Good evening. So, as usual, I can't speak German. I'm lucky that Marie-Louise is here to translate. And tomorrow it would be nice if we could sit a little more together It's okay tonight. Yeah. So it seems we barely have a topic here. We all know what friendship is. Or sort of we know what friendship is.

[01:05]

Or at least the word is well occupied by lots of ideas and experience we have about friendship. And why bother to spend a weekend and was a Zen practitioner speaking about friendship. I don't know, actually. But I see lots of friends here, so maybe that's a good start. At the same time, friendship is a word which can almost cover everything in our life.

[02:20]

And I think it's, whether we're practicing Zen or practicing life, I think it's useful to look at very basic things carefully. After all, you could say that Zen practice is not much more than looking at breathing very carefully. And what happens when you actually look at, bring your attention to breathing very carefully? So I would like us to try to bring our attention to friendship very carefully.

[03:32]

Again, we have this opportunity, some magical opportunity, to have some hours together with this group of self-selected people. I mean, I couldn't explain why we're here together. The explanation means very little. The fact is we are here together. So, I mean... I suppose we can talk about the details of how we're here together.

[04:50]

We're meeting this evening for a while. And two or three people or so aren't here. So tomorrow a couple more or something like that person will come. And we, as usual, will have meditation in the morning. And I encourage you all to join the meditation. But I don't think it should be a required part of the seminar. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. If you're at Johanneshof, it maybe should be more required.

[05:55]

or I should say least expected. But if someone's here who's just trying to figure out what Zen practice is all about, or what I'm all about, or what the Dharma Sangha is all about, Okay, it's all about it. Yeah, I got that. Then, you know, please, I hope if you come to the our discussion, our talks, you come to all of them. But I don't want to require anyone to meditate. That's your choice. But of course it's pretty hard to separate practicing, meditation from what we're talking about.

[07:12]

But you should also be free. It's funny, the word friend in English, the root means to love, to set free, and to make peace. So I'm very happy to set you all free, make peace, and to love you if you give me a chance. So naturally I can't require you to come to meditation. Perhaps we can set each other free in meditation. To sail out of the harbor, perhaps, of our usual life. And to, you know, perhaps a wider life.

[08:30]

in vielleicht ein viel breiteres oder geräumigeres Leben. And how is friendship part of our usual life and our wider life? Und inwieweit ist Freundschaft Teil unseres üblichen Lebens und dieses viel weiteren Lebens? I guess in the program I saw up in... Now is that the piece of paper? It has an old Zen poem that I like in it. Did I suggest you put that there? No. You did it all by yourself, huh? Creatively. Das ist sehr kreativ von dir. Because the other day I thought to myself, maybe even this morning or yesterday, I thought, well, maybe there's a little poem I could use, I could mention.

[09:55]

I thought that would be a surprise if I bring that up again. And then I pulled out this piece of paper to direct Marie-Louise toward the right exit while we were driving here. And I found this, it's written, printed right there in English. True friendship transcends intimacy and alienation. That's good that he didn't translate it. True friendship. Transcend. Intimacy and alienation. Is that true? Is that true for you?

[10:55]

Is friendship? What's true friendship? Friendship? True friendship? Does it transcend intimacy and alienation? What kind of big expectation is this friendship that transcends intimacy and alienation? And then, between meeting and not meeting, there is no difference. Of course, sometimes it is the case that there's a big difference between whether we meet or we don't meet.

[12:08]

But what kind of friendship is it, the track in which there's no difference between meeting and not meeting? that's those two lines and the third line is on the old plum tree fully blossomed on the old plum tree on the old fully blossomed plum tree The northern branch owns the whole of spring. The southern branch owns the whole of spring.

[13:10]

Mm-hmm. This is, for some reason, a very important poem for me. It's part of a koan. I read in 1961 or 62, probably. The rest of the koan is kind of like faded away. But the poem has remained with me. In fact, I remember very clearly the, what can I say, when this poem happened to me.

[14:32]

Walking down Broadway in San Francisco. Yes, I don't remember whether it was springtime or not. It's always springtime in San Francisco. At least there isn't much in the way of seasons in San Francisco. Yeah. What does Mark Twain say about San Francisco? The coldest summer I ever spent was in San Francisco, or the warmest winter I ever spent, something like that. San Francisco is at the end of an opening from the big warm valley of California.

[15:46]

And when the valley gets very hot, San Francisco gets cold because the warm air hits the cold ocean air and it makes it foggy and cold. Anyway, in this strange environment which doesn't have seasons like the east coast where I came from, maybe it has daily seasons. I was walking down the street and kind of musing about various problems in my life. And I don't know, this poem was kind of like somehow in response to the problems in my life.

[17:25]

Maybe I must have been thinking about friendship or something. And the difference between feeling maybe lonely or separated or wanting to feel more connected or something like that. I don't know, and so somehow that called me into saying this poem to myself. And suddenly I had some experience.

[18:37]

Suddenly I not only understood that friendship transcends intimacy and alienation, I experienced a dissolution of such things as some difference between intimacy and alienation. Dissolution is like dissolving. Dissolving. And I, again, lost some sense of a real difference between meeting and not meeting. I lost some sense that there was a difference between meeting and not meeting.

[19:46]

And I really felt that everything, all at once, is somehow fully owned. Owned? Possessed. Then I suddenly had the feeling that every single person somehow has everything. That each thing is fully owned or that each thing... Everything all at once is somehow fully owned. Owned by me, owned by itself. To me, this experience was a fact. I don't know how I get that. So I don't know how I got there.

[20:52]

But it was a fact. And what does that have to do with Zen Buddhism? So all facts have to do with Zen Buddhism. So now I really sound like I don't know, that can't be right. So let's let a few facts teach others. Is there another Buddhist group in your life? They're not talking, they're chinks. They're waiting for him. Isn't there a pump under this room?

[22:00]

I don't remember. There used to be a pump under this room. Yeah, maybe this poem has nothing to do with Buddhism. Hi. I thought you were here early. Nothing. But still, the fact or truth of friendship as expressed in this poem comes from a Zen koan. So somehow I would say that, and I was practicing Zen intensely at the time I was studying or said to myself this poem.

[23:22]

So if this is just a fact, a kind of definition of friendship, Yeah, some kind of deep definition of friendship. Still a definition of friendship. What does that have to do with Zen practice? What is Zen practice, or what can Zen practice? have to do with the basic facts of our life? What can she? So I think it would be useful to for us this weekend, to, you know, maybe quite independent of Zen practice and Buddhism, explore the fact, topic of friendship.

[24:47]

in our own experience. So I don't know what you mean by friends or friendship. But you have to start with what you mean by friendship. So I'd like you to think of who has been the most important friends in your life. I'd like you to ask yourself the question, who have been the most important friends in my life? And maybe as an exercise, name three. I won't ask you to tell me the names.

[26:15]

Just in case it doesn't include everyone in this room. But name, maybe name three. And extend it and name six. Name three and name six. At the level of six, maybe the first three aren't included. And then I'd also like you to ask yourself, who have been the most important persons, not necessarily friends, in my life? Sorry, who? You particularly affected you or influenced you or did it just come to mind? Again, name three, name six.

[27:22]

And since we're here practicing together, And since we're, maybe most of us will meditate together tomorrow morning. And the zazen meditation will be at 7.30? In a 40 minute period? Okay. And then we'll, that brings us to age 10, then we'll have breakfast at 8.30. And we'll start at 10 or 9.30 here, 11, 10.

[28:25]

Okay. If we're going to meditate together, why don't we practice friendship together? So why don't we sort of see what it's like to be friends not quite friends with the people here. And does friendship transcend intimacy and alienation? Does friendship transcend and include liking and disliking.

[29:37]

And since friendship is, as I said, a loaded, occupied, rented, leased word, I'd like to change the word. Sort of change it sometimes. Why don't we change it to dance? So when I say the word dance, you understand life. Yeah, or friendship. With whom do you dance in this life? With whom have you danced in this life? It certainly includes your parents.

[30:50]

And no matter how you feel about your parents and whether you meet them or you don't meet them you're dancing with them all your life. And what people often notice when they get older You may think you've left your parents behind when you were young. Often when you get older you find dancing with your parents. Even find you're becoming like your parents. You look in the movie, in the mirror, and you see, oh my God, I look like my father. Oh my God. I look like my father this way and my mother this way.

[31:59]

I mean, if you came here on the train or bus, there was a kind of dance with the people on the train. The conductor comes by, would you like to dance? Yes. You get the first ticket for the first dance. So let's tell her why in the sense of friendship can I do it. Yes. So this weekend we have a kind of Maybe we have a dance together.

[33:17]

So I'd like to really kind of look together at friendship. What it means to us and the practice of friendship. Now there's a funny question. Can we practice friendship? Would it be honest to practice friendship? Or are we just friends or not friends? What would be the relationship between just being friends with someone and practicing friendship? So now we have dharma practice, dharma friendship, and the Zen practice and the practice of friendship. Also wir haben jetzt Zen-Praxis und die Praxis der Freundschaft.

[34:36]

Also das Dharma von Zen und die Praxis von Freundschaft. Vielleicht ist es das, worüber wir sprechen. You know, when a person is pregnant, the couple might say to this not yet born baby, Who the heck are you? We don't know you. We've never met you. What are you doing here? You're going to change our life. You're going to completely change our life and we don't even know you. Who the heck are you? And a little voice appears, I'm only here because of you.

[35:48]

You haven't met this stranger yet, but he or she is only here because of you. Maybe each of us is only here because of the other. So let's use these days and these hours to experiment a little what friendship is. What its relationship to Zen practice could be. I'd like to sort of think of what are the ingredients in friendship.

[36:54]

What makes a friendship? Say, different from an acquaintanceship. And then we have the big one of falling in love. Does that have something to do with friendship? And we have, maybe we could say, falling into mentorship. Yeah, we don't have falling in love like plunging into... Yeah, we don't. What do you do? Do you just fall? No, we love-ify. You love-ify? Yeah. Is that like liquefy? Okay. We fall sometimes a long ways.

[38:03]

Then how do you say you liquefy into mentorship? No, you can't. Mentorship you understand? So what is coming into a mentorship relationship? Is that something similar like falling in love? And what does all of this have to do with friendship or relationship with other people? Okay, I think that's enough to get started tonight. So maybe we sit for a few minutes.

[39:04]

Isn't this platform made for me about ten years ago? And what's it been sitting in a garage ever since? Yeah, here. I forgot about it. Well, we still have this platform. Is it used by other people? Maybe you should bring it to your house. It's kind of cool. It's kind of hard to fit in a car. It's great.

[40:04]

When I first made it, I thought it was quite elaborate and kooky. Now I feel like I found an old friend. It's kind of like a flying car. You put a propeller here and a propeller there. Okay. Immerse yourself in Sangha. To practice Sangha is to immerse yourself in Sangha. Again, of course, what can that mean?

[41:10]

We have to understand Sangha. We have to define Sangha then as something we can immerse ourselves in. Fulfill. ourselves within. What is this human world we can fulfill ourselves within? What is the world that we can fulfill ourselves in?

[42:36]

world in which on the old plum tree fully blossomed. The northern branch owns the whole of spring. And the southern branch owns the whole of spring. Who have been the friends of your life?

[44:33]

Who can be the friends of your life? Who will be, who are likely to be the friends of your life? Practice has a lot to do with this. Thank you each of you for joining us.

[47:24]

Who's us? For this weekend. And some of you are sleeping in this room, is that right? I thought we'd wake everyone up. I hope you sleep well. So some of you weren't here last night, but I can't repeat myself. Not that what I said was particularly important. But we need some way to enter into some subject like this.

[48:26]

which is so obvious and familiar to all of us. But, you know, why should it be a topic for us at all? And why should it be a topic in relation to Zen Buddhist practice? I think it's the case, but I don't know if we can experience the case. I'd like at some point the flip chart brought up here. Could a couple of you bring it up for me?

[49:49]

Maybe it could be put in front of the gong. Sorry. There was a television program in America called The Gong Show. Is it OK? Yeah, it's OK here, but I asked all these people on the side to move anyway. So we can squeeze in a little and there's space along that wall. Now I end up not writing anything.

[51:06]

Should I put the flowers somewhere else? The flowers are okay there. They're okay there. I like an obstacle course. That's true. There was a television program in the United States, the Gong Show. Did it occur? Probably wasn't in Germany. And I never watched this kind of television, so I vaguely know what it's about. But when you answered questions wrong or the other contestants didn't like you, Someone would hit a big gong and you'd be eliminated. So this is your job, if I talk too much, hit the gong. As I said, it would be nice if we can come to some feeling of this sense of practice.

[52:51]

And at first, you know, something like this, I like to kind of wander around. Perhaps a bit chaotically. Yes, because maybe if I'm chaotic enough I wander into all of you. We can muddle Muddle, do you know the word? Muddle. It's like mud. Yeah, muddle. Muddle together. What really is our relationship to friendship? And I found that when I tried to ask myself who... three friends I would think of.

[54:00]

Yeah, it was fairly clear. But then when I named six friends, I found Suzuki Roshi, my teacher, was in the sixth, but not in the first three. But he's certainly been the most important person in my life, other than my mother. I mean, my parents were a prior condition. After that, I would say Sukhirashi was the most important person in my life. But why didn't he occur in the first three?

[55:05]

I don't know. What's interesting is you start thinking about this and for various reasons people appear to you. Might be a face on the subway. Now one important One thing we'll have to look at is the difference between friendship and, as I said, the practice of friendship. We can practice friendliness. And that's not quite the same as friendship. And I want to ask you what you'd like to do with this topic of Dharma friendship.

[56:25]

So I'll ask you in a little while. Or whenever Frank hits the gong. But first I'd like to say a few things. And I tend to try to look at things in the most basic way I can. Like little kids are friends. You put a bunch of kids together in a playground. Some of them are friends and some of them are not so friendly. If ten years later you meet even an unfriendly one, sometimes you feel quite interesting. Ah, yes. And if you are lost in the forest...

[57:37]

Marie-Louise and I were lost in a rainstorm in the forest near Johanneshof a while ago. And I was convinced after a while we were in a medieval black forest. Middle Ages. I knew there were villages all around, but it kept getting worse and worse, just canyons. It wasn't too bad, only a couple of hours. But still it would have been nice if somebody appeared. It was raining, it was ice cold in there and we'd come in in summer clothes.

[58:54]

Someone who could have pointed, you know, that way or that way. Now if such a person appeared, I wouldn't be too worried about whether I liked them or I didn't like them. I'd light up right away. Ah, a friend. Particularly if you had a bowl of hot soup. Walking to the forest with a bowl of hot soup. Yeah. So here's a stranger I never met before who I was hoping I... And in such a circumstance we know we do light up when we see someone. Yeah. So here there's this... I'm introducing some sense of lighting up through another person.

[60:18]

Even a stranger. Now I've... I've had to I've performed a lot of marriages the first marriage I performed back in 71 or something didn't last very long But some of the marriages I've performed are still married. And I've talked to a lot of people, of course, about... getting married and so forth.

[61:29]

And I've certainly been a fairly close observer of some hundreds of couples. And so I'd like to just give you the list I have come up with of what seems to make a marriage work. Because we have this experience of wanting to marry somebody or falling in love. And then there are certain ways that is expressed that pretty much make clear to me whether marriage is going to last or not.

[62:32]

And those are fairly simple. I don't know how to write them, but the first is ease. Or that people just feel comfortable with each other. Whether... not doing anything, not talking about anything, but you just feel at ease or comfortable in each other. And the second would be friends. They tend to share the same friends. Or even if they don't have the same friends, the kind of people they're friends with are similar.

[63:56]

When that's not the case, I haven't seen a marriage last. Or when people are simply not very comfortable with each other in ordinary neutral circumstances, it doesn't tend to last. And the third would be vision. That the two people have a similar vision of the world. You're both conservatives or liberals, I don't know what. Or you both insist on Macintoshes. When I was a kid, Americans were divided into those who liked General Motors, Chevrolets, and those who liked Fords.

[65:17]

Germany is divided into Opels and Mercedes. I don't know if that's true, but... Okay. And the fourth is a physical connection. And I think those four are necessary. And I'd put a tip, which is practice or spiritual, some kind of spiritual connection. But people can have different practices.

[66:17]

But if your vision is too different or you don't have... some kind of compatibility in friends, probably the relationship won't last. I suppose there must be cases where it does last, but then it requires a lot of character in both persons. Now, we also should think about how, and you can tell me too, how practice affects friendship. And one thing I've heard many, many times and experienced myself is that practice, you have a feeling you're going to lose your friends if you practice.

[67:26]

Now so many people practice, maybe it's a way of finding friends. Now one part of this friends and vision is to be re-presented. To represent, what I'm saying, represent. In other words, you're Your partner re-presents you.

[68:34]

Your friend re-presents you. Does that make sense? It does, but you have to use different words to make it more comfortable. Well, you have to find the German words for me. That's your job. Also, mit anderen Worten, der Freund muss einen... Is it like a mirror? Could be. Yeah, I mean sometimes you have a good friend and that you find that when you're together it's good but the way they present you to others is quite negative. How does your friend or your teacher or your spouse make you look in the world? That's interrelated with having the same vision and the same kind of friends.

[69:58]

So anyway, that's something that over now nearly 40 years I keep being confirmed in the order of this list as well. Some relationships, of course, I mean, if people get older the physical connection may disappear. At least in marriages the sexual connection seems to get less for many people. But maybe a physical connectedness remains. But if you lose the ability to feel comfortable with each other, usually all is lost after a while.

[71:21]

I think something like this is present in spousal relationships, but also present in friendships. Now I'm putting that up there just to start our discussion of what constitutes friendship. And then what could constitute Dharma friendship? I think of, there's a dog at Crestone named Janie. She's a nice dog.

[72:29]

She's a net honor. Kind of a little bit on her own and sort of distant. She likes a little affection, but only for a minute or half a minute. And she likes to do her own thing. But when we first moved up there and started Crestum, There was another dog who lived, I don't know, six or eight, ten kilometers away. Named Rufus. And Janie is a half chow. And Janie is a half chow.

[73:30]

Her tongue, one half is purple and one, no. She has a purple tongue. But I think she's half collie. And I think Rufus was half chow too. And Rufus was a kind of, he was a boy, but he was more feminine and Janie was more masculine. And they really liked each other. And if we couldn't find Janie, we knew she was at Rufus'. And if they couldn't find Rufus', they knew he was with us. And they'd go off on excursions together and be at neither place. Quite a long time ago, I don't know how long. Janey, Rufus died of... He ate...

[74:31]

bone or chicken bone or something, and it punctured his inside and he died. And they brought, the first thing they did, bringing the dog home from the vet, is they drove up to us and let Janie smell and walk around Rufus. And I think it was a real friendship between these two ducks. And Janie's never had a friendship since like this. There's lots of dogs around and dogs are brought to, but Janie Stringle asks them to keep their distance.

[75:53]

So, Now, Janie didn't have a chance to come to a seminar like this and try to bark her way to understand friendship. So she's quite friends with all the Dharmasanga folks. So I only bring that up because there is such a thing as friendship. But you know, if you're somebody at your office you work with, they may be an acquaintance, but are they friends?

[76:55]

And the people we practice with, maybe they're not friends. But we share a vision with them. And maybe we share a path. Maybe that's more fundamental than ordinary friendship and more lasting. These are just questions I'm bringing up. There was a I knew a man who was a professor of psychiatry in the United States.

[77:58]

And he had been one of the pioneers in psychiatry. Zen practice in the United States. And at some point in the last year or so when Tsukiroshi was ill... He'd asked Tsukiroshi... I can't actually remember exactly the order of things, but at some point anyway he asked Sukhiroshi about enlightenment. Sukhiroshi said, I'm sorry, I can't say anything about it because I haven't had the experience. Mm-hmm. So this person was rather surprised by the conversation, but... And Sukhiroshi's wife was present during the conversation.

[79:17]

And she said, yes, I can attest to the fact that he hasn't. But then about six months later, maybe four or five months later, he was back in San Francisco. I mean, he only saw Sukershi a few times in his life. And very briefly. But anyway, he came to a lecture of Sukhiroshi's. And he was, I think, sitting near the door or something. And Sukhiroshi left the lecture. And then Sukhiroshi, as the people came out, he took this person and pulled him into the hallway beside the office and looked at him and went,

[80:42]

and then turned and walked away. And he was... What happened? And then Sikhiya, she went up to his room and they never saw each other. So he came to me, he said, what did this mean? And still this is a friendly gesture for me. If I feel rather lonely, sometimes I find I go to myself. And then I feel better. What kind of friendship is this? This is an act of friendship between these two persons and including me now.

[82:03]

It's not Rufus and Janie. These two only went over to each other's house once or twice. But it's some kind of friendship. So what do you... Let's see, what time is it? 11. Why don't we have a break? Till 11.30? Is 20 minutes or so enough? Or half an hour? I mean, how many toilets are there per person? Five? Well, we can have a 10-minute break then. Okay, let's say 11.35 we come back.

[83:06]

And then I'd like to have some discussion with you about whatever you think about friendship. Please don't be shy and unfriendly. Okay, thank you. Thank you for translating. this spousal list of compatibility. Because people ask me about marriage a lot, not too many people ask me about friendship. Although I think the secret subject of Sangha, of practice, is friendship. And I agree with Ivan Ilyich, who says that he thinks religion is a search for ultimate friendship.

[84:17]

There's lots of places where I've lived in the Breathing practice equipment? No, no, no, no. Okay. Where I've lived in California and particularly and in Colorado, There's places where people gather, where American Indians used to gather from different parts of the mountains to gather acorns together. And the gathering of acorns or going to one of the many sacred sites in the mountains around Crestone?

[85:41]

was also an excuse to practice friendship. Yeah, and so maybe that's what we've gathered here for, you know. And the trees are trying to hit us with, not acorns, but chestnuts or something. No acorns. Acorns, isn't it? Oh, so we're gathering acorns here, yeah. So what would you like to say? Now that we're here gathering acorns. Yes.

[86:59]

The first thing which came up yesterday when you started talking was for me that friendship is more like a state of being. Like I can feel when I'm in friendship and when I'm out or when I fall out of it. Deutsch bitte. The first thing that occurred to me yesterday when he started speaking was that for me friendship is something like a state in which I am or sometimes I am not. Yes, I noticed I've noticed that friendship is a subject for me. And I've got a longing towards it. Yesterday, when I read this three or six lists of those people, I've noticed that all friendship is past friendship. But also kind of hesitation and lots of hurtness in this kind of point.

[88:11]

Friendly question, friendliness. He said before yesterday, friendliness and friendship. Friendliness is something neutral or independent from who you are confronted with. It's maybe the condition for a friendship, something like that. I think the longing for friendship is sometimes what we Or rather, let me put it this way, the longing we often have for love is actually more often a longing for friendship.

[89:14]

And as we get older, I think that sometimes becomes clearer. I think friendship requires actually more maturity than love. Or something like that is the case. Yes. And friendship had a lot to do with trusting. First trusting in myself as the ground, and then after that, this easiness and this look of the wall kind of thing is possible afterwards. Yeah, okay, thank you. Yes.

[90:24]

Friendship has lots to do with at-home-ness, the feeling being at home. You don't need to do anything. Either the first time this basic feeling comes from my parents' house, Brothers and sisters together. This very closeness. Not closeness, but trust, but also knowing. And friends. I've had more in the past friends. And when I now meet them, there's some kind... we lived apart a little bit.

[91:32]

Mm-hmm. Moved apart a little bit. Where in the first meeting there's this deep trust. Mm-hmm. When you first see them again? No, new people. New people. Okay. Danke. Ja. Ich glaube, dass meine Erfahrung ist, dass Praxis, meine Art von Freundschaft, die Möglichkeit von Freundschaft, komplett verändert hat. Especially towards my daughter. After I started practicing, I could leave her more and more the way she actually is. And this goes parallel with the practice when I started to accept myself in the way I am.

[92:44]

And to project less outwardly. This also became possible in friendship with other people. And also with old friends I have. So all of these old friends, they practice something. And that makes a connection, or that makes it hold something. So I understand. You found that the people you've stayed friends with turn out to be friends with some kind of practice. Sometimes friends influence each other to start some kind of practice. And through starting practice you became actually more friends with your daughter.

[94:03]

So this would suggest that this ancient definition of friend is to set free. You set her free more to be her own person. I think the word Siegfried in German, the freed part, to make peace, is also related to friend. The old roots are to set free, to make peace and to love. So your friend is somebody who you love but you let them be free, you don't possess them, something like that.

[95:12]

Maybe that's the dimension of it.

[95:13]

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