These are masks for chanting. An unsurpassed penetrating perfect dharma is rarely met with even than a hundred thousand million kalpas having it to see and listen to. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, especially to Sue Moon, our speaker today. Sue's been practicing at BCC since 1976 and teaches with Everyday Zen. She has taught and led retreats in the United States as well as Europe and Mexico. Last summer, she and Laurie Sinocchi taught together at a remote monastery in the Eponine Mountains of Italy.

[01:16]

Her last book is, Notes on the Home Stretch. One of her earliest writings, The Life and Letters of Tofu Roshi, is based on the BCC of 35 years ago and written out of affection for her home temple. She and Tofu Roshi share the same email address, not one night. Other books include The Hidden Lamp, Stories for 25 Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Keplow and What is Zen with Norman Fisher. Please give your attention and a warm welcome to Sue Moon and Tofu Roshi. Thank you, Ross. I'm feeling like these things are about to pop off my head. It doesn't seem to want to go. Is that better? How about that?

[02:19]

So it's great to be here at my home temple and great to see you all. I feel so at home here. And I wanna start by just acknowledging how incredible it is to have Hosan home with us. And he can't be with us at the moment because of the medical appointment, but still I want to greet him in Ascensia and just to acknowledge how much grit and courage I'll speak to you, Alan, even though your grit and courage it took for you to make this journey. Actually, I'm sorry to interrupt, but that appointment got changed, so he's back. Oh, good. Oh, okay. It smells like you, Lori. He's on Zoom. Oh, great. I can't speak to you directly, Alan. I can't really see all the people on Zoom. So that's wonderful. And also just to acknowledge that the immeasurable support of Laurie through all of this, including COVID, through thick and thin, including COVID, and everybody in the Sangha, and people have just really come forward.

[03:37]

And it's an amazing manifestation of the Sangha treasure, too, that he is here back with us. as well as the manifestation of his own amazing faith in practice. So I want to talk today about kind of a relationship which is spiritual friendship or Kalyanamitra in Sanskrit and what a lovely subject that is. Here in this endover among people, we could call them spiritual friends. Some are long time spiritual friends, some are newer friends, all the others are friends waiting to be made. And because we're here in this saga together, the foundation for friendship is already here. So I kind of need to say a story about Buddha and his closest disciple, Ananda, and most of you may already know this story.

[04:47]

One day, Ananda went to the Blessed One with great enthusiasm, and he sat down beside him and he said eagerly, I have to tell you what I just realized. This is how I imagined him saying it. Friendship is half of the holy life. Buddha answered him, Oh no, Ananda, don't say that. Friendship is the whole of the holy life. Admirable friendship. Admirable companionship. Admirable camaraderie. When a person has admirable friends, companions, and comrades, she can be expected to develop and pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. Between a spiritual friendship and an ordinary friendship. What makes a spiritual friendship spiritual? I see spiritual friends as having a shared spiritual longing, a desire to go beyond self-concern in order to be fully present for the good of all beings.

[05:58]

For brothers and sisters, a spiritual friendship is grounded in a shared commitment to the bodhisattva precepts. And we can help each other with this. For example, it has happened in the past that a sangha friend has had occasion to remind me gently not to speak ill of others. A Sangha friendship lives in the context of a shared practice. As for friendship outside the Sangha, there are different sorts. There are the friends you meet at the dog park, there are the friends you play pickleball with or mahjong, and there are other ways of meeting people. These are valuable friendships too, part of the weave of your life. When you read the list of what makes for a healthy life, like exercise, good diet, sleep, friendship is always on the list at the top.

[07:03]

Some of the friendships outside the Sangha are also spiritual friendships. You don't have to be a Buddhist to have a spiritual friendship. There's not a sharp dividing line. between spiritual and non-spiritual friendships. You might find yourself playing pickleball or, conversely, talking about the meaning of life with someone in your dog training class. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that spiritual friendship is somehow better and deeper than other friendships. Maybe the Zanga friendships are spiritual friendships with a capital F. And outside the Sangha, the spiritual friendships aren't capitalized. I'm not saying all friendships are spiritual, but they can be spiritual outside of the context of our practice. So I want to tell you some stories this morning about friendship. When I was a child, I became best friends with Roz, a girl who was in my class at school and lived around the corner from me in Cambridge.

[08:10]

The friendship was very intense, as friendships between 10-year-olds tend to be. We loved each other, and we were growing up together, the world together. I think of it now as a spiritual friendship, though of course we didn't speak of it that way. We both came from Protestant backgrounds, but neither of our families really practiced any religion. Our friendship was not completely free of tradition, but it was about exploring our world together and sharing our deepest feelings. We made gifts for each other out of clay in our art class. We practiced juggling with crab apples from the tree in the backyard. When her goldfish, Millie, died, we buried her and had a funeral in the backyard. We wondered together what infinity was

[09:11]

and how big the universe was, and we rejoiced in the world around us. We grew up in a time when children had to wander about unsupervised. I acknowledge this was also connected to our privilege to living in a safe and quiet residential neighborhood. But now children aren't free to wander about unsupervised anywhere, it seems. We invented a gift walked around the neighborhood, one blindfolded and the other one leading by the hand. The leader would say, Warren, step up, step down, come to a curb, crossing quiet streets. After about 10 minutes, the leader would stop and the blindfolded person, before taking off the blindfold, was supposed to guess where we were. And then when the blindfold came off, it was always amazing.

[10:15]

Oh, we're here. This was definitely an exercising trust. Again, we didn't think of it as an exercising trust. We thought of it as a really fun game. We remained friends until Roz died last September while swimming in a cove in Maine, 70 years later after we had become best friends. Our friendship had changed over time as our lives... Perhaps in a way it was the most spiritual when we were children because there was no, there was not knowing, there was curiosity, there was innocence. But we always loved each other and supported each other, especially when times were hard. And I tell you about the friendship because I think many of the qualities we unselfconsciously manifested can be part of our adult spiritual friendships. the awe and gratitude at the mystery of life, the companionship and support we gave each other in discovering what it means to be human.

[11:18]

Buddha speaks about friendship a number of times in the sutras. In the Mita Sutra, the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha says, monks, a friend who is endowed with seven qualities, associating with. Preach seven. She gives what is hard to give. She does what is hard to do. She endures what is hard to endure. He reveals his secrets to you. He keeps your secrets. And I want to interrupt here to say, I'd have a negative association with the word secrets, but in this context, I think it means he protects your, He reveals his vulnerability and what's really going on from him from his deepest heart, and you respect confidentiality. I think that's what it means. When misfortunes strike, he doesn't abandon you. When you're down and out, he doesn't look down on you.

[12:26]

A person, then, those are the seven. A person in whom these traits are found is a friend to be cultivated by anyone wanting a friend. So I'm just going to read them again. to give she does what is hard to do she endures what is hard to endure he reveals his secrets to you he keeps your secrets when misfortune strike he doesn't abandon you when you're down and out he doesn't so friendship is a big commitment and i have some precious old friends like that who are not buddhists In Zen, friendship is highly valuable. People practice together in Zen, eating, working, walking, sitting, always together. But even though we do the same things at the same time, we are not generic.

[13:32]

We are each ourselves, and this is important. Friends are distinct people with particular, even though there's no fixed self. and they share their own gifts with the Sangha and with their friends. As Suzuki Roshi said, when you are you, Zen is Zen. Spiritual friends are being themselves, not trying to be like some other person. You can be your own distinctive self with your own quirky sense of humor or your fear of heights, and you can be Buddha at the same time. Friendship implies something personal and particular between two people who are in an ongoing relationship. There are plenty of good stories about spiritual friendship in Zen literature. Here's an old koan from 9th century China about two Dharma brothers, Yun Yan and Dao Wu. There are some well-known and oft-quoted stories about these two, but this one is less...

[14:39]

I was happy to rediscover it. Yunnan was making tea. Dao Wu asked him, who are you making tea for? Yunnan said, there's someone who wants it. Dao Wu said, well, why don't you let him make it himself? Yunnan said, fortunately, I'm here to do it. So it seems clear to me that from this dialogue that they are friends. I'm guessing that Yunnan was making tea for Dao Wu, that Dao Wu is the someone who wants it. He's awfully interested in asking about it. What are you doing? And then when he asks, why don't you just make it yourself? He might be saying, are you really going out of your way to make it for me? Don't you think I should be making my own? No, no, sorry. When he asks, why don't you let him? He might be asking, why are you going out of your way to make it for me?

[15:44]

Don't you think he should be doing it? Or don't you think I should be doing it if it's for me? And what a loving and funny answer he gets back from Jung-yeon. Fortunately, I'm here to do it. Or another possibility that Jung-yeon is making the tea for himself. And Da-woo knows that. Maybe Jung-yeon makes himself a cup of tea every afternoon at this time. and Dan Wu teases him about it. Why don't you let him make it himself? These two are such good friends that they can talk to each other in a kind of teasing. So how can we bring this kind of supportive challenge, aliveness, and humor into our friendships? In the list of those seven qualities of a friend, the last two, again, are of friendship in times of struggle and suffering. The last two lines are, when misfortunes strike, when misfortunes strike, she doesn't abandon you.

[16:50]

When you're down and out, he doesn't look down on you. This reminds me of a Carole King song you might have the words to. So I'm a terrible singer, but let's see if we can sing it together. Some of you probably know the tune a little bit so excuse me oh masking yeah thanks okay okay when you're down and troubled and you need some loving care and nothing is going right close your eyes and think of me and soon i will be there to brighten up even your darkest night you just call out my name and you know i am i'll come run in to see you again

[18:07]

Winter, spring, summer, or fall, all you have to do is call. Yes, I will. Friend. Friend. Well, thank you. Great song. When I first moved to Berkeley with my husband many years ago, we only knew a couple of people. and my husband was depressed, and I was lonely, and that's about when that song came out. I found it comforting. I remember playing that record over and over and over again. Carole King was reminding me I had a friend. It didn't have to be her, but there were lots of possibilities. I have a close friend from my Everyday Zen Sangha I want to tell you about. We used to meet at each other's houses, books together, and cook for each other. About five years ago, she was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia.

[19:08]

She was imagining or seeing children and cats who needed help and other creatures who were invisible to the rest of us. She was confused. She didn't know why nobody else realized that there was a homeless person sitting on the fire hydrant across the street who needed something, but I didn't see anybody there. We kept on meeting and reading Buddhist books together. We could still do that and she enjoyed it and so did I. And then, even though she became unable to find and pay her bills, even though she could no longer cook for herself, we still met and had tea on her porch. in and about the magnolia bush blooming in the yard that we could both see. When she had to move into an assisted living place, I was one of several friends who helped her scale down her belongings, find homes for her books and her ceramics collection.

[20:19]

I visited her regularly and sat on her balcony in the assisted living place and we had tea there. But she was no longer able to attend to a text, so we had to give up the reading. And within months, she was too confused to stay there. She would wander around getting lost in Alameda, and she would turn up in somebody else's room in the middle of the night, and they weren't prepared for people with that kind of dementia, and she had to move. And her sister, who takes good care of her from a distance, found a facility for her, and she moved there in a memory care place. So I still go see her once a week, and other friends visit her too. She's ever more remote, and she doesn't speak much.

[21:19]

I can't really understand what she's saying, but even though It makes me sad. I'm also really glad to see her. I'm always glad to see her. And I think I remember that Buddha said, I don't think of it when I'm going there, but when I was writing this talk, I was kind of connecting it to the idea that who, when misfortune strikes, doesn't abandon you. It's not a huge thing I do. It's not a great heroic act. And I want to visit her because when she sees me, she smiles. and because I know she would do the same for me, and because at some level she is me and I am her. I had a friendship with a Benedictine monk that I want to tell you about, Father Dunstan Morrissey. This was an example of a kind of friendship that we hear about fairly often between people of different religions, but people like, you could call it an interfaith,

[22:22]

friendship, like Father Thomas Merton, Travis Monk, and Thich Nhat Hanh had together. I'm not comparing myself and Father Dunstan to them, but I'm saying that an interfaith marriage, an interfaith friendship can be very brightened by the sort of cross-fertilization of the different what the different spiritual traditions have to offer, and there's still something in common. So, Father Dunstan was a Benedictine priest, and I was introduced to him by a mutual friend. He was in his late 60s, I think, when we met. He always wore a French blue denim smock and shoes that were badly worn down on the outside corners of the heel, at which he didn't even notice. in a retreat place that he had created outside the town of Sonoma.

[23:26]

And he had three wine barrels there that he had gotten from a winery that didn't use him anymore, and they were 12 feet in diameter. And one of them became a chapel, and two of them became guest houses. And I stayed in one of them many times. So even though he lived in solitude, Most of the time he had this retreat center and he welcomed retreatants and he liked people. And he used to say that you couldn't be a military unless you loved your fellow humans. If you became a hermit because you didn't like people, that would be an unwholesome practice. It had to be born of love. Excuse me. Sky Farm, his place, for a weekend, or a week, or even longer. I made my meals in the guest's refectory, and it became a habit that after breakfast, I'd visit him in the library, and he would make me a cup of green tea, and he'd read aloud to me.

[24:39]

Mostly. Hold on. Come here. I told you. Musing needs to happen. I told you. Thank you. So I would visit him in the library, and he had this desk made out of this huge slab, which he sat out of a big wooden slab, and he would read to me from spiritual books, mostly Christian mystics like Meister Eckhard and Saint Isaac of Syria, and . And I loved learning about these people whose viewpoints was very interesting to me,

[25:50]

helped my Zen practice in a way. And he himself was very well-read in Zen. And he had shelved his books, among all his other books. He had books from every mystical tradition. And he had even been to, he knew a lot about Zen, and he'd been to San Francisco Zen Center and sat a sashim with Suzuki Roshi, whom he respected a great deal. And what I learned from him really enriched. and helped me bring that kind of God that I, like myself, into my practice, that sort of the goddess, the universe, or whatever. So I want to tell you about another friendship born in the struggle for justice, and that's the friendship of Dorothy Day and Dan Berrigan. Dorothy Day was the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement in the 1930s. and the editor of the Catholic Worker newspaper.

[26:52]

She was a pacifist and a radical activist working for and with poor people. And she became free American through their shared commitment to pacifism and anti-war activism. He was a Catholic priest, an activist, and a writer, and he was a generation younger than she was. They were both supporters of nonviolent resistance, which at that time was the Vietnam War. In 1968, Dan Berrigan and eight others raided a draft board office in Cadenceville, Maryland, and burned the files of some men who were eligible for the draft who were 1A, the next to be called up. Dorothy met with her good friend when he did this because she felt this action was violent. because it was destruction of property. She saw it as vandalism. And they talked.

[27:52]

And she respected Dan, and they had conversations about it, and she came to see this in a larger sense, because their actions didn't harm living beings, and they were actions of resistance to war, the Vietnam War, in this case. The Cajunsville Eight all served prison time for this action, and Dorothy Day supported them. She wrote to them in prison, the magazine she founded, she wrote about their work, and she published their writing. Later, the Berrigan brothers, Dan and his brother, and some others, pioneered a new action, which was trespassing into weapons-making sites and damaging nuclear hammers. They were beating swords into plowshares, as Isaiah said in the Bible. Literally, they were beating swords into plowshares, almost literal. They weren't really swords, but anyway.

[28:54]

It was a religious act for them, and that is why it was called the plowshares. And Dorothy Day and Dan Barrett had really influenced each other and changed each other's minds and supported each other's lives in a beautiful way. A spiritual friendship may not require frequent contact. Some deep friendships survive strong even when the people live thousands of miles apart or when circumstances keep them from meeting. The thread of connection is so strong that you don't have to meet in person to keep the friendship alive. You know you can reach out to the person that keeps working on you. and you can call or even email. Sometimes, knowing that, you don't need to. And sometimes, in a difficult situation, maybe you do reach out to a faraway friend, and you discover that if you talk on the phone and connect, you feel better.

[29:57]

These are friendships with me, usually, like the one I told you about with Ross. Friendships through time, if not in space. A different expression of spiritual friendship is the kind we can have as we practice together with each other in silence, in the same sangha, in zazen, in an all-day sitting, in a seshin, even in residential practice. You don't speak, but you're sitting side-by-side in the zendo, and you hear the person breathing. You feel their effort. You walk behind them in kinhin, feet on the floorboards. You can't help feeling closely connected with the people who sit with you wordlessly in the Zen-do. I'll end with a story of the friendship between Ryokan and Teishin. Ryokan was a Zen poet who lived in 8th century Japan and into the 19th century.

[31:04]

He lived most of his life alone up in the mountains. His poetry is much beloved and appears in several English translations. He wrote poems about loneliness, about nature and the seasons, about his walking trips down to where I think he went begging and doing errands, who knows. He loved playing with the village children. So here's a short poem of his. Fresh morning snow in front of the shrine. The trees, are they white with peach blossoms or white with snow? The children throw snowballs. Tayshin was a Zen nun, 40 years younger than Ryokan. She admired him as a Zen adept and as a poet. And she met him near the end of his life, when Ryokan's health was declining and he'd come down from the mountains of a disciple who wanted to take care of him. When Ryokan and Tayshin met, Ryokan was an old man and well-known as a poet.

[32:09]

For the last five years of Ryokan's life, they corresponded by writing poems to each other, letters in poem form, and for people to travel to see him in his cottage. She saved all the poems of their correspondence and published them after his death under the title, Dew Drops on a Lotus Leaf. She also traveled around Japan collecting other poems of his from other people he corresponded to that he had sent to other people, and these poems too became part of his published work. It's thanks to her that we have as much of Ryokan's work today as we do. Here are some examples of their poetry letters to each other. Just one exchange. Ryokan writes, when the autumn bush clover blossoms and flowers come and see me. If I'm still alive, we will celebrate together. And she writes, when autumn bush clover blossoms and flowers is too long to wait.

[33:16]

As summer grasses open, I arrive. They were unequal in gender and teaching authority, and yet their friendship was one of equals. They may even have been in love. And I don't know whether they were lovers, but in any case, their friendship was clearly a spiritual friendship. Both of them are devoted to their simples, to kindness, and to each other. So a spiritual friendship reminds you that you're not separate. This is one of Buddha's great teachings, one of the Dharma's great teachings. You are not alone. Sometimes it's hard to remember this, and a spiritual friendship make this teaching real. So what part does spiritual friendship play in our own lives? How do we nurture it? How do we blend the giving and receiving? How do we become spiritual friends to each other? I leave you with those questions.

[34:19]

So I welcome your comments and thoughts. I'm interested in the balancing that you, the theme that I was hearing being played out through your talk about the difference between being alone and being lonely. And for example, with your husband and playing a joking song, and with your Benedictine friend, convince aloneness out of love. And it reminded me of Winnicott, another British analyst who studied children. He said that children learn to be alone as opposed to being lonely in the company of their family. And the image he had was of the child being lost in her own activity in the middle of the living room or reading or doing whatever, while the family worlds are in the middle of the child is in her own world.

[35:43]

So I've often thought of that and wondered what you think about what the difference is between being at home and being at home. Well, I think that's a great comment about Winnicott, a great question. I think, you know, Dunstan's comment about you have to, if you want to be solitary and really enjoy solitude, that's a completely different thing from being lonely. And you have to feel your connection to everyone. And for us, all of us, I think, I've been both lonely and alone without being lonely. And I think the sense of being interconnected and remembering that I'm not really separate from everything else in the universe to be alone and not lonely.

[36:44]

And some people find, you know, there's a wonderful story in The Hidden Lamp about a woman who... becomes a hermit up in the mountains before women were doing this or taken very seriously about this and finds her there and he sees her sitting all alone in the mountains and he says, well, who are your relatives? Which is a question kind of mean. Well, who did you get lineage from and where do you fit into the important Zen structure or something? Or where are these people? People who validate you sort of. And she said, my relatives are all around. The trees and the mountains and the flowers are all my relatives. And I think for a lot of people, being alone from human beings, but being in nature is also a way to not be alone. It's not nearly as long when you've got the trees and the stars and the birds with you, keeping you company.

[37:46]

I guess they're spiritual friends too. Does anybody have any stories about spiritual friendships in your own life or discoveries? You can also look online. Oh yeah, thank you. Maybe I can put it on gallery. Do people raise hands online? Because I don't think there are any hands out there. That's good. So, hello to people online. And if you want to raise a question, you can also vigorously. But we'll take your question now, or comment. Thank you for the talk. What I was thinking, maybe as it's grasping, if you have any good quotes about solitude versus loneliness.

[38:56]

of imagining something near the kitchen table. I am not alone, sort of, in remembrance. Well, I can't come up with any right in this moment. Maybe somebody else can think of one. Yeah, there's one. Carol King, she's not talking about that difference exactly. Maybe if somebody knows one, you could talk about it after this. I think loneliness can turn into solitude, probably, with some kind of practice and presence. And maybe solitude can turn into loneliness, but I hope not. Thank you for your talk, Sue.

[40:18]

I have a talk in a couple of weeks and I have been thinking about trees. When you spoke, I evoked a memory of being on a trip by myself, a car trip up in the Sears. And I got away, I needed to be alone. to my tent, I'd feel lonely. And it would go in and out and then there'd be, something would happen, I'd get interested in something where I'd stay and talk to people and there would be a connection and there would be a loneliness. It would just be not alone, but something about moving from aloneness is a powerful place And because of being a human being, we're all subject to those changes too.

[41:33]

I mean, we don't stay always lonely or stay always confident in our solitude. And other spiritual friendships. Coming back to that topic, that supports us in solitude, I think, the knowledge of God. And I also think that you were talking about childhood friendships, where children are in nature together, or even alone. You're friends with that salva, when they're really pulling. Let's see if the snail likes strawberries. I think many times children have a tree for a special friend that they can climb or hug or sit under, especially climb. There's one I loved in our yard, an apple tree, and it can really become a friend.

[42:37]

Yeah, is that Dee? Read to the mic. Listening to your talk and also listening to the comments made me think about standing in a river and being thirsty. And the differences between when I'm standing in a river being thirsty and I'm standing in the river feeling the cool water around my feet and my ankles and my legs. And for me that is a very clear difference between being lonely and thirsty and being alone when I'm part of that environment. I have a question, it's just that's what

[43:44]

pain to mind, and then also, when those moments happen, I have the choice to notice the cool water around my legs and shifting if I'm willing to make the effort. Yeah. Thank you, that's helpful. And the metaphor is a good one of, you know, we are right in the midst of, we have what we need around us. We feel the lack of it, even when we feel the lack of it. Sometimes that feeling is very intense, and it can be really hard to get out of it. It's not a light, it's not an easy thing to just remember this, so. Compassion for people who are struggling to get out of that place of loneliness too.

[44:45]

Maybe a little off topic in terms of loneliness, but I wanted to put in a good word for a spirit of competition that can emerge. I've got a good friend who is very devout, a Buddhist practitioner, and I always feel like, oh, I really need to step my game up before I see this person. Step your Zen game up? Yeah, and I think that the koans, There's a lot of those kinds of relationships of spiritual friends who kind of go each other on. So I want everyone to find a friend to get into a really competitive. Some of us enjoy competition. I don't. No, you don't. Yeah, well, I think that kind of challenging. It's sometimes very present in the koans, one person challenging the other and kind of shaking them up a little bit. Hey, what are you really doing here?

[45:47]

Don't waste your time. That's maybe the same kind of thing you're talking about, which is valuable. Yes. This is my brother who's visiting. in a special treat. I'm very moving, but I also just wanted to talk about friendship a little bit. One thing I have been thinking about is friendship with people you don't know and how you can, for helping with loneliness and just sort of being around people, I think that it's, I feel, if I'm feeling blue or something, being open and friendly just to someone on the street you'll never see again, can be a real mood changer and helpful.

[46:55]

And I think that that's a kind of friendship that's . And it's a very strong friendship and helps . You mean the kind of friendship that just arises in a moment and then passes away. Yeah, just sort of feeling connections with people who are very different. I think that's really a good point, and was it you, Sue, talking about going into a cafe or something? Yeah, that those kinds of accidental momentary connections are really wonderful, and it's about the connection, feeling connected. I remember one time, years ago, when I was out of college or something, I was driving in a snowstorm to get to a place to meet a friend at her cabin on the New York State Thruway, and it was a terrible blizzard, and I had this little VW bug I was driving, and it just became impossible to drive, and I had to pull over, and there was a sort of highway rest stop place there, and it was kind of night when I got there,

[48:11]

And there were about a dozen people, other drivers, who had pulled over, a sailor and some, I don't know what, different kinds of people, completely random people. And there was a little cafe there where you could get coffee and stuff. And the 12 of us just totally bonded and we were there all night long waiting for the road to be plowed. And one of the waitresses who was there was making We wanted coffee and we were playing the jukebox and dancing and it was just an incredible experience that many of you probably have had in different kinds of crises where people come out and help each other. You're also talking, Mitch, about when it's not even a crisis, you can just connect and it's feeling connected to your kind and when people are friendly and when you're visiting a culture where people are friendly on the street and stuff, you really notice it and it's wonderful. I'm curious how your friendship with the Benedictine priest, can you be more specific about how that deepened your Zen practice?

[49:36]

Did he say anything in particular? Well, that's a good question. He said many things in particular. Before I even met him, I mean, I've always had this kind of longing in my Zen practice for the sense of something larger than myself that is holding me. And there's different ways of interpreting that. And we don't really talk about that. We talk about the net of Indra, which kind of helps. somebody to pray to, somebody to say, hey, I can use a little help right now. That kind of feeling and that kind of faith I was longing for, and I sort of wished that I was a Catholic who really believed in, I don't know, the Trinity or something like that. But anyway, when I met Dunstan, I was able to bring forward those feelings, and we had conversations about that, and he talked to me.

[50:39]

of Christian fathers, the Desert Fathers, and people whose words were very similar to the teachings of Buddha and different Dharma teachings about how the spirit of God is in a blade of grass and things like that. And mystical books that I read I found very helpful, and I just connected with them, and particularly because he also really respected Zen, and somehow I didn't feel like we were having an argument between his way and my way at all, but we were finding commonalities, and he was making it possible for me to realize that I could include these feelings and these concepts that he was talking about, could be part of my own Dharma practice. So, I don't know if that helps. Dean was talking about this and I'm wondering if you could say a little more about others are not me and others are me.

[52:00]

You kind of dance between the two and hold your feeling of aloneness perhaps and then a connection. The relationship between not me and are me or reflections of me. Well... That's a big kind of reminds me of the story of, I forget who it was, crossing the bridge and looking down and seeing it as a reflection in the river and saying, I am not he, but he is me. Dongshan. Dongshan. Thank you. I like that a lot because it's kind of like saying that The small I isn't connected to all these other people, but the small self is separate. And the small self, I mean, we need to be a person who can fend for ourselves and walk around and feed the parking meter and everything like that.

[53:10]

But it's not a very spiritual activity. And we also have this big self that includes us. I don't know if that's part of an answer to you, but for me, I feel as though I am other people. We're all Buddha, and in that sense, we're all the same Buddha, but that's deep down inside of the part that are distinct and particular and also wonderful in their way. Yeah, I just had an image of the small cell feeding the parking meter and seeing the reflection in the little piece of glass there. Perfect, perfect image. That's great. You should make a new comment about that. Thank you, Sue. We have a couple more minutes for... Yeah, maybe we're done if there's... Oh, Peter. Hi, Steven.

[54:18]

Hi, Peter. I'm particularly grateful for being shared in that story about Munihan. There's a number of stories about Kabalu and Munihan, which are particularly treasured. And one of the elements, which I think was mentioned here, was a challenge, a playful challenge. And so I was asking, what is it? What is it about that that brings that forth? And part of where John emanates from is this question among spiritual friends as to where do we meet? Where do we meet right now? And I love the stories about those two because they seem to always hint on Yeah. Well, I think that's a great comment and their relationship is wonderful.

[55:27]

The stories about reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night is their dialogue and the story about there's one who is not busy sweeping the ground. Those are two of my favorites. that are there, those two are in dialogue. Some of you might not know those stories, but I won't tell them now, but I think that a spiritual friend can challenge you, and this feeling of being able to do that, and I think it's sort of like affectionate teasing, you know, somebody you really love can tease you in a way that isn't mean-spirited, and you can laugh too, and sort of join the, joke and think, okay, yeah, this is something for me to notice. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Beings are numerous.

[56:28]

I allow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I am out with them. Our minds are boundless, I vow to enter them. God's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it. The beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them. Illusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable.

[57:31]

Amen. Center, especially those of you who may be joining us for the very first time.

[58:48]

I'm Margo Winter and I am one of the Saturday program directors here. A few announcements for the week. This coming Monday at 8 a.m. on Zoom, Colleen Bush will give a Way Seeking Mind talk. And then we also have sign-ups for Saturday service positions. Those sign-up sheets are on the community room porch, and this is a group you want to get Zen training in the service positions, and you will be instructed how to do them if you've never taken on a position before. For some recurring announcements, the Wednesday drop-in group meets from 7.10 to 9 p.m. This group particularly Comers to Zen Practice. For more information, contact Ikushin Gary Livia. Her email is in the links for recurring activities.

[59:51]

BZC also has a queer Dharma group that meets in the community room on the second and fourth Mondays from 7 to 8.15 p.m. We are currently studying Roshi Pat O'Hara's book, Most Intimate. feel free to talk to myself or Hax after the program if you're interested. And then for more information about our programs and membership, you can check the bulletin website, see the Zoom chat, or visit our website at berkeleyzencenter.org. And we also have a donation box in the courtyard if you'd like to make a donation. And you can also support us online through the generosity tab on our website. I'd like for two people to help clean teacups. One volunteer, two volunteers, thank you. Those of you online can now unmute and share greetings.

[60:55]

And those of us in the Zendo, please remain in noble silence. I exited the Zendo and then you're free to socialize and enjoy tea and cookies. Good morning, everyone. good morning yeah great to see you welcome home nice to see everyone yeah have a great day take care enjoy have a good weekend see you bye-bye

[61:33]

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