This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody. Wow, I see some people that I haven't seen for a while. So welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple on this fine, sunny Pride Day. Are any of you here for the first time? So welcome, particularly to those who are here for the first time. It's a big thing to come here. I hear it's very intimidating to come through those front doors. So thank you for your courage. And for people that are watching this live streamed, thank you for your curiosity about... this temple and about who we are and about some of the things that we talk about.

[01:07]

So welcome to you. My name is Mary. I live and work in this temple. I have for a few years and I am a Soto Zen priest in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi and that's why I get to wear this fabulous getup. I kind of feel that if I were to stroll down the Castro today or sometime this weekend, nobody would even bat an eye. So I thank you, Rosalie, for the invitation to talk today during Pride. I'd like to begin... by mentioning and recognizing the landmark decision that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The ruling makes same-sex marriage a right nationwide.

[02:10]

And yesterday, a fellow resident and priest told us at work meeting about this decision and read the final paragraph of Justice Kennedy's summation, and I'd like to read that to you today. No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves.

[03:15]

Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them this right. And he ended with the statement, I imagine this is a Supreme Court stamp. It is so ordered. And the piece of this statement that I want to read again and that I want to sort of talk about today is they ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. So the idea of equal dignity is something that rattles around in my body and mind and has for my entire life. And if you'll indulge me, I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself in relation to the idea of equal dignity.

[04:25]

When I was six years old, I asked for a toolbox for Christmas. My parents shrugged and said, okay. When I was seven, I asked my father if he would show me the knot for how to tie a necktie. And he said, okay. And I proceeded to start wearing his neckties to school. And sometimes if it was a really special day, I'd reach into his top drawer and grab one of my grandfather's very expensive pocket watches. and I'd take those to school. And this kind of proceeded through my life. Lots of pairs of overalls, very short hair, an attraction to men's or boys' things and clothing. And through it all, I would say my parents... I think my mom was... I had three older sisters, and she was used to having daughters, and she sort of thought she knew how to do that.

[05:32]

So I was a bit of a mystery to her because I see pictures of myself as a young child with my elder sisters hand-me-down dresses and tights and shoes and hats and the things that girls wear, and it always kind of makes me itch. So they... They were, I think, slightly mystified, but completely willing, let's say. When I was 18, I remember going home, because I was living away by that point, and I very nervously said to my parents, who I don't think I'd ever had a nervous conversation with before, I said, I have to talk to you, too, about something. And they said, okay. And I said to them across the dinner table, I'm a lesbian.

[06:41]

And my mom, with this sort of radiant smile, looked at me and said, oh, Mary, we're not surprised. And I, of course, burst into tears because I... knew of many people who had had exactly the same conversation and who had received very, very different responses. And my mom said to me, let's have a cup of tea. Because in our family, there was no event or celebration that wasn't started without having tea first. And... As a result of that conversation, I felt that they supported me and I was allowed to go figure this thing out. And I had purposely told them before I became involved with a woman because I wanted them to be part of my life.

[07:45]

And up until that point, they had been. And I was secure enough in my relationship with them to realize that this was just part of the deal, that they were with me and I was with them and we would figure it out. And so for the next couple of years, I didn't actually spend a lot of time at home because I was really busy trying to figure out this thing which is being queer. But every once in a while I would get a letter and with my parents' return address on the outside, I would open it up and there would be an article cut out very carefully from a newspaper that had something to do with being queer. And in the bottom corner, it always just said, love mom and dad. And in my family, that was the stamp of approval. We didn't really need to talk about it anymore. In fact, we didn't really talk about it so much. But I just knew...

[08:47]

that they were completely supportive of my life. And then when I was early 30s, so my family knew too. I talked to my siblings about it. In my early 30s, my eldest sister approached me one day, and she said to me, Mary, if you pray hard enough, your sickness will be taken from you. And I looked at her and I said, I actually feel pretty good. And she said, you know what I'm talking about. And I said, I actually don't. I don't know what you're talking about. And she said, you know that thing you do with women. And I don't remember much about the specifics of the rest of the conversation.

[09:53]

But I do remember feeling this kind of deep body shock that how I was living my life was objectionable to someone else. because that had not been my experience exactly, my personal experience. My sister was walking down a path of increasingly fundamentalist Christian ideas, and as she continued to walk down that path, I was forbidden to see her children or to spend any time with them because... I might pass the sickness I carried to them. And this was, I think this caused in me certainly a lot of hurt.

[11:02]

But there's this feeling I carry now, which is my parents support their belief, their respect in me. my evolving respect for myself and the way I was living through my teens and twenties, which was then offset by my sister's inability to acknowledge me as a human. And that was a very fruitful dialogue in me, actually. My sister My sister's actions were interesting rather than crushing, I would say. And the interesting thing about my life, and I'm 53, is that society was going through changes very quickly in this period of time.

[12:07]

So in Edmonton, when I first came out in the very early 80s, or late 70s, they had a pride parade. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. So the fact of being queer in Edmonton at that time, which is a very conservative place in the world, was that if somebody found out that you were queer, you could lose your job like that, or your apartment, or I guess those are the big things. Livelihood and residence. So marching in the gay parade, pride parade, meant that people would go to the beginning of the parade. There were like, you know, 20 people. And everybody who was there would march. And each year it got a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. And I think that this...

[13:10]

this feeling of societal acceptance has, as I said, been a part of my life. I lived in Germany for a couple of years, and I went to the Pride Parade in Köln, Germany. And it was... I don't know if it's as big as San Francisco's, but it's big. It's big, and people from all over Europe go there. And then... In 2003, in Canada, there was this change in society where provinces started legalizing same-sex marriage. And then in 2005, there was a ruling saying it was a federal... I just want to get the words right. In the House of Commons, they passed the Civil Marriage Act, which provided a gender-neutral definition for marriage. So this was in 2005.

[14:11]

And right after that, a number of my friends who had been in long-term relationships got married. A bunch of people. And I remember hearing about that ruling, and for me, a rightness appeared in my body. Something in my body cellular structure aligned in my body because I felt that society was aligning with something in me. And when I heard the decision yesterday, I feel that that same rightness happened. And there wasn't a lot of cheering at the work meeting, but I think there was this feeling of... is great. And relief that there is this idea that equal dignity applies to all.

[15:26]

President Obama said yesterday, Americans should be very proud because small acts of courage are slowly made an entire country realize that love is love. And so there is this work that is going on around me that supports who I am. And then the other piece that is... Perhaps more important for me is the inner work that has been going on as a result of my practice as a Buddhist. So this morning I was sitting, I got up this morning, and I went into the zendo, and I sat facing a wall. And for those of you who have not been here before, this is the thing we do here.

[16:32]

We get up in the morning and we go downstairs and we turn to a blank wall and we're quiet for a while. And I have found nothing else in my life that allows for me as a person to meet myself so effectively. And what arises out of that is it's very hard to describe because I think everybody's experience is a little bit the same because we're all humans and a little bit different because we're all individuals. But that ground that those moments of quiet have allowed me over the past... I started meditating about 16 years ago.

[17:43]

They've allowed me to untangle the complexities of my humanity. And that sounds pretty lofty, but what's happening for me in meditation is not at all lofty. It's me allowing my mind, which is one of my many blessings, to relax, allowing me to breathe, allowing me to realize that the air I'm breathing is the same air that Lydia, who sits beside me, is breathing, is the same air that... my father's breathing in Nova Scotia is the same air that somebody is breathing in Afghanistan, in India, in Africa.

[18:48]

And that in all the moments of my life, things that are very complex, because life is very complicated, can just be set aside. Not that I don't have to go back and pay attention to them, but that there are these moments where I have nothing to do but breathe. And this is very unusual, I think. I remember I was sitting in a Dharma talk once and this woman said, you know, we're actually humans being. We're not humans doing. And we're busy people. We have busy lives and many, many concerns.

[19:51]

So to give myself the gift of stopping for a few moments a day sheds light on who I am or allows me to actually face and be able to stand who I am. So I think I have been lucky as a lesbian totally fortunate to have been born in 1962. And to have seen the way that society is able to change when there is a light shone on issues that need changing. And it gives me a great deal of hope, actually, that when something is really

[21:03]

attended to, societal changes can happen. And it encourages me that when I identify something in me that really needs attention, that there is this possibility and hope and promise even that changes can be made. And I have confidence now, after sitting a few years, that those changes will not happen tomorrow. They will not happen in a few weeks, and probably they won't even happen in a few years. But if I attend to my life, notice things that hurt, notice when I'm hurting others, if I can slow down that, I feel a great deal of hope and confidence that the changes that I feel I'd like to make are possible.

[22:07]

So there is this idea that the individual work that I'm attending to right now is being supported by the external messaging that's going on in some parts of society. And I say some parts of society because I think mostly the messaging that we're getting from the world is buy a lot of things. If you go to a workshop, it'll change your life tomorrow. That... I think there's a lot of messages that come back to me that are framed kind of like you're not good enough. And I do think that in the quiet of zazen or seated meditation, that idea of am I good enough can be examined very openly, maybe.

[23:32]

And I can see... Do I really believe that? Do I really believe that I'm not good enough? Do I believe my sister who says that this thing that I am is a disease? Or do I believe my parents or self that says, This is a gift. And I can slowly make my way through that conversation because it's difficult, often kind of painful for me. And I, as I said, am supported in this work

[24:34]

as a Buddhist, because my deep belief is that one of the last teachings the Buddha gave was to be a light unto yourself. I think it's a freedom, that freedom to believe that my exploration of myself and my world is I have a right to do it. I have a right to believe what I believe. I have a right to change what I believe. I have a right to think about that. I think those are all things that this practice encourages. And that's, again, hopeful for me.

[25:38]

I don't think I've ever had somebody say, as a Buddhist, you have to believe this. I think I've been told, why don't you read this and think about it? Why don't you read this and we'll talk about it? Why don't you do this thing we do called service every morning? see how it feels in your body, and then we'll have a conversation about it. And somehow for the way I grew up, this being able to sort of check into things, check them out, have a reaction to them, or an acceptance of them, in my own way and own pace, is very healthy for me. I'm deeply engaged in this work of living my life and learning what that means and I'm I must say it's

[27:04]

it's impossible for me to separate who I am from being a lesbian. And I think that's one of the reasons why my sister's opinion of me is so difficult, because she thinks that it was a choice I made, a very poor choice, that I made somewhere along the way. And therefore, it can be removed. And my experience is that this wasn't a choice. It's part of the package of Mary. And I can't imagine it any other way, actually. So... Having the ruling yesterday, where Justice Kennedy said, or wrote, they ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law, feels, as I said at the beginning, right.

[28:25]

That there's a rightness. And I appreciate there are many people, including somebody that I love, that don't believe that to be true. And that's something that I will continue to look at and work with for the rest of my life, probably. And I still love her. So, I think... The final thing I wanted to say was I looked up the word pride a number of ways this week. And one of the things that generally comes in conjunction with the word pride is the idea or the word self-respect. And I just want to say that there are a lot of people that think that when we use the pride, the name pride for these parades,

[29:33]

what we're really thinking of is being proud. That we're putting ourselves above other people. That we are doing this thing which in our society is very looked down upon, which is carrying ourselves with a proudness above other people. But I think... what the idea of pride is for me anyway, is that as a queer person, I respect myself, and I respect other people, and I'm willing to be engaged in the tension that causes sometimes for people. And the other thing I thought was interesting that they call a group of lions a pride, and it's considered a family grouping.

[30:40]

So a family grouping of lions is a pride, and there is a way in which it has been my experience that I, even with other queer people that I've never met before, we are family. Through shared experiences, through the feeling that we are not worthy of respect, or that we're somehow less. And that bonding has been a big part in my life, and I'm very grateful for it. So when I go to the Castro, see other people who are queer, I think of them as family. And if you would have said to me about seven years ago that I would be living in San Francisco, I would have told you you were crazy because it just wasn't part of my thinking of myself

[32:00]

that I would live in a place that is so openly willing to embrace queer people. And I don't think about it so much anymore, which is really strange. My partner and I walked down the street holding hands. I remember the first time I did that coming from Canada, and I was terrified that somebody would beat me up. So in this body-mind, change has happened. And I'm so very grateful for that, and I'm so very grateful for the ruling yesterday that allows for us to express ourselves in marriage. I think that's about enough.

[33:05]

So thank you all for your kind attention and I hope you have a wonderful, fabulous weekend. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[33:39]

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