Friends along the Way

Last week, I received a wonderful email from Clive Lindley-Jones, who attended the one-day retreat last month. In it, he referred to some of the qualities of the StoneWater sangha that I have long treasured - warmth, openness and kindness.

Keizan Sensei insists on the basic goodness of human beings, and it's been wonderful over the years to see this basic goodness manifesting in the StoneWater group. I always worried slightly that perhaps it was a fluke - that just by chance the few Zen groups I've had any prolonged contact with have all been welcoming and warm: most especially StoneWater, where the sense of sangha, community, friendship is palpable. And as a consequence, I worried too that in starting the Northampton group, my own shortcomings might end up meaning that the group ends up lacking those things.

How self-centered of me! I've been so grateful to the Northampton group for continuing the fluke, for manifesting that basic goodness here, too.

Clive attached an article to his email from Lion's Roar. It's a piece called, "Friends along the Way" by Zoketsu Norman Fischer (a wonderful teacher whose talks and writings are always well worth taking time over), and I want to beg your indulgence and reproduce the opening paragraphs of that article here.

The Quakers with whom I have contact about renting space etc often end their emails, "In Friendship" - and that's how I offer this to you!

Friends along the Way
Zoketsu Norman Fischer
Lion's Roar - May 2016

Once the Buddha's disciple Ananda asked him about friendship. Ananda knew that having good and encouraging friends was very important for the path. He even wondered whether having good friends was half the path.

"No, Ananda," the Buddha told him, "having good friends is the whole of the Holy Life."
The Meghiya Sutta is my favourite Pali text about friendship. It tells the story of the eager young monk Meghiya, who wanted to practice meditation alone in an especially peaceful and beautiful mango grove. But Meghiya's meditation was anything but peaceful and beautiful. To his shock, he found his mind a snarl of malicious, lustful and confused thoughts – probably because his practice was too self-involved. When Meghiya rushed back to report his confusing experience, Buddha was not surprised. He took the opportunity t give Meghiya what his must have hoped was a relevant teaching.

"Five things induce release of hear and lasting peace," the Buddha told him. "First, a lovely intimacy with good friends. Second, virtuous conduct. Third, frequent conversation that inspires and encourages practice. Fourth, diligence, energy and enthusiasm for the good. And fifth, insight into impermanence."

Then, for Meghiya's further benefit, and to cement the point, the Buddha goes through the list again, this time preceding each of the other items with the first: "When there is a lovely intimacy between friends, then this is virtuous conduct," et cetera. In other words, friendship is the most important element in the spiritual path. Everything flows naturally from it.

I appreciate the truth and beauty of this teaching more and more as the years go by. To be able to practice with good friends for five, ten, twenty, thirty of forty years is a special joy.  So much comes of it. As you ripen and age, you appreciate the nobility and uniqueness of each friend, the twists and turns of each life, and the gift each day has given you. After a while you begin attending the funerals of your dearest friends, and each loss seems to increase the gravity and preciousness of your own life and makes the remaining friendship even more important.

When long friendships with good people along the path of spiritual practice is a central feature of your life, it is almost impossible – just as the Buddha says – for spiritual qualities conducive to awakening not to ripen. For those on the bodhisattva path, loving and appreciating your friends, even when they are difficult, as they sometimes are, is the path's fullness and completion. Friendship ripens and deepens our capacity for compassion.