friendship

There is a secret quality of friendship that is very close to enlightenment. Friendship is a state of freedom—you don’t want each other to be different. You and everything you touch share the same heart mind. Deep friendship has a long arc. Buddha realized that Mara would miss him if he left. Recorded August 14, 2022.

We think about getting to that perfect destination, but it is the journey itself that is it. A lightness in our path comes of each step we take into eternity. Music from Michael Wilding, Amaryllis Fletcher & Jordan McConnell. February 20, 2022.

John Tarrant on friendship and the kindness at the heart of things. Mazu’s “The whole meaning of your life is in the current matter.” This very heart mind is it! The sweetness, and even the gnarly bits of friendship are part of the intimacy at the center of meeting. Zen is about meeting—we make friends with each koan and allow the universe to work with and through us. Jordan McConnell on guitar. Complete Sunday Zen session recorded January 31, 2021.

Michael Wilding offers his original musical response in the Meditation and Talk on January 31, 2021. Audio excerpt from the Sunday session, PZI Zen Online. 4 minutes.

On friendship—two old friends on Tortoise Mountain are snowed in. One wakes up and so does the Mountain. Audio excerpt as recorded January 31 2021, PZI Zen Online. 7 minutes.

Zen is about meetings, the courage to meet and be a friend. Even the gnarly bits of friendship are part of it, the mystery of connection. You don’t have to be good at love—better to be in it. In the field of connectedness we discover things we can’t discover on our own. Audio excerpt from Sunday Zen with John Tarrant, Handing Things on in the Dark, PZI Zen Online. As recorded January 31, 2021. 18 minutes.

John Tarrant on friendship. Moments of intimacy that last forever. Savoring Vermeer’s paintings of domestic life. Poems by Marie Howe, Symborska. How we interact with friends, from the heart. We don’t have to be anything other than what we are. PZI Zen Online. As recorded Sunday Jan 24, 2021.

PZI Zen Online: On friendship with the world—koans, trees, people. How we interact with friends, from the heart. They listen and we don’t have to make them anything other than what they are. Stories of Mr. Woods and other friends, making a friend of your koan in practice. As recorded Sunday Jan 24 2021. 7 minutes.

PZI Zen Online: On friendship. As recorded Sunday Jan 24 2021. 12 minutes.

On encouraging friendship with the world—koans, trees, people. How we interact with friends, from the heart. We listen to each other. We don’t have to make them anything other than what they are. Poems, stories, comments. Complete session as recorded Jan 24, 2021, PZI Zen Online.

PZI Zen Online: We are in the midst of great civil unrest around racism and the institutions that support it. Li Bai, Du Fu, Dalung & Primo Levi speak about what remains, what lives, what holds us in the universe—even as we feel most perishable, sad, defeated. The light is still there in all things even without a foundation to stand on. As recorded June 14 2020.