Spiritual Friendship

I love stories about Ananda, who was the Buddha's cousin and, in modern terms, his executive assistant. They say he had a photographic memory, and was asked by the community to be the Buddha's right hand man so that all of the Buddha's words could be remembered. 

He seems to have been a wonderful foil for the Buddha as well. Whereas the Buddha is described in the sutras as happy and cool as a cucumber, Ananda was very sentimental and full of longing and passion. A lot of teachings emerged from conversations between these two men, who, over decades spent together rambling along the dusty roads of India, became, it seems, as thick as thieves. 

One day, Ananda walked into the hut the Buddha was staying in and bowed and sat down and said, "This is half of the entire holy life, lord: admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie!" (Uppadha Sutra)

I imagine it was a beautiful evening. They were staying then among the Sakya, a little nation that the Buddha belonged to - a people he had been destined to rule as king, had he not renounced his throne and departed on his spiritual quest. And Ananda was probably to be a prince among the Sakya - but there they were, both very happy, it appears, despite having just a few possessions each. 

Perhaps the moon was full and shining very brightly. Perhaps a light warm breeze danced happily around and juggled lovely scents and rustled in the nearby mango grove. 

I imagine that Ananda said what he said moved by joy (he was known to be extremely joyful) and wanting to rejoice in his friendships with his cousin Siddhartha and the other monks and laypeople that surrounded the Buddha. 

The Buddha said, "Don't say that, Ananda, don't say that." 

He continued, "Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life."

Time and again, throughout his journeys and his teachings, the Buddha stressed the primary importance of friendship with good people. 

The Sambodhi Sutra, for instance, relates that, on another occasion, the Buddha was staying by the town of Savatthi, at a park given to the Sangha by a prince named Jeta and the merchant Anathapindika. He asked the monks who had assembled to hear him teach, "If wanderers who are members of other sects should ask you, 'What, friend, are the prerequisites for unfolding the wings of awakening?' how would you answer them?" As he taught his community how to answer such questions from followers of other paths, the very first thing he asked to be shared is that his road was to be walked as part of a community of spiritual friends, of people seeking virtue and wisdom together. 

And in the Ituvuttaka Sutra, the Buddha taught that he does not perceive any external factor as vital to spiritual awakening as the company of admirable friends along the way. 

This emphasis that the Buddha placed on friendship is especially important today, two and a half millennia later, when loneliness and alienation ravage our land like terrible and ever-growing plagues. 

The market conspires to keep us lonely. When we are lonely, we thirst. And the knick-knacks of the market briefly slake that thirst, even as they dehydrate us further, making us reach for more and more knick-knacks in an ever deepening spiral, descending down, down and further down towards hell - a poetic way of describing the literal increase of the temperatures upon this jewel we call the earth, resulting in the heat-induced death of everything we love. This nightmare is not far off, if we allow it. And so, it’s very important that we fight against this outcome. And it’s very important that we do so together. 

We must fight to link hands in friendship. So that we may be deeply and spiritually satisfied. So that our thirst may be quenched with the water of life. So that the balance of this beautiful creation we inhabit is preserved. Through creating inner harmony and peace within, we can attain outer harmony and peace everywhere. 

In 2019, at the yearly New York City psychedelic symposium called Horizons, a Navajo elder and healer, Steven Benally, spoke about the sacramental use of peyote in the culture of his nation. I was struck by the images of people he showed us on the big screen behind him. There were pictures of children and grandparents picking the psychoactive buttons of this sacred plant, of groups of friends, of people gathered in community, for ceremony and laughter, to eat together, to sing and talk and dance and cry and do whatever it is that people do when they share time and space and love. 

There were many words he shared that stayed with me. Some of them, and I am quoting from memory, were these: "Remember that the medicine is inside of the people."

It is not enough to take communion with these sacred plants. It is not enough to study the Dharma in hermetic solitude. 

We need friendship. We need community. They are an indispensable part of this ancient road. 

Let's come together then and surround ourselves with good spiritual friends. Then we will have the strength to build the beautiful world that the part of our being that moves to music knows is possible. Having come together around the joyful fire of friendship, our days will have melody and light and the freedom of the whirling dance, in time to the heartbeat of nature, in rhythm to her sweet and loving symphony that makes all things everywhere flower and blossom and shine.