What use is it to possess an intelligence that lacks sophistication? If only you are intelligent enough to distinguish heat from cold, you will understand the importance of the “good friend.”

This being said, it is most difficult to encounter the “good friend.” Indeed, the Buddha likened the difficulty to a one-eyed turtle in the ocean finding a piece of floating sandalwood with the right-sized hole so it can get into the hole, or a string lowered from the Brahma Heaven to be threaded through the eye of a needle on the earth.

Moreover, in the evil world in the Latter Age of Degeneration, the “good friend” is as scarce as the amount of soil on a fingernail while “evil friends,” who lead the people to evil realms, are as numerous as the number of dust particles of the great earth.

San Sanzō Kiu no Koto, Concerning the Prayer Services for Rain by Three Tripiṭaka Masters, Writings of Nichiren Shōnin, Doctrine 3, Pages 204.