You've heard me say that you need a wise spiritual friend to make the practice 100%. In Pali, this is called a Kalyanamitta. When you think about this, it's easier to understand if you relate it to things in your normal life. For example, say we want to be a fisherman. We just talked about Right Livelihood and fishing isn't really Right Livelihood, but it' a good example, so I will use it.
We want to be a fisherman, so we go down to the beach, we buy all the fishing reels and whatever else, we throw out the line, and we pull in a fish. Do we eat it? We don't actually know if this fish is edible or not, it could be a poisonous fish. What do we need? We need the advice of somebody wiser who is more experienced in fishing. This is a clear example and it goes across the boards with things you do in your normal life. That you actually rely on somebody wiser, somebody who knows more in order to help you in a particular job or in a particular matter.
You know, to achieve skill at school you need a teacher. Nobody goes through 12 years of school, achieves diplomas, etc. without having teachers. They just can't do it. So this is very normal in regular life and it's normal here, too. You need some help from other human beings. Without their advice, without their skillful tips, without them telling you, "Hey, you're going the wrong way, go this way or go that way", you're really going to flounder along on your own and according to Buddhism, it's impossible to get enlightened unless you happen to be a Bodhisattva, someone who is destined to be a Buddha. They are rare; they do it without a friend. But the rest of us need a good wise friend.
And when you think about Right Livelihood, Right Action, Right Speech as well, how are we truly going to understand these things unless we have an example to follow? Now as most of us have grown up in a Jewish or Christian society with the Ten Commandments, we get a lot of "should, should, should..." We should not do this, we should do that, we get a lot of that growing up. And often the person who is telling us, "you shouldn't do this" - they are actually doing it! So we feel a lot of hypocrisy.
Catholic churches are struggling with credibility around the world, because it's telling you to be good and then some of their priests and nuns are not very good, and then they don't get rid of them, they don't punish them. So the hypocrisy that we see in some organizations makes us terribly confused as to what really is the right thing to do, what is not the right thing to do. However, if we have somebody whom we respect, a Kalyanamitta, a wise spiritual friend, and if they're showing us by example that they do what they say, and that they do what they encourage you to do, this gives you a lot of confidence and strength,. And this gives you the feeling, "Yeah, they're right, and they're showing me that they're right" and then you've confidence to follow that path.
If a teacher tells you do this and then they're doing something different, something opposite, then you're confused and lost. It's hard to follow that spiritual practice. But with a good, kind, wise spiritual friend who does what they preach, then we have strength. We see someone we can follow, we know they've done it, we know it can be done, and we get encouragement on the path and follow through with their advice.