Welcome to this valley of friendship. Welcome to this valley of enlightenment. I have a few announcements. One is that we just recently started a practice period, a period of practice which goes about 50 days. And people have come here for this practice and joining the resident community members to practice in some sense more in this room than we sometimes do.

[01:18]

And the theme, or a theme, of this period of practice has been called the Buddha way. The way of Buddha as good friendship. The Buddha way as good friendship. Someone asked me recently over a meal about Zen. This person said that in one of the schools of Zen in Japan,

[02:30]

they put emphasis, you know, generally there's more emphasis placed on enlightenment than in the other school, the other main school of Zen. And he asked me what I thought. And I said, for me, What I emphasize is that the practice that we're devoted to is enlightenment. Not so much that we emphasize enlightenment or that we emphasize practice, but we emphasize the practice which is enlightenment. Some people might think you do a practice and then the practice brings enlightenment or takes you to enlightenment.

[03:49]

So for me, the practice which I'm devoted to is a practice which is enlightenment. Whatever the practice is, which is enlightenment, that practice I wish to emphasize. In the Zen school, the practice which is enlightenment. This is my announcement. The practice which is enlightenment is sometimes called Zazen. Za means sitting and zen means meditation or concentration.

[04:55]

So we use the expression sitting meditation but it's it's kind of a short version or a shortened version of a longer expression, which is the practice realization of totally culminated enlightenment. So the way I would use the word zazen the way I would use the word for our practice is that it is a practice which is enlightenment, or the enlightenment in this family style is an enlightenment which is practice, which is, I actually could say a practice, or you could say practice. It's a practice which is enlightenment, which is totally culminated enlightenment.

[06:02]

So the additional facet of this announcement is that the practice which is enlightenment could also be called, in words, good friendship. Admirable friendship. noble friendship. A friendship which is totally culminated enlightenment. We have an enlightenment which is friendship. The practice and the enlightenment are or is the practice enlightenment.

[07:18]

Not I said are, but really the practice enlightenment is the reality of our relationship with all beings. The way we're actually related to each other. That is the practice. That is the enlightenment. the way we're actually related to each other, every moment of our life is just so. Everything we do is included in the way we're actually related. But, and the way we're actually related is inconceivable and not visible.

[08:21]

We have ideas about it and we have visions of it which are included. All the beings who have visions and ideas, like us, we have visions and ideas, the way we're actually related is enlightenment, is good friendships. The whole of the Buddha's life is good friendship. The whole of the Buddha's life is enlightenment, of course. The Buddha practices every moment, and the way the Buddha practiced is called Buddha or enlightenment. And again, in the Zen family, we call this good friendship zazen.

[09:27]

We call this life of Buddha zazen. We call this room a zendo, a hall for practicing Zen, a hall for practicing good friendship. a hall for practicing our actual relationships, which I do not know what our actual relationship is. I have ideas about it, like I think, those people over there don't think I'm very friendly. Those people over there think I am friendly. Those people are my friends. Those people are not. I can think such thoughts.

[10:28]

And while I'm thinking, my actual relationship with beings is inconceivably good friendship and theirs with me. So I guess I'm trying to give my life to the good friendship which I don't know. So I sit in this room and I offer this sitting to good friendship I offer this sitting as good friendship. I wish the sitting I do in this room to be good friendship. I wish the walking I do in this room to be good friendship. I wish the talking I do in this room to be good friendship.

[11:37]

I wish the sitting I do in this room to be complete perfect enlightenment. But I don't really know what complete perfect enlightenment is or good friendship is. I'm betting on complete perfect friendship and good enlightenment. And I feel, what is it not bad about not knowing what I'm talking about? And part of the reason I feel not bad about it is because I feel good about it. I feel really good about focusing on this enlightenment practice of good friendship. And also I've heard from the ancient teachers, from the ancient friends, I've heard

[12:46]

that even if all the Buddhas in ten directions gathered their great wisdom and tried to measure the merit of one person's good friendship, they would not be able to do it. Well, they could measure it, but they would not be able to actually measure it. The way everybody's friendly, so your good friendship, the way you're practicing good friendship is not just the way you're friends to everybody, but the way everybody's friends with you. That actuality of good friendship, I don't know, and those who know more than me don't know. All I know is my perceptions. All I know is my ideas of our friendship. But every now and then, when I really happen to fall into wholehearted commitment,

[14:03]

to this good friendship, I become free of all my opinions of friendship. I become free of an idea that somebody is not my friend or that somebody is. And that also includes freedom from everything else. I was listening to some people tell some stories on public radio recently. And also I was listening to the vows, the vows, the aspirations of the sponsors of public radio.

[15:08]

The sponsors have aspirations like this. Such and such an organization is devoted to compassion and creativity. Organizations that are devoted, and I thought, yeah, compassion and creativity, that's like, that's like good friendship. Good friendship is, is the way, is creativity. Good friendship is creation. The way we're actually dependent on each other for our moment-by-moment existence is good friendship. So like, these organizations, I feel very much in accord with their wishes, with their with their intentions, with their vows to promote compassion and creativity, to promote a more just, verdant, and peaceful world, to promote a heightening of awareness of critical issues in our time.

[16:12]

I think how wonderful that these organizations have this vow. And so they sponsored a show where people are telling stories, and the stories I heard were stories of children who felt like they were taking care of their mother, and their mother was not necessarily taking care of them. There are many stories of mothers taking care of children. But they were telling stories of children taking care of mothers and as they told the stories, I kind of felt like, who is taking care of who? And I said that to somebody and they said, whom? Do you understand Alejandro?

[17:15]

It's supposed to be, who is taking care of whom? But I thought, who is taking care of who? I don't know who's taking care of who. I hear these stories and I wonder, who's taking care of who? The mothers who take care of the children, well, that seems good. The children who think the mothers are not taking care of them and they take care of the mothers, well, is that good? Because these people who are taking care of the mothers... They're pretty good people. I don't know who's taking care of who, who's taking care of whom. But also, I thought, the acronym, one of the acronyms for an epithet, an acronym for an epithet for the Buddha is WHO, World Honored One, WHO. World Honored One, WHO, is taking care of World Honored One. The Buddha is taking care of Buddha.

[18:20]

Enlightenment is taking care of enlightenment. Good friendship is taking care of good friendship. And we have these opinions like, well, my mom's supposed to be taking care of me, but I'm really taking care of her, and that's not good. Or, I'm really happy to do that because she's my mom and I want to help her, and so on. And some mothers, I'm taking care of the babies, they're not supposed to be taking care of me. Or, I'm taking care of the babies and they're taking care of me. All kinds of stories we have about who's taking care of whom. But really, who's taking care of who? We can't see how who's taking care of who. Even the Buddhas who are who cannot see who they are. Even the Buddhas can't measure themselves. Zazen can't measure Zazen. It is. we can realize the inconceivable, because that's what we are. We can realize the reality we are.

[19:27]

We just can't get a hold of it with our human consciousness. But the way all human consciousnesses are helping our human consciousness, and the way our human consciousness is helping all human consciousnesses, that is good friendship. That is enlightenment. That is in the Zen school we call it Zazen. And so during this practice period We're practicing in the room. We're sitting in the room practicing Zazen. We're sitting in this room on our seats practicing good friendship. How is me sitting there and the person sitting next to me, how are we being good friends sitting there together? I don't know. If I reach over and pat her, is that better, more friendly?

[20:33]

If I say, how are you doing? But I'm not supposed to talk during. It's silent meditation. Is what I think about her good friendship? Is what she thinks about me good friendship? I don't know. I don't know. But am I sitting there Am I sitting there with the wish of enacting good friendship? Yes. Am I sitting there wishing to enact unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment? Yes. Am I sitting there wishing to enact repose, peace and ease? Yes. Is it being realized? I don't know. Sometimes I think, whoa, it's been realized, great. The zazen I'm talking about, the friendship I'm talking about is not what I by myself am doing sitting on that seat.

[21:58]

I'm devoting myself to a practice which is the same practice, which is equally the same practice and equally the same enlightenment as me and everybody else in the universe. What I'm doing, yeah, is what I'm doing, with everybody's help, What I'm doing is I'm devoting my life to a way which is the same practice as everybody. And the same enlightenment as everybody. I'm devoting In zazen I'm devoting myself to what is called the one practice.

[23:03]

It's to the one practice that we're all doing together with all Buddhas. Buddhas sometimes teach different practices for different people. But then in the end they say, all these practices I taught for the different people were just to help you realize the one practice, the one vehicle that we're all practicing together. So that no matter what you do, you're always practicing good friendship in this great vehicle. Somebody gave me a really nice new watch, which I rarely wear because it's so nice. I don't want to hurt it. And also, it's not waterproof. It's water resistant.

[24:05]

But I thought I probably wouldn't get that wet during this talk, so I wore it. And it says on there, just about time to stop. So a human said to me one time, the job of a Zen priest is to encourage Zazen. He said this to me more than 44 years ago. And then he passed away. So he's not around anymore for me to ask him, you know, what is Zazen? that I'm supposed to encourage. Since that time my understanding of Zazen has evolved and every day my understanding of enlightenment is different.

[25:14]

Every day my understanding of our practice is different. Every day my understanding of good friendship is different. And every day my understanding of what encouraging means is different. But I do want to encourage me and you to practice good friendship. And courage has the word courage in it. But I don't want you to feel like you're being coerced into being courageous. But I do want to ask you Do you wish? First of all, I want to ask you, what is your deepest wish in this life? I do want to ask you that. At the beginning of this practice period, I want to ask the people in the practice period and I want to ask all the people who live at Green Gulch and I want to ask all you who are visiting Green Gulch today, what is the ultimate concern of your life?

[26:31]

If you want to tell me, I would be happy to listen to you and witness what is most important in your life. So then, that's what I ask you to look, and then I can ask some questions. I'm wondering, are you interested? Do you wish to practice this good friendship of the Buddha's? Do you vow? Do you vow Like at the end of this talk, we're going to say some vows which you're going to hear and or say, and I wonder when you hear these vows, how you feel about them, we say. Living beings, sentient beings, are numberless. I vow to save them. Do you actually vow?

[27:35]

Do you wish to save all sentient beings? Afflictions and delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates, all the teachings of friendship, all the ways of entering into good friendship are boundless. I vow to enter them. Do you vow to enter the gates of friendship with all beings and let all beings' friendship enter you? Do you vow that? And the Buddha way, this good friendship, is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Do you vow to become this good friendship of all awakened beings? I wonder. And every day is a new day, and every day again I can check and see, do I vow again today? And I hear this expression, I live in a place

[28:39]

I live in a consciousness where this vow comes up in the consciousness. I'm very fortunate to have this kind of vow come up every day. Our unceasing effort to free all beings so they may live in peace. It's that. Do I have an unceasing effort? Do I wish to have an unceasing effort to free all beings so they may live in peace? One time, excuse me, this may sound like bragging, but anyway, one time after a meditation intensive, where I had the job of, what we call in Japanese, ino.

[29:44]

I was the ino. This is in 1970. And I was the ino for what we call a sashin, a meditation intensive of seven days. And afterwards, the teacher of Zen Center, the senior teacher of Zen Center, Suzuki Shunryu Roshi, said to me, good job. You know, good job. In that job, you did that job good. But he just said, good job. I didn't think how friendly... I never actually thought of him as my friend. I thought of him as my teacher. Now I see him as my friend. But I don't know who he is. And just last night, or this morning, I don't know which, I had a dream.

[30:48]

And he was there in the dream. And there were a lot of other people there too. And I kind of thought he wasn't very interested in me. I didn't think he's not being friendly, but he didn't seem very interested in me, and he didn't say, good job, Ten-Chin-San. He didn't say good job. And it went on for quite a while. He almost seemed like he was disinterested in me. Not exactly running away from me, but almost. And I noticed on two occasions that he seemed to be very friendly and affectionate with some of the other students, like vigorously shaking their hand. He looked really friendly to those people, but not to me.

[31:51]

I was kind of like concerned about that. But I didn't quite feel bad that he wasn't being friendly to me because I wasn't sure that he wasn't being friendly to me. I didn't think in the dream, he's not being friendly. And when I woke up from the dream, I'm not sure he wasn't being friendly to me. He just didn't look like, he didn't look like friendly. He didn't look like really interested in this student. He didn't look like, my dear disciple. But he did look like, oh, my dear disciple, to a couple other people. He looked like that. But I wasn't sure where the friendship was or what the friendship was. But I was kind of like concerned about it, and I still am. Am I concerned that he would look like he's my friend?

[33:07]

I don't think he would want me to be concerned with whether he looked like he was my friend. I think he would be concerned that I would be devoted to the practice of friendship even if he looked like he wasn't my friend. Matter of fact, he might even manifest in such a way as to look like not my friend to help me find devotion to friendship which wasn't going to get pushed around by how he looked. And when I first knew him, in my so-called non-dreaming time, my awake dreaming time, he didn't seem friendly to me. And again, I heard a story from one of the other students which made it not so difficult for him not to appear friendly.

[34:19]

The student told me that for two years, Suzuki Roshi kind of ignored him. So I thought, well, he's not exactly ignoring me, but if he did, maybe that's part of his friendship, is to appear to ignore me. I had indications that he really knew I was there. I got some feedback that he knew I was there, because I kind of was in his way all the time. So he had to maneuver around me so I could tell he knew I was there. And again, I also heard one time in my early days at Zen Center, they were having a meeting, a membership meeting, and I was applying to be a member. And my name came up and he said, is he this one? So I had a mustache and he noticed my mustache in the Zendo.

[35:24]

So I got indications he knew I was in the Zendo. But I didn't feel like, boy, he really looks friendly to me. He really seems like he appreciates me. I didn't feel that way. And I didn't feel like he was supposed to look that way. I came actually not, I didn't come to practice there to get the teacher to like me or be friendly to me. I came to learn good friendship. I came to learn Zazen. And I thought, well, this person might be able to teach me Zazen. Because I've heard this person's been practicing Zazen for a long time. And he's still practicing, so maybe it's important to him. Maybe he can help me learn it.

[36:30]

And almost every day I thought, wow, how can I be so lucky to be with somebody who is teaching me this practice? And now I say, how can I be so lucky to be with somebody who taught me good friendship even while it didn't look like good friendship? Also over a meal recently at Green Gulch somebody told me about when they first met their teacher they heard their teacher give a talk and they immediately knew, oh this is my teacher. I think that's what they said. And I thought, well the first time I met Suzuki Roshi what I saw was his feet. feet, rather small feet, but clean feet and well-manicured toes. And I was sitting upright in meditation, looking at the floor in the meditation hall, and these feet walked by in front of my line of vision.

[37:48]

I looked at the feet and I thought, those feet can teach me the Buddha way. And the person I told said, how can feet teach you the Buddha way? I don't know. I just thought that. I just thought, oh, these feet can teach me the Buddha way. But I don't know how they're going to teach me. I just thought that. And I kept following those feet until those feet went away into nirvana. And I'm grateful I got to see them for a while. And I don't know, I couldn't tell that those were friendly feet, but I felt those feet, whatever they are, I feel that they can teach me what I came to learn. And so I feel everybody's feet can teach me Zazen. Everybody's feet can teach me the Buddha way. Which, that's

[38:54]

Dharma gates are boundless. Everything, the gate to the truth, there's no end to it. Everything can teach us this good friendship. And the question is, do I wish to learn it? Do I wish to to give what I'm doing to this good friendship? Do I wish to give my life to the Buddha's friendship? And then again, do I wish? Am I? I don't know. Would Suzuki Roshi, if he came in the door now, would he say, good job? And if he didn't, would that be good friendship? I say the actuality of our relationship with the Buddhas and with each other is good friendship.

[40:02]

But it has no beginning and end. It has no birth and death. It's always the reality of our life. And we are living in it We are living in it. Do we wish to live in it? Do we wish to realize it? And then the great teacher may say, good job. Or the great teacher may say, excuse me, I'm going over there. The Buddha in the Lotus Sutra says, I'm always thinking, I'm always thinking, quotes, how can I encourage people to enter the great way and quickly realize Buddhahood?

[41:25]

The Buddha says, I always think of that. Do we always think of that? Do you wish to help all beings enter the way of good friendship and quickly realize Buddhahood? And you might say, well, I just did. Buddhas remember to do that every moment, to stay focused on this good friendship, to stay focused on the inconceivable way that we're helping each other, that the World Honored One is helping each other as our life, I wish to do this job.

[42:35]

I don't know if I am, but I wish to. I wish to. I don't know actually what's going on, but I wish that in the midst of what's going on there will be a realization of reality and that this will liberate beings and bring peace in this world of infinite opinions of what's going on. So I was trying to think of a song that's about not knowing about what friendship is, but being concerned about it.

[43:48]

Or at least about other people not knowing what it is, and I do. Or maybe about others knowing what it is, and I don't. Or maybe about nobody knowing what it is. I thought of several. Now I have to choose which one. I don't... Oh gosh. I didn't want to do this one. So maybe I shouldn't go against my will. So I'll do this one first. Or part of it, because I'm way over time. You give your hand to me and then you say hello.

[45:01]

And I can hardly speak My heart is beating so And anyone can tell You think you know me well But you don't know me No, you don't know the one Who dreams of you at night Who longs to kiss your lips And longs to hold you tight To you I'm just a friend. That's all I've ever been. No, you don't know me. The just a friend part sounds okay to me now. Ha, ha, [...] ha. Ha, ha, [...] ha. But the you don't know me is true.

[46:03]

You don't know me. You don't know me. But my heart is beating so hard that I can hardly speak. But I don't know me either. But the one I didn't want to do was From the land of sky blue waters, waters. From the land of pines lofty bosoms comes the beer refreshing, and the beer refreshing, and. That's the one I didn't want to do. But there it is, you know, just like, it comes out there. And where does it come from? It comes from the land of sky blue waters.

[47:06]

From the land of pines and lofty balsams. What comes? You know, what is it that comes? What is that? They call it beer. They call it refreshing beer. But what is it? What is that? What is that refreshment? That was a very popular song. And then a later one came which aggravated people by the same company, the same beer company. They called the beer the friendly family beer. And I think they knew that that would make people really angry. But everybody remembered it. The friendly family practice of Buddhas, it comes from the land of sky-blue waters.

[48:15]

It comes from the pines and lofty balsams. Of course. So if you want to tell me, if you wish, if you want to tell me you wish to practice Buddha's good friendship, I'll be happy to listen to you. And if you want to tell me that you don't want to practice Buddha's good friendship, or any other kind of friendship, I'll be happy to listen to that too. I'm not trying to tell you what you should wish. But I am wondering, what is your deepest wish? I am wondering. And I check with myself on a regular basis, sometimes many, many times a day.

[49:21]

But someday I might forget the whole day without checking to see what is most important in life to you. I might forget. But if I do, I'm sorry I missed a chance to reconnect with what is most important for me in this life. So thank you for listening to these songs. They are intentional.

[49:53]

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