Friendship: The Whole of the Spiritual Life

The description for the brief April 20th Insight Timer live event with the same title as this blog post was a sutta snippet:

Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, “This is half of the holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie “Don’t say that, Ananda. Don’t say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life…

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn45/sn45.002.than.html

Some (rough) notes:

• talk prompted by insight timer back and forth about friending limitations (for teachers)
• best advice I’ve been given
• past talk “how to find (meditation) teachers”
• can teachers and parents be friends?
• buddha asked about family members ordaining and he abandoned wife who was soon expecting child
• not fond of “spiritual” & “holy” and what about “lord”
• what is “the holy life”? . . . beyond the base program
• why are friends so important? support, encouragement, empowerment, and for me: conduct, respect
• regular friendships can be transactional
• what is a good friend at any stage?

• Characteristics of a good friend (from AN 7:35):
  • gives what is hard to give
  • does what is hard to do
  • endures what is hard to endure
  • reveals secrets to you
  • keeps your secrets
  • does not abandon you in misfortunes
  • when you are down and out, does not look down on you

• call up after 5 years and like no time has passed
• friends dropping away making way for new friends
• insight timer great online platform
• my “don’t associate with fools” talk
• interactions, acquaintances, and “double awareness”

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Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)

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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:

wholeness and welcome

friends

students listeners

josh templed integrating presence this

brief event

entitled friendship the whole of the

spiritual life

and the description

venerable ananda said to the blessed one

this is half of the holy life lord

admirable friendship admirable

companionship

admirable camaraderie don’t say that

ananda don’t say that said the buddha

admirable friendship admirable

companionship admirable camaraderie is

actually the whole

of the holy life and that’s from

sn45 and when i first heard that i was

like wait what

all this spiritual knowledge all these

practices

these attainments these teachings this

wisdom this vast love and friendship

it’s all that’s it that’s the entirety

of it friend what’s that all about

and so we’ll get into that

and one thing though up front here

before i forget

it also ties into relationship with

friendship right and we’re in relation

to everything

so this was actually prompted this talk

by a kind of back and forth with insight

timer

staff i guess

about friending on the platform and no i

was like without going into too many

details

can teachers friend people know they

have to have followers well how do you

build your follower base and if there’s

a special profile for a teacher versus

just a regular profile and can teachers

have the regular profile it seems like

some of them do some of them don’t

in buying into all these things of oh

we’ve got to have followers and friends

to grow a following and if you can’t

invite so many people

which there’s a limitation for a while

and now it seems to be back off

in general and then in live events with

teachers and yada yada yada on and on

and i’m just like wait stop what what’s

going on here

and this was actually a great prompting

for friendship and how important it is

and then remembering this passage

i’ve mentioned this before that some of

the best advice i’ve ever been given was

find a teacher teachers you can really

resonate and learn from and

i gave a talk on that how to find a

meditation teacher

also assist spiritual teachers in

general and also

find friends on the path find spiritual

companions so can teachers and parents

be friends too i don’t want to say too

much on that to color people’s opinions

i would say they can be

but i don’t think it’s

the

most common so even the buddha

the buddha was asked by family members

of those who ordained and you can look

these up too and how i responded i’m

drawing kind of blanks on

how he responded to this but they had

concerns about people leaving the

lay life and going off and donning robes

in a bowl you know it’s kind of a

extreme example compared to today in the

west when we don’t have to go through

such extremes to do that but they they

question him about that a lot and he

himself even abandoned

his wife who was soon expecting a child

so some of these things it’s kind of a

almost a metaphor today

in some instances i would say

of people this being interested in stuff

and going on here and on this platform

of insight timer wisdom map 2

although not to the degree i guess it

once was it’s gaining more popularity

thankfully that first passage i read

i’m really not fond of these terms

spiritual which was in my title

our holy the holy life

and they call the buddha lord right i

mean that just seems that’s reserved for

like

comedy and sci-fi and things when you

refer to someone as lord

or it very pious if you’re in a

christian tradition so that’s i don’t

know it’s an interesting term

i don’t really know what to make of it

or if it should be changed or what it

just kind of sticks out like a sore

thumb sometimes i guess so what is this

meant though by holy life i would say

anything beyond the base program the

base program is like okay

house

kids

car

work sleep eat repeat kind of thing okay

you can go for entertainment you’ve got

sports and tv

you’ve got outlets like bars and alcohol

shopping

sometimes travel

certain

social activities if you’re lucky and

then you know repeat rinse wash repeat

sometimes not rinse or wash there’s no

value judgment in that it’s just that

some people are looking to go beyond

those prescribed programs in life not

wanting to settle for oh well that’s it

why are friends so important in this

holy life or this

going beyond the base program well i

would say support just like in a regular

friendship encouragement and empowerment

too

and for me

it’s to help me with my own conduct and

respect sometimes those have been a

challenge in the past now regular

friendships can be kind of transactional

i would say like i do this for you and

then i expect you to do this back for me

i spend so much time

with you doing this so then you’re gonna

spend so much time with me when i want

you to do that

it’s okay

but can we go beyond that is that all

there is to it i would say obviously no

especially on a spiritual path

so what is a good friend at any stage

sometimes that might be very

called for a certain stage of our

journey to relate to friends that way

well the buddha put it like this this is

from

an 735 the characteristics of a good

friend and this is just my list of it

not reading verbatim

a good friend gives what is hard to give

does what is hard to do

endures what is hard to endure reveals

secrets to you keeps your secrets

does not abandon you in misfortunes when

you are down and out does not look down

on you very wise words i feel

so for me

the few friends that i have now on the

spiritual journey i can feel i can call

up like after five years of not talking

to them at all and it would be almost

like no time had passed and there would

be an enthusiasm

for both what we’re into and studying

and practicing and relating and just

spiritual life in general right

okay i don’t know if anybody else has

experienced this

but when i first started i guess waking

up

it’s kind of cliche term now

it seemed like a lot of old friends were

falling away and sometimes like it was

disheartening but at the same time it

gave space for new friends

to come along on the path to meet new

and beautiful people

even in traditional friendships or

before getting into this stuff another

common thread was

mutual interest in certain topics

compatibility too and so with this old

friends

dying away new gaining new friends it’s

not as big a deal even just a few years

ago before this insight timer platform

because now you can connect with all

kinds of people who are interested in

the same type of things and get support

from teachers

groups practices

you know even logging progress and

whatnot but this is an online platform

so it’s different than in real life in

the flesh face to face with someone

practicing talking studying

relating

activities even

witnessing things beyond the screen too

but it’s a good place to start i don’t

feel it is something to

reserve just for online activity

although if that’s your only option or

only interest at this point that’s good

too

also give a talk on don’t associate with

fools

this will

progressively i guess become more

apparent

the

downside of

a lack of benefits of being with fools

associating with fools and this is a

challenge kind of got engrossed by just

silly behavior and i talked about this

and that talk don’t associate with fools

no need to rehash it now once we’re kind

of in this holy life we’re going beyond

the base program

we can still obviously have interactions

in daily life i know it was challenging

for me

for a while

because i was falling into this trap of

all these people aren’t conscious

why don’t they see anything why don’t

they know anything the level of

consciousness is so low

so horrible being in a low vibe why

don’t they just wake up are they so

stupid and then i realize wait innocence

in

low consciousness is not really the same

thing i could connect with their

innocence instead of

thinking oh this three-year-old

should be able to be doing calculus

and you’re stupid because you can’t do

calculus when you’re three years old or

third grade or whatever you want to say

that helped a lot and of course we can

still have acquaintances and polite

interactions there’s this other method

called the double awareness you still

can relate to people

in everyday life in the base program

just the way pretty much

you always have in a way but being

informed by a higher level of awareness

and being able to

go into

deeper wiser spiritual teachings that

might not always

apply to everyday life sometimes they do

and both can inform each other and

whatnot so with that i’ll bring this to

a close unless anyone has any questions

or like to share anything

may you all be blessed with

wise spiritual companions

and may friendship lead guide and

sustain your way