Does it look like it's recording? It might be recording now. Yeah, so this might be recording the first talk given at No Abode in 2015. Homage to last year. Last year, I think we were emphasizing good friendship as the Buddha way. I may not say good friendship as much this year as I did last year, but I pray that

[01:08]

you remember that good friendship is one of the ways that the Buddha taught what the Buddha way is. The Buddha said, good friendship is the entirety of the Buddha way. The entirety of the Buddha way is good friendship, I say. I said, and I really wish you would remember that and I wish I would remember that. So that's very simple teaching, but then one might wonder, what do you mean by good friendship? So I would say, well, what I mean by good friendship is the Buddha way. What do you mean by the Buddha way? Well, I mean perfect

[02:11]

wisdom and great compassion. So another theme of last year is perfect wisdom and great friendship, how they're really two different ways of trying to remember the same thing, the same great way of freedom and peace for all beings. We just chanted, revering Buddhas and ancestors, we are one Buddha and one ancestor. You could say revering one Buddha, we are one Buddha and

[03:19]

one ancestor, but really it's revering innumerable Buddhas, because Buddha is not just one Buddha, Buddha is innumerable Buddhas, and the ancestors are not just one ancestor, they're innumerable ancestors. Revering all the Buddhas that are innumerable, all Buddhas, revering them, at that moment there's just one Buddha. All of us are Buddha, and that's one Buddha and innumerable Buddhas. So I'm not going to talk too much about not revering Buddhas, all Buddhas, I'm not going to talk about that. I don't know what that would be, I think it would probably be a very unhappy situation. When we get distracted and we don't revere all the different manifestations

[04:32]

of perfect enlightenment, it's a sad situation. I'm not going to talk about that much. The happy situation is one Buddha and one ancestor, and we are one Buddha, and that is good friendship, and that is perfect wisdom. There is just one Buddha, and we are all just one Buddha, but if we don't practice, we don't realize it. If we don't say thank you, all Buddhas, if we don't say homage to all Buddhas, then we miss the fact that we are one Buddha. So we practice, and then we are one Buddha. And this one Buddha, which you can call they, extend their compassion to us freely, and

[05:44]

without limit. And because they do that, we are able to realize Buddhahood, and also let go of it, let go of the realization, because the true realization of Buddhahood is to let go of everything, even to let go of the wonderful, even to let go of perfect wisdom and great compassion. We all know this. I'm just saying it again to help us remember, because we human beings, along with all other living beings, have karmic consciousness. And in karmic consciousness, things are very dynamic and turbulent, and it's easy to get disoriented and forget good-to-be practicing

[06:46]

good friendship. Someone just yells at us, you know, without a warning. Like if somebody says, okay, I'm going to yell at you, are you ready? I'm going to tell you something about what you're doing, and I'm not going to give you any warning. I mean, I'm telling you now that I'm going to do it, but later I'm going to do it when you're not looking, and see if you can have me basically attack you, and see if you can not get disoriented from good friendship. There was a series of movies starring Peter Sellers, and Peter Sellers was playing the part of a French police inspector, Clouseau, Inspector Clouseau. You don't have

[07:49]

to be French, but you do have to investigate. You have to investigate what's going on and check to see, is this good friendship? And Inspector Clouseau in the movie had an assistant, had a houseboy, I think his name was Kato, and he was played by actually a person of Chinese background, but he was supposed to be Japanese martial artist, and he was a houseboy, but really what he was, he was a person who kept testing Inspector Clouseau to see if he could stay on message, on target, and he would attack him without warning, often from hiding, or

[08:54]

he would be doing things around the house, and suddenly he would turn and attack him, and they would have this interaction, and we got to see if Professor Inspector Clouseau could maintain his upright dignity. So we're kind of like Inspector Clouseau, and most people around us are like Kato, testing us, they don't feel like they've been personally hired to do so, they think they've got their own life, and we are attacking them. But basically we often do things to each other, and somehow we get disoriented, we don't see that it's good friendship. So it's hard to remember the basic simple teaching, good friendship

[09:56]

to everybody. That's what good friendship is, good friendship is not the Buddha's good friendship, which is the friendship which is the whole of the Buddha way, is not just to some people. That makes sense, right? So any disagreement with that? In this group, maybe not. In some groups people would say, no, actually we're not going to be friends with some people. And some people come to me and say, should I be friends with people who are narrow-minded, and are only friends to a few people? Or should we exclude the people who exclude people? No. Some people do exclude other people from their friendship, but the good friendship is not to exclude anybody, including those who are exclusive in their friendship. If I see someone who seems to be narrow in their friendship, or narrow-minded, period, then my job is to be friendly to my opinion that they're narrow-minded. They probably

[11:07]

don't think they're narrow-minded, even if they say, I'm not friends with all people, they may think they're actually open-minded to be not friendly with people. Who knows what they think? All I know is what I think. And then my job is to be friendly to what I'm thinking. But that's hard, especially when suddenly, out of nowhere, insult! Karmic consciousness is a tough place to study the Buddha Dharma. But if we don't study the Buddha Dharma in karmic consciousness, guess what? There's suffering. Because suffering lives in karmic consciousness. And that's the only place there's suffering. That's the hotel for suffering. That's heartbreak hotel. Karmic consciousness. And all living beings have

[12:16]

karmic consciousness. But they don't just have karmic consciousness, they have also a vast cognitive process and a vast body. They have an inconceivable body and an inconceivable cognitive process, which supports this wonderful heartbreak hotel of karmic consciousness, where people are attacking us off and on. Some people feel like they're being attacked all the time. Some people feel like they're being attacked some of the time. Some people feel like they're never being attacked. And then they feel like they're being attacked. I can say to you, I have never, ever been attacked. But I actually sometimes think I'm being attacked. I'm actually just being supported. I'm being blessed. From the time I came out of my mother's body, I have been blessed. Non-stop. That's really what I think. But

[13:22]

like in ten seconds from now, I might forget that. And think, oh no, this isn't a blessing, this is like a criticism. This is like a lack of appreciation. This is like somebody telling me what to do, rather than this is somebody telling me what to do, which is a blessing. There was somebody recently practicing at Green Gulch Farm, and we told this person that we weren't sure if it was appropriate for her to be practicing at Green Gulch unless she was able to participate in the program fully, go to the meditations and so on, and kind of come on time and not forget that the event was occurring and so on. So we'd like

[14:25]

to watch and see if you can do that for the next few weeks. And if you can't, then maybe you shouldn't stay on. And the person said, thank you, that's a blessing. They could have got all huffy and puffy, but they didn't. He saw that it was a blessing. It was. These attacks are blessings. They are opportunities for friendship. But we get confused. There once upon a time this is a story, once upon a time there was a Buddha living in India named Shakyamuni, and he had an attendant whose name was Ananda, really a nice attendant, who was his cousin actually. He loved his cousin, he was devoted to his cousin the Buddha. One day Ananda came

[15:29]

to see his teacher, his cousin, and paid his respects and sat to one side, and he said to his cousin the Buddha, he said, this is good friendship. No, no, he said, this is half the Buddha way. This is half the Buddha way. This, us being here together, is half the Buddha way, the wonderful Ananda said. This is half the Buddha way. This good friendship is half the Buddha way. The Buddha said, don't say that, Ananda, don't say that. Ananda didn't get all huffy and puffy and run away. When the Buddha said, you got it wrong,

[16:45]

my dear disciple, that's wrong, and don't talk like that. He didn't say, well, you talk to me like that, I'm out of here. I quit as your attendant. But there are Zen stories where the student says what she thinks, and the teacher tells the student, well, you're wrong, that's wrong. And the student walks out on the teacher. And after the student walks out, the teacher might say, if she comes back, she can be liberated. But if she doesn't, she can't. And in some stories they don't come back. But in the more famous ones, they do come back, and they try again. And the teacher, they basically do the same thing again, but

[17:47]

this time the student doesn't get distracted, and they realize friendship together. So may we help each other, remember, but also, actually I don't have to say, may we test each other. We will test each other. But may we test each other so we can deepen our practice of remembering to be friendly to whatever comes. Yes, Linda, beautiful. Linda means beautiful. She wanted you to know that. That's what her

[18:56]

name means, rather than I was calling her beautiful. She doesn't want you to think we're having an affair. We're having a good friendship affair. When the Buddha, you said, used that reference, what actual term would he have used when he said it? What language he was saying? What language? How did he express good friendship? What was the word? It was probably Kalyanamitra. But Buddha didn't speak Sanskrit, and he didn't speak Pali, and he didn't speak Chinese. We don't exactly know what language he spoke. Now people say he spoke whatever people would understand. But when his teachings got written

[20:07]

down into Sanskrit, I think the most common word for good friend is Kalyanamitra. Is that answering your question? No, not really. Because good friend seems like an informal, more contemporary term. So did he use that like just a good friend? No. Could you say something about that? Well, the word Kalyanamitra also sometimes can be translated as teacher. Everyone is my teacher, or the way people are my teacher is their friendship. The friendship we're talking about is the friendship between the enlightened one and his student, and the teacher is that friendship. So probably Kalyanamitra, I don't think it's a word that's used in colloquial

[21:15]

speech among people. It's more like in a situation where you're in a relationship with somebody where you actually have a commitment to realizing freedom and enlightenment with this person. So it's kind of a lofty word, but Kalyanamitra basically means beneficial or good, and Mitra is friend. So literally it's good or beneficial friend. But it's used in the context, usually in Buddhism anyway, for the relationship which promotes enlightenment. Which promotes freedom from delusion, which promotes perfect wisdom, peace. So that's the way it's used. I was just recently translating some Chinese, and I found this character which was good, and then the next character was a character

[22:19]

for knowledge, and the next character was a character for consciousness. So it's good, literally, and the two character compound knowledge and consciousness means knowledge. So it's good knowledge, is the way it literally looks. But what the word means in the context of Buddhism is good knowledge means a friend who guides you into understanding the Buddha's teaching. But the term is not a friend that guides you on the path of understanding the Buddha's teaching, it's good consciousness and knowledge that means a person who does this for you. So in the scripture, I believe it's Kalyanamitra, and that is one of the most common words for a teacher is good friend. But Kalyanamitra,

[23:22]

which is used as teacher, might not be the word that kids use for each other. They might have another term that kids use for each other, or that adults who are friends use for each other. And they say that term for this most important thing in life, relationship, to use that word Kalyanamitra. It implies reverence, it implies wholeheartedness, it implies devotion, it implies respect, it implies ethics, it implies patience. It's a shorthand term for all the virtues that a human being can cultivate, that relationship. That's why the Buddha says, Ananda said, he was appreciating his friendship with the

[24:23]

Buddha, and he said, well this is like half the practice. He thought that there was another part of the practice in addition to his relationship, which is like enlightenment or something. And Buddha is saying, no, this relationship is the totality, this good friendship is the totality of all the virtues that we can develop together. So that term would not probably be used on the street, like, hey good friend, probably would not use that term. Just like on the street you might not say blessed one to somebody. Thank you for that question. Yes? The following on that, is there a sense of subject-object? That is, you are proving a beneficial friend to me, am I a beneficial friend to you?

[25:24]

Yeah, but formally speaking, people might not say it that way. But that's why I like to also say good friendship. And actually, in the scripture that I'm referring to, the Buddha doesn't say good friend, he says good friendship. And I don't know how they do that. So the first time they go through this discussion, Ananda says good friendship is half, and Buddha says no, good friendship is the entirety. Then after he says that, he says, by relying on me as a good friend, as a good comrade. So first of all it's friendship, and then it's like me as a good friend. So it has both, that's what we're doing together, and also

[26:26]

that you relate to somebody that way. And then you can turn it around to learn to see everybody as bringing you that friendship. But it's also the case that you sort of need somebody to start with. And that somebody you start with is like a particular good friend. Is metta related to Mitra? No, I don't think so. In Sanskrit, the word that's related to metta is Maitri. So I think Maitri is not the same, but they sound similar, Maitri and Mitra. So etymologically there may be a relationship between Maitri and Mitra. But I think Mitra, it means friend. It may be, they do sound similar, Maitri and Mitra.

[27:50]

Someone said to me just a couple of days ago, there's this expression, in this life liberate the body which is the fruit of many lives. And he said, well what about this many lives thing? And I think he said, a lot of times people say, do you have to believe that? Many lives? And he said to me, are we supposed to take that literally? Many lives? At the beginning here too he says, Dogen says, the ancestor says, I vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives. He's not talking about the many lives in the past,

[29:05]

he's talking about many lives in the future. I'm going to keep doing this practice through innumerable lifetimes until everybody hears the Dharma. So are we supposed to believe that? And this person said, are we supposed to take that literally? So I guess what I would say, as a New Year's kind of suggestion, is that everything you hear, you do take literally. That's the way you hear things, you hear them literally. So when you hear a teaching, also yes, take it literally because you do. But I'm not exactly telling you to take it literally, I'm saying you do take it literally. So why don't you just admit that you take things literally, and that's where we start. And where do you take things literally?

[30:08]

In karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness is the realm of literature. It's the realm of words. The place we suffer is the realm of words. The realm of words is not the totality of life. It's the conceivable, limited, heartbreak hotel of life. Life is not the totality of life. Life is not just a heartbreak hotel. Life is infinite. But infinity allows lots of little heartbreak hotels, innumerable heartbreak hotels. And Bodhisattvas vow to say, liberate all heartbreak hotels. But it's hard to practice friendship in a heartbreak hotel. Because not only might you be heartbroken, but some other people heartbroken might be

[31:17]

attacking you constantly. But this particular lifetime is a fruit of many lifetimes, so do you vow to liberate this body? And also do you vow to liberate other people's bodies who are the fruit of many lives? Do you vow to do that? The Zen Master is saying, in this life, he just says, liberate the body. So again, he says, are we supposed to take it literally? I wouldn't say you're supposed to, I'm saying, you do, and now that you do, let's be friends to the literal statement, fruit of many lives. Let's be friendly to that. Let's be friendly

[32:29]

to that. Let's be inspectors of that. Let's investigate that. In other words, let's study whatever comes. Friendship studies whatever and whoever comes. There's nobody that friendship does not study. But of course when I get distracted from friendship, I think, I'm not going to study this person. I've already come to a conclusion about who this is. And that I would say is what we call death. You've come to a conclusion about who this person is. And the conclusion we often come to is the story we're telling about them, rather than, oh, this is my story of her, this is my story of him, and now it's time to investigate this story. That's what I want to do. I want to investigate my story of each of you. And that

[33:38]

is one of the key elements of the friendship that I want to have with you. Does that make sense? I want to be your friends in karmic consciousness and beyond karmic consciousness. But actually I think beyond karmic consciousness I'm already your friend, and beyond karmic consciousness I don't know who you are. I heard a teaching that beyond karmic consciousness you're all infinite. You're all inconceivably good friends of mine, or good friends with me. But in karmic consciousness I see limited versions of you, which is my own story of each one of you. I have this amazing consciousness that can make up stories of each person in detail. It's amazing. And each of these stories are tiny versions of you, tiny versions of

[34:43]

you, and yet extremely complex. Isn't that amazing that we can do that? And I have histories of each one of you. Actually I have histories of everybody in this room, in my karmic consciousness. Some histories are like several thousand pages, some are like six hundred. But I'm being literal right now. I actually have histories of each one of you in my karmic consciousness. If anybody wants me to give you an example, I'll do it. And that's history I have of each one of you is a highly reduced version of who you actually are. I have that in my mind too.

[35:45]

But the history I have, which is a highly reduced version of you, I sometimes think that that's who you are, because I sometimes get distracted from being good friends, which is like, okay, here's this small version of this person, but don't believe it as who they are. Look again and again and investigate. As Suzuki Resshi said, non-discrimination, which is, non-discrimination is perfect wisdom, is not to not discriminate. So as I investigate you, as I meet you and look at you, my mind discriminates. Like, Jane is over there, she's not over here. Jane is not Delfina. Non-discriminating wisdom is not that I stop that, it is that

[36:54]

I study it. It's not that non-discrimination is that you study everything, which means you study discriminations, because without discrimination there are no things. Discrimination makes things out of the infinite. Non-discrimination is not to get caught by that, and the way to not get caught by it, by it means caught by believing your discrimination, is to investigate, study each discrimination. Very simple, study everything that comes. Say thank you for this lesson to study. And then, as I said earlier, this is hard, because the discrimination often seems to like spin us around. So it's hard to study

[37:54]

when you're going to be spun. And as I said here before too, in the introduction to the 18th case of the Book of Serenity, which has the story of a monk asking Jaojo, does a dog have Buddha nature? And that question is asked twice and he gives two different answers. In the introduction to that case, it says, even a highly cultivated person is turned about in the stream of words. And as I mentioned before also, I used to think that even a highly cultivated person is getting turned around by the literal activities of karmic consciousness. But if you get a little bit more cultivated, you don't get turned around anymore. Lately I've been thinking, no, even a person who got more cultivated

[39:02]

than that previous cultivated person would also get turned around. But the cultivated person, they know some things, like for example, they know they're getting turned around. They've heard the teaching say, whether I'm cultivated or not, I'm getting turned around by this. The cultivated person cultivates being turned and not getting distracted while she's being turned. Like the poet who can sing the poem without losing her orientation, which is this poem is about poetry, it's not about me. This poem is about friendship, it's not about you, it's about non-duality. I think it's interesting because I'm sitting here and I'm constantly singing the Toray Bodhisattva vow on the other side. Yeah, on the other side, wow. What's on the other side?

[40:05]

It's very difficult to practice that, but it's a vow. It's a vow, yeah, vows on both sides. Vow on this side, another vow on this side. Vows by two Zen masters. And so you heard the previous vow, the next one we'll do later, but basically he starts off by saying, he says, when I, a student of the Dharma, look at the real form of the universe, all is the never failing manifestation of the Dharma. The mysterious truth of the Tathagata. He's kind of bragging, actually. He's saying, when I, a student, look at the real form, in other words, he's saying, I've seen the real form, I've seen the real form, I've seen the promised land, and when I see it, everything there is the manifestation of the mysterious truth of the Buddhas. How wonderful.

[41:10]

So then everybody that comes is, everything I see is the Buddha's teaching to me. And he also says, I, a student, non-discriminating wisdom is the perfect wisdom of a student. A student of what? Of reality. A student of reality. And then when a student of reality sees the true form of the universe, people might call that person a teacher. But they don't stop studying just because they have seen the true form. They continue to study. Sometimes people ask for characteristics of teachers. I say, one of the characteristics of a Bodhisattva teacher is they're still studying. If you're looking for a Bodhisattva teacher, see if they're still studying. I have been some places, visited some Buddhist

[42:17]

temples, and I've met some people there, and I sometimes say to them, are you a student here? And they sometimes say to me, what? I'm the teacher! I'm the master here! And I say, oh! How do you do? I usually just go that far. I don't usually say, do you have any students here? Is anybody a student here? That I could talk to? So, another thing I was saying over and over last year was, when people were sitting, I

[43:20]

would say to them, do you wish this sitting to express good friendship? I don't say, is this sitting expressing good friendship? I'm not asking your opinion. I'm saying, do you wish this sitting to express good friendship? Or do you vow that this sitting will express good friendship? Do you vow that this day at no abode will express good friendship? Do you wish that? Do you wish this sitting to express perfect wisdom? There's a story that those beings who have expressed perfect wisdom are the beings who have been wishing to express perfect wisdom for a while. And that when people do express

[44:28]

perfect wisdom, at that moment they are expressing it and also wishing to express it at the same time. Some people may wish to express it but somehow feel, because they just got insulted recently, that they can't remember that they used to wish it. And then they remember it and then they say, I confess I got distracted and I'm sorry. And by the power of that, they become able to be consistent. So, from the first time you greet your teacher, just wholeheartedly sit. And wholeheartedly

[45:33]

sit means just wholeheartedly wish that your sitting expresses this good friendship, that this sitting wholeheartedly expresses the way you are supporting everybody and the way everybody is supporting you. So, in karmic consciousness, one can remember, what am I doing here again? Oh, I'm sitting. And how am I sitting? I'm sitting wholeheartedly. And what is wholeheartedly sitting? It is good friendship. This is what I wish to do here. I wish to express, I wish to give myself to

[46:39]

the way, the Buddha way, which is the way I am supporting everybody in the universe and the way everybody is supporting me. And that way is freedom and peace. Q. As you were speaking, the thought that came to me was, to be in that friendship cannot be done in karmic consciousness. It has to be beyond karmic consciousness. It cannot be done in karmic consciousness. However, karmic consciousness is part, your karmic consciousness supports everybody else. But the way your karmic consciousness supports my karmic consciousness is inconceivable. My karmic consciousness, I can say, literally

[47:43]

I can say, your karmic consciousness supports mine. But my karmic consciousness cannot really see how your karmic consciousness supports mine. So the way things appear in karmic consciousness, the way you appear to be helping me, or the way I appear to be helping you, is just a very reduced story about how you are helping me and I am helping you. But that story is not excluded from the process of how we are helping each other. The story is not it. You could say it is beyond that story. But another way to say it is, the actual way that we are friends is free of our stories about our friendship. But our

[48:46]

story is free to be friends. Like I might think, home is my friend. That's not half home. My thought of how you are my friend is not the way you are my friend. It is just one story about how you are my friend. And the next day I have another story. But adding up all my stories still doesn't touch the immensity of how you are my friend. Yes, and to be that friendship is to be in a state that you are free of the story. But not exactly beyond, like excluding beyond. Just free. You include it and don't hold on to it. So that's why the basic practice is, study the stories, don't abide in them. And when you don't abide in the stories and you keep studying them, you open to freedom from

[49:50]

the stories. But the stories are difficult to study and very easy to be reactive to and get disoriented by. What I think I hear you saying is that non-separation is inherently supportive of differences. Non-separation is inherently supportive. Inherent support is non-separation. But I can conceive of separation but I can't conceive of non-separation. You can conceive of separation and you can conceive of non-separation. I can conceive of non-separation. Yes, and you have a word for it. But your conception of non-separation is just a word and your conception of separation is just a word. You are actually free of both separation and non-separation.

[50:51]

When I'm distracted I actually think there's something separating me from something. When you're distracted from the true form of the universe you might actually think that something is separating you from something. When I repent, that separation goes away. Well, it doesn't really go away because it never came. All right, okay. I'll go with that. If it really comes, it doesn't really come. If it really comes then there is separation. But separation doesn't really come. And non-separation doesn't really come. Non-separation doesn't come, but my idea of separation can go. Your idea of separation appears to come and go, but they don't really come and go because coming and going is more ideas. In our actual life together, in our actual friendship, which is part of the hard difficulty

[51:52]

of opening to it, in our actual friendship there's no coming or going. And that's difficult for us because it's inconceivable. It's hard for us to just flat out open up to inconceivability. But it's here. It's actually our life. Our life is actually inconceivable. And the inconceivable life we have does not hinder us having a conceivable version of it. Which we have. And again, in that conceivable realm it's easy to get disoriented from liberation, from that realm. That realm has the keys to liberation in it. The keys to liberation is everything that appears there. And there are keys and the thing is to turn the key. But in order to turn the key you have to study the key. You have to put it in properly.

[52:53]

Figure out which lock. Like I maybe told you, not now so much, but about two years ago my granddaughter was very concerned with putting keys in the lock to her front door. She very much wanted to put the key in. But it's actually quite difficult to put a key in. You have to put it in really straight. You can't put it in and then it's just quite subtle. And then to get it in and turn it, it's like, wow. She's now gone beyond to other topics, but that was really interesting. She had to study a lot. I don't think she can still open it even now. Just last night I was showing her grandmother how to put the key in. Grandmother had a hard time. And I had stories about her grandmother and stories about how her grandmother is related to you. We have amazing consciousnesses

[53:55]

and they're offering us great opportunities for study and liberation. If we're really kind to this limited realm, we will become free of it. We have all kinds of teachings about how kindness works. So I'm starting out this year like this with you and also at Green Gulch we're having an intensive. And the topic of the intensive is Avalokiteshvara's Perfect Wisdom. I'm talking to you about Avalokiteshvara's Perfect Wisdom, even though I didn't tell you before. Avalokiteshvara's Perfect Wisdom Thank you for giving your life as much as you can to good friendship. Thank you for giving your life as much as you can to perfect wisdom.

[54:59]

We are such inconceivable blessings. Avalokiteshvara's Perfect Wisdom May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[56:11]

So, please have lunch now, if you want to.

[56:20]

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