The FWBO's attitude is not one of eclecticism, however. We take what is useful according to our actual spiritual needs. We take whatever will help us to grow under the conditions of modem Western life. Meditation Of all the means of personal development employed within the FWBO, meditation is the most highly valued. It is the direct method of working on the mind in order to transform it.
Friendship is a human necessity.
In the FWBO, friendship is considered to be a spiritual practice. If the friendship is with someone more aware and emotionally positive than ourselves, we can gain tremendously from the experience. The FWBO in New York holds regular introductory meetings as well as a weekly group that meditate and study together. It is with heartfelt concern that the Chairs of the Centers of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order in the United States offer thoughts and reflections from a Buddhist perspective on the tremendous loss of life and suffering resulting from terrorist actions in New York and Washington DC and from a hijacked plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.