this
morning i asked you
when you are sitting during the first period
do you wish for this sitting to express and realize good friendship
i've been asking that question
two groups of people sitting for a while
various places

i also ask do you wish this sitting
to express
perfect wisdom

i've also asked do you wish to sitting too
express
the liberation of all beings
from suffering

and
i ask another question which is
do you wish this setting
the sitting that's happening right now
the sitting of this whole day do you wish this setting
to express
freedom

from all our ideas

a base a fundamental condition for suffering is attachment
two ideas
ideas of color sound smell taste tangibles ideas of pain and pleasure
ideas of here and there

attached to any the dimensions are elements of experience is a basic definition of suffering
so then pain suffering pleasure suffering neutral sensations suffering birth is suffering death is suffering it sounds like everything suffering but
the summary that the buddha makes is it's the attachment of those things that is suffering not life is not suffering but attachment to any dimension of our conscious experience is suffering
so again i've been saying for the last year over and over but
actually i didn't say it towards the beginning of the year i've been recent recently
good friendship
it's a relationship among us
that frees us from our ideas
good friendship is is the are is a kind of relationship that freezes from suffering
and is in particular good friendship frees us from our ideas of friendship
some people are involved in the idea of friendship and they're attached to their idea of friendship and this is suffering
some people are involved in friendship and they also have ideas of who is not their friend and they're attached to that idea and that's suffering
but if i'm not attached to the idea of friend
and not attached to the idea of enemy that non attachment to these ideas is made possible because of good friendship is not just by my own power that i'm not attached to my idea of who my friends are
i might have the thought in my mind of who my friends are i might have that thought like i might think or these people are my friends might think that
i'm not opposed to thinking that
and i might actually call you friend and mean it
but what i really wish for
is that we practiced together in such a way that were free of our ideas
like friend and not friend
if i say that
perfect wisdom is to be free of our ideas about things made that easier for people to say oh yeah perfect wisdom would be free of ideas of things but good friendship with that be
might be surprising for to hear somebody say good friendship is to be free of your ideas of friendship and free of your ideas of good friendship

if someone recent said to me if i let go if i let go of
body and mind what would i be
if i let go of my ideas who i am and who you are and what my body is like if it if a literal just drop away
who would i be and i said you would realize who you really are you would be a person who realizes who she is
that's where you'd be and america that's who you already are you already are the person you are
and if you would let go of your ideas of who you are
you would realize who you are
but who is that
you did we do not know who we really are who we really are is infinite and inconceivable
we did not know it with our consciousness which now is conceivable things we do not know however we are who we are like buddha's to boot is when booties are truly buddha's they don't necessarily think i'm buddha
when buddhas are truly buddha's they let go of the thought
well yes i am buddha
as mere fact
if you ask them how you buddha they say who
and then you say are you holding onto the the are you holding onto that they say what

but if you say your buddha they say you're right
and also you are
and i can say that because i'm buddha and i
i forgot who i am
what we know about ourselves what i know about myself is you know it's not that bad i'm not like the idea have myself i don't have like i don't go walk around thinking i'm more i'm just a terrible person i don't think that
sometimes i think
compared to some people i'm not very smart
i do think that some time
like i was reading this book i think it's called
what's it called can you remember
he
oh i know i remember is called
critical imagination
it's about the frankfurt school of in philosophy and the guy who wrote it wrote it when he was about to one is for and i read this and i thought about the way i was when as twenty four i thought with go this guy is very very smart
anyway i can live with that that i know as smart as that guy was who knows now how smart he is
he's a little bit is one year younger than me
he's a big professor over at berkeley anyway he probably the i don't know anyway
i do sometimes second are compared to him
i'm not very smart
well i'm not i'm not depressed about that actually
still the that part about me not being smart that little idea haven't myself that's not me
that is a radically impoverished version of me
that is an extremely reduced version of this infinite inconceivable being that i am
who is it is inconceivable infinite friendship with everybody which i don't know about but i'm just i'm but i'm talking about anyway
heard about this infinite friendship among all beings that sponsoring us to become free of our ideas
when it weren't for your catherine to move over that way little bit
he can move your sabaton to
so that the other cousin came over from a bit
so i can see both of you
thank you
the catherine's are closer together
would you move over the
he got the john's here together
and

sometimes the friends the friendship we know about is really is really very very lovely
i have no problems with that
sometimes the appearance of friendship is like so lovely it's he could say it's beautiful you could say it's beautiful you can say that but the actual beauty of the friendship is inconceivable you can't see the friendship beauty you just see a reduced version of it but even so
so let's just agree she said are small minds are big enough to have lots of problems

our ideas of friendship are big enough to have plenty of problems
but again in the realm of ideas we have a job which is to let go of our ideas our friendship and let go of ideas of enemy ship
and by letting go we opened to the inconceivable reality of friendship which is what sponsoring us to let our ideas drop off
in that way i bet
stressing that perfect wisdom and grid friendship are basically the same thing
and the other night and berkeley i asked before in what way are perfect wisdom and good friendship similar are the same
and then they said many they said lot of things about how other similar how did the same

good friendship is a
course of course intimacy
perfect wisdom is intimacy
nobody knows intimacy if you know it
that's not the realization of intimacy
intimacy is like perfect wisdom intimacy is the lack of a basis
for grasping
in all our relationships
there's also what comes up and consciousness is if you have an idea of something good
that could be called an ideal
and you might aspire to the ideal
and then if i say to you can you can you take care of that ideal
what's that
clinging to it
because if you cling to the ideal you become enslaved by it
so somebody says i had this ideal but i don't want to be enslaved by it
like it could have the ideal of being a bodhisattva that's like the the most ideal of all ideals
to be a person who is wise and compassionate and a skillful and liberating beings from suffering that's that's an ideal
an ideal idea
and then
a person said but i had this idea of but i don't want to be enslaved to it and the same person after they say i don't want to be enslaved to it they might say but if i'm not a slave to it
i might lose it
so part of the reason why were enslaved to things is were afraid we'll lose them if not a slave to them
some people have great ideals like for example
freedom of religion or
the flourishing of islam or the flourishing of christianity or the flourishing of buddhism they have these aspirations
and then they cling to them and then they
go to war
they cling to them they're enslaved by them and in a state of slavery they've become
full of fear and
at risk of violence
always full of fear that's for sure they don't know but at the risk of violence
when we cling to our low ideals and high ideals either one
but sometimes we clean more tightly to the high ideals than we'd have fear and when we have fear were at risk of violence
good friendship is what makes it possible for human beings who have ideas
can have a long history of attaching to them it helps them
consider the possibility of letting go of their attachment to their ideas and ideals
and when they consider it then they notice that they're scared
like to think or then
if i let go of my ideal of goodness i might not be good and i would say
maybe not
it's true maybe not that many people who hold onto their idea of good are extremely harmful so
whether you hold on or not you might be harmful
but the people who are not harmful the people who managed to be harmless and beneficial
they have learned how to let go
of their commitment to goodness
and in letting go of it they've let that goodness when all awesome
in an indestructible wei
indestructible blossoming
const an indestructible because nobody can find it nobody can going to it nobody can stop it nobody can interrupted
and they realize that
but as we stand at the threshold
i'm letting go of slavery to our ideas and and having the fear of what that would be like and not knowing who he would be if we did that
even though we've heard you be who you really are
at we stand at that threshold and feel that fear then again
we had the opportunity by good friendship to be with that fear to be with that fear and to be with that fear and to be with that fear and tell the fear drops away with the cleaning
and our true self comes forth in service of all beings
an inconceivable process of liberation
when we realize that we're good friends with all beings including all the beings who are holding on
on to their ideas of what is friendship
and what is good and what is evil we are in an intimate relationship with them which we can get ahold of and they can get a hold of and because we can't get ahold of it and we don't own it and they can't get hold of it and lay down on it
and nothing can disturb it
and it will liberate everybody it keeps working to liberate everybody from there clinging to their ideas of right and wrong

it's working
constantly uninterruptedly incandescent way inconceivably unthinkably without beginning or end
and we can enter it
from the place where we know thanks
bring the place where we have ideas by working with ideas according to other ideas about how to work with our ideas be generous with our ideas and so on
and be generous when we're not generous and be generous with those who are generous
be generous with are clinging to generous with other people's clinging
huh
i've already said a lot but i thought it might be helpful to also mention another big topic which is the same thing
another name actually there's there's many names in the bodhisattva path for different types of what we call concentrations or somebody's
which are different forms of concentrated attention
and one of the bodhisattva concentration practices is called the precious mirror samadhi or the precious mirror concentration
the precious mirror
shows us that everybody is our good friend
when you look in the precious he looked into precious music mirror mirror on the wall who's the most beautiful of them all the mirror says
everybody is you
everybody is bodhidharma everybody is teaching you what good friendship is
you look at this face you look at that face and you get to see who you really are
without grasping that i'm this person around that person this person that person are showing me who i really am
which include everybody
inconceivably
includes everybody everybody's and everything from
other to self all teaching me
who i am
this a precious mirror
and then if you can see in this mirror there's instructions about what to do with this vision
so we have a song that we that we sing over at zen center and which we can sing here today
where'd you get us could somebody find our secret books
it's called the song of the precious mirror samadi
and in that text it tells you what to do with this somebody with this with his mirror and it also tells you that this mirror has been intimately transmitted from buddhist and ancestors to us now this mere has been transmitted to you now now you haven't you've got the
amir right now

so how do you take care of this precious mere that you have
do you have the precious mere
well anyway
it has you to suppression mere have you
it has it has her and it has you and you have it
okay you've got it for how to take care of it you've got it and you've been encouraged by the ancestors the boot is an answer just have transmitted in the buddha it's ancestors encourage
has to take care of it since you have it and how do you take care of it
i don't pass it i yeah we're going to do it at the end
i'm glad you have in handy
hum
would you bring them here to me
thank you
now i haven't
and it's kind of heavy
kind of heavy
kind of heavy
office and here
kind of him
it's a big responsibility
but
infinite beings are healthy heart joining in holding itself because everybody's got it so i'm not doing this all by myself
so there's advice in it in the song about how to take care of the precious mirror
and one of the main advices is
turning away and touching are both wrong
for it's like a massive fire
what's a massive fire
it's like a massive fire what perfect wisdom is like a massive fire
good friendship is like a massive fire perfect wisdom maybe no surprise perfect wisdom
burns up all attachment to ideas
perfect wisdom
release of fear and distress
would you get the perfect
perfect wisdom brings lights that all fear and distress may be forsaken
good friendship brings light so that all fear and distress may be forsaken
and this person's the gloom and darkness of delusion
good friendship that's what it does
good friendship disperses attachment to what good friendship is
the precious mirror also is
good friendship and perfect wisdom
so turning away from it
is not correct touching it is not correct
everyone's supporting here we go down for landing at know abode

pardon
what you know finding and then go into the closet that you protect from most infestations and you'll see a small manila envelope when you bring that a on below
it's about to of five by eight
what you gonna bring she's gonna bring a him
to the perfection of wisdom or him to the jewel mirror
don't touch the junior
don't grab it
but don't turn away if you touch it you'll get burned if you turn away your freeze
if you touch a good friendship
you'll get burned if you turn away euphrates
so what he'd do with it
what is it it's intimacy so you practice intimacy with it

if you're excited
and you might i'm quite excited if good friendship showed up
hello i'm good friendship who
if you excited you fall into a pit about what about good friendship about the precious mirror a bot
relieving all suffering you make a kind of excited about that
you may get fanatical about it
this is the this is like high quality stuff here perfect wisdom good friendship it like freeze on base from suffering you might be a risk of getting excited about this and getting fanatical about this is really a great thing everybody should have this precious mere samadi
can you fall into a pit no no no we don't get fanatical about it we just think this is good really good
this is like i don't want to say too much about are good this is
it's
anyway also if you turn away if you hesitate
then you fill with doubt
and if you feel doubt if you hesitate you filled even more with doubt
however it's not this this isn't the eternal damnation
if you hesitate in your filled with doubt and and you're hesitating you feel without to get more feel without and then if you hesitate again and get more fit without and i hesitate again and get more filler doubt and finally just pop
your pup and all this left is the precious mirror of who you are
and who you are
saves all beings from suffering who you are saves all beings from suffering
but you have to let go from you are in order to save all beings from stuff and you should you had to let go of attachment to idea of where you are in order to dive into the vast inconceivable ocean of who you are
and who you are is you are good friendship
you are good friendship you are perfect wisdom an issue of each of us is good friendship in a different way

so i again just want to tell the new people i often laugh when i think of things in my mind but i haven't told you yet
so you wanna know what i thought of
so when i got ordained by suzuki roshi to be a priest he told me what my name man he said your name before the ceremony a your name will be tension
he didn't sit the a tangent sankey your name will be tension
and he said tension means rub his rib
here's punchline
and people may have problems with that
i am good friendship who i really am after you and i lack of our ideas of who i am
have some of you your idea of me is that i'm your good friend somebody had that idea about me
you told me he told me tie i think in my good friend some people told me that gore in this room
nobody is room has told me you are my big enemy nobody be told me that the last few days but anyway
i am
who would i really am
it's good friendship
however the way good friendship manifests at me is that rebs ramp and that may be a problem for you the way good friendship manifest as mean might be a problem
and the way good friendship manifests as you might be a problem the way the precious mirror is me for you might be a problem for you
but he said
people may have a problem but that but nothing can be done
you have to work with what's in the mirror
what did the mirror
can i have a different to nice please can i have the one i had last tuesday
i couldn't just give me another one even if haven't seen her before i want a different one than this
no that's tall turning away
if you turn away from this denise
you're free use but it's not eternal freezing it's just a moment of freezing
now if i like this denise and try to hold onto it that's gonna burn both me and might even burn a denise unless she also as practicing right
if i try to grasp or i get burned but she might be able to say i had grasped me
i'm not going to turn away from you grasp me me as your idea as as your idea of me
well like i said i already said quite a bit and then i said more just there but nine think i can stop
you get the picture summary precious mirror
perfect wisdom
good friendship does it three different ways are talking about
the main event that the body sought for his are focusing on they're concentrated on this precious mirror
precious mirror precious merely a precious mere i'm looking at the precious mere how how how i'm not gonna get excited
how wonderful but not fanatical
and i'm not going to turn away from this wonderful precious mirror either even though it looks like that
and even if it looks like you've got a problem with me i'm not going to turn away from it i'm gonna look at you having a problem with it is looking like me
and i'm gonna listen to your problems with me
that's my bow cause as my vow to meditate on the precious mirror to meditate on good friendship to meditate on perfect crystal

so now we have a big opportunity here to do some singing so we can see him to perfect wisdom want to
well here you go moon you he got
you either need when john
he passed
or may not have enough
you need one then i'll give you one
that zen right
need when i give her want anyone to you alone here make your own manner no here
the anybody else it doesn't need one here
this is the him to the perfection of wisdom
the lovely the holy
now you're gonna have it

now another thing about this place
there's a this place what is place called
now one of things about this place is that we have very into in in in accord with the name of the place here's a kind of suit your books we have looked
i asked for search of books and what did they bring
this is perfect right so here's the beer is a precious and are some for you to look at okay
cause every one of these this is like a really high quality precious near look at that guy
why
who was running this show this is like to too good to be true

and then we have we have something else here
yeah he had the great
we have that the great perfect wisdom
the the heart of great perfect wisdom we have your
and then we have a
and then we have the song of the precious me somebody is right in here
but there and the pages are not numbered
so but it is in here look
go ahead writer
and we've got another one here
but what get another one
go here
now you have it
take take care
okay this you've got any more here
and then amazing we have the the song of the freshest amir samadi here
tammy shortage of these perfect cuisine hymns
okay and here's a precious mirror for you
here's a precious mirror for you do our john
here's a freshest mirror for you calling sarah j
got a whole bunch of of here and they're heavy so be careful when for you
one
you got the hoping writing your he got the whole world in your hands
okay going back over there anybody else need one okay and now there's more to more some more get a lot of em look at that it is common in common covering the whole world with the precious mirror
precious mirror some as
precious mirror samadi good friendships and mahdi
perfect wisdom samadi
i another joke was you didn't hear which is
this is
these facilities are brought to you by donations like people from by people like you
more
more history more
anymore
more
mar
anymore
more
mar
it's internet
mar
owen
more
here
wow
when asked whether you can have it
if you want one i'll give you one and if you don't want want to give you one
korea government get can you find it is now have an open the book and look inside and what do you find
is it in there
thanks for bringing these sutures guys it was great were defined find him up in heaven

in i don't know it's kind of old it's kind of old is not from it wasn't made right now
so
it's not the same as some other ones k so it's good that you haven't seen you can read it well
the whole key are right here we go
it made all

so it does when you have started out the dharma of such as
diamond dust and she had that when the dime of vestments okay or i saw your is everybody ready with your with your precious with your scriptures and hands and everything gets a first you're going to do the hand
who are gonna do
the song of the precious mere somebody okay ready
him to persian your on me ah ah manage to the protection on oisin
the fashion
he gave
the entire where can i stay or she's a source of light and from everyone and a triple world of darkness most excellent are her works shivering lie so they're all here and distress may be forsaken
and as vs that gloom and darkness of delusion she herself is an organelle vision she has clear knowledge of the own being of all dharmas or she does not stray away from it
same motion we a lot of time
song of the precious mirror samadhi the the
now
so this now
hey
the

last question
actually around for a second massive fire
hey
hi
okay sixty three
most are suffering
not constructed as you know words like a signature me or form
you know each other
a child
a guy with i aspects
no arise
the
the
right
asia and africa
three of communications may apply

the race

that way race
history

with the causes and conditions
the
submission
th
children and approaches arise where the teaching approaches are distinguish the
the services
the survey flowers
the

when is the and already mastered asteroids
the tracks pages of dissertations or last one
hey ray
well as
time was pay
heroes
with is scary
the basis for
scout
done
like the sciences
this

tax
a with to see the marshes and the
the
that was a and house me our intention equally extend to every eating hamburgers
the a the
ah
as say
delusions are inexhaustible
a
when them
star vinyl this
hi to them
his way such as the bowl
wow to become at
as i was reading that with you i thought this really is a good song about friendship
the kind of friendship of the buddha's so saffron new maybe we'll talk a bit more about this precious mirror of good friendship and now
has advertised you can have lunch