendship results in Buddhist concepts of friendship necessarily a sub-category as Aristotle deems friendship within religious communities to be a niche category of friendship. Although Buddhist notions of love and compassion are universally prescribed, monastic friendship is necessarily highly selective to be between like-minded individuals within a Buddhist community pursuing the shared end of enlightenment. Buddhism however offers three categories of friendship: lay community friendship, monastic friendship and spiritual friendship. Buddhism, therefore, while unavoidably a sub-category of Aristotelian concepts of friendship, reveal nuanced approaches to friendship depending on an individual’s place in the Buddhist tradition.