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. And happy Pride weekend. My name is Tova Green, and I'm... both honored and very delighted to be giving the talk this morning. I would like to thank Rosalie Curtis-Vitanto for inviting me, and also my teacher, Agent Linda Cutts, for her support and inspiration. So I want to say first that this talk is what... Sometimes it's called a dependent co-arising. That is, it is happening because you're all here.

[01:04]

I am part of this constellation. And the context is also important that it's Pride Weekend in San Francisco. And this is the seventh year that San Francisco Zen Center is has acknowledged Pride Weekend by having a contingent in the parade, which we will be doing tomorrow, and having a talk related to LGBTIQ pride. So my topic today is how we're both interconnected, and unique, and where pride fits in with that picture of interconnectedness and uniqueness.

[02:08]

And I'm calling the talk All Together Now. And that, of course, is the title of the Beatles song. It came to mind because we had a celebration or a weekend at Tassajara in May where there's a t-shirt contest. And the winning design this year, I want to show you, it has the words all together now looking like stars in the sky. It's a midnight blue t-shirt for those of you who may be watching this from afar. And the stars spell out all together now. And it reminds me of how when we look at the sky, sometimes through a telescope we may be able to see the individual stars, but the stars are all parts of constellations and galaxies, and together they make up what we see in the night sky.

[03:21]

So I found that t-shirt very relevant for the theme today. So in order to maybe say a little bit about where, I think for each of us who gives a talk, we bring to it our life experience, our study of the Dharma, and our unique presence although the teachings of the Buddha are the same for all of us. So I thought I would tell you just a little bit about my relationship to this theme today and give you a sense of the perspective from which I'm viewing maybe the importance of celebrating pride. And I realized, thinking about this, that if someone who was in their 20s or 30s were sitting here today, the talk would be very different.

[04:34]

So I was born in 1940 in New York, the oldest of three girls. My parents were secular Jews. Second generation, my grandparents all immigrated from Russia and Poland. And my dad worked nights in the post office and mornings. He had a part-time job at Macy's. And I grew up really being encouraged to study, to learn, to do well in school, to set a good example for my sisters. And I did my best to do what my parents requested. And in high school, I realized that there was something about me that was a little different from some of my friends.

[05:40]

I was not very interested in boys and dating. I had crushes on girlfriends and on my camp counselor. And... Not so unusual, I think. But nobody was talking about being gay or lesbian in those days. So I was in high school in the 50s, and I had my first relationship with a woman when I was 20. And again, there wasn't anyone I knew who I could talk to about it. So there was a lot of secrecy. And then later in my 20s, I was in Boston, my first job after college, working in a mental health clinic. And I came upon the diagnosis character disorder, homosexual.

[06:45]

I found it extremely upsetting. Did that mean there was something wrong with me? And still then, I didn't know anyone I could talk to about it. So in addition to the secrecy, there was a lot of shame. And it was... There were other messages that I got from therapists and the mental health system as I went on. I went to social work school that... continued to leave a mark, you might say, of not feeling totally good about who I was. And it wasn't until the 70s when the gay pride movement began and there were women's concerts and bookstores and newspapers and a women's community in Boston that I became connected to. And I also found a therapist who said, oh, I've had feelings like that too.

[07:49]

Instead of, you should, you know, you'll be cured when you are in a stable relationship with a man, which was the message I got from my first therapist. So times changed, and I can remember in the 70s walking in the Pride Parade in Boston for the first time and feeling... an incredible sense of elation walking down the street with so many different groups. And I especially remember a group called Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. I have a friend. I had a friend then whose daughter was a lesbian, and she was marching in the parade. And there were also couples... gay and lesbian couples with children marching in the parade and people cheering on the streets and the bells of the Arlington Street Church ringing as we went by.

[08:53]

It was a wonderful contradiction to all of the difficulty I had had about my own sexual orientation. So I realized in preparing for the talk this week, I was extremely anxious about And I didn't quite know why. I think giving a talk is anxiety-producing for many of us, but it was more than usual. And I was fortunate that I had the opportunity of talking with my teacher this week. And she said, could it be about the topic... Well, yeah, it could be about the topic. And then I remembered at the beginning of this month in June, I was at Tassajara with an LGBT study group.

[10:01]

We called it Warm Hand to Warm Hand. That's a phrase from one of Suzuki Roshi's talks. And I made an announcement at Work Circle. For those of you who aren't familiar with how we do things at Tassajara or here, at the beginning of every day, the whole community gathers and we have a work circle where announcements are made. And I invited the Tassajara community, anyone who wanted to, to join our study group that night. And I said, please come to the Warm Hand to Warm Hand study group. I did not say, please come to the LGBT study group. And someone in the community who was a gay man raised his hand and said, did you mean the LGBT study group? And I realized I was embarrassed to say it was the LGBT study group. Why? You know, why was that? And why was I so nervous? I think it's traces of my early experience of being secret and...

[11:08]

ashamed of fully being who I am. So now I've told you, and it's a lot easier. And I also realized I, you know, I think I feel very at home at Zen Center. I've been a resident for 16 years, and I feel very supported in my as a lesbian. Seven years ago, or maybe it was six, after the first time we marched in the parade, Daigon Gaither, who's a resident, and I started a queer dharma study group, meets once a month, and it's been meeting for six years. And people know about my identity, and yet it still feels different to be sitting here talking about this in a group Many of you I know, but some of you I don't know, and you may be seeing me for the first time.

[12:14]

So that's what I wanted to share as part of the context of how things have changed. I do want to talk a little bit about how things have changed, and I'll get to that later. I also want to go back then to talking about pride, because in Buddhist teachings, pride is not very highly thought of. We say in the loving-kindness meditation, this is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise and seeks the good, who is without pride, easily contented and joyous. So without pride. And so I looked up the dictionary definition of pride, and there are several meanings.

[13:18]

One is a sense of one's own proper dignity or value and self-respect. Second one, pleasure or satisfaction taken in an achievement, a possession, or an association. But it can also mean arrogance or disdainful conduct or treatment, haughtiness. And I think that's the aspect of pride that is really inconsistent with Buddhist practice and an understanding that we are all interconnected, that one of the reasons why we practice is to be a benefit to all beings. So we take into account... that interconnectedness when we think about what we say and how we act in relation to others. And there's also in our Zen practice a lot of respect for ancestors and for our teachers, and a lot of humility about how little we actually know.

[14:28]

I think no matter how long we've been practicing, there's always more to learn. and always more to appreciate our place in the family of things. It's a line from Mary Oliver's Wild Geese. It's both we have a place, but our place is just our place. The family of beings and things is enormous, just like the starry sky. And so... I think that helps to get through. I think it's possible to embrace pride in the positive sense, a sense of one's own dignity, treating oneself with respect, without going overboard and feeling haughty or...

[15:34]

better than. And there is the precept of, which I liked, well, it's not praising self at the expense of others. And the reverse of that is not denigrating oneself. It's really about not comparing oneself to others at all. And one version of it that I like is treating oneself, treating self and others on equal ground. My friend Judith told me that Gil Fransdale says it's not better, not worse, and not equal. So we're all, we're just all, we all are. And thinking about Thich Nhat Hanh's phrase of inter-being, we inter-are. So if we are all just beings, then comparing doesn't really, it's not necessary. Can we just meet each person as he or she or they are? So... Recognizing difference and at the same time understanding that we are interconnected.

[16:44]

Suzuki Roshi has a talk called Being One with Everything, and it talks about how when we practice, we realize that our sense of separation can fall away. and that we can sense how we are part of everyone and everything. And that is a very important teaching, and I think at the same time, it's also important to recognize that there are differences between us, that we each have our own time when we were... the family where we were raised and the place where we were raised, what we learned through our education, who we associate with in our lives currently.

[17:49]

There are so many ways in which each of us is shaped in a different way, even though perhaps inherently, and also we all inherently have Buddha nature, and yet each of us is unique. So I wanted to show you, many of you have already seen another T-shirt, which talks to this point. It's the Harmony of Difference and Equality. And this T-shirt was made a few years ago. It says on the back, San Francisco Zen Center celebrates diversity and unity. And a number of people have been wearing these in the Pride Parade. And I think it carries the message, The Harmony of Difference and Equality is the title of a beautiful poem by one of our ancestors, Sekito Kisen, I believe. And it elaborates on some of the ways in which we're both interconnected and unique.

[18:57]

And yet, thinking a little bit further about how each of us is unique. Each of us also, we're complex people. We have many parts or identities within each of us. And sometimes they may be harmonious and sometimes they may be in conflict. There's a beautiful... an old Chinese story that's also a koan. It's a teaching story in The Gateless Barrier. It's called, Which is the True Seijo? Sometimes Seijo is a young woman and her Chinese name is Qian. But I'm going to use the Japanese name Seijo. And I'd like to share this story story with you.

[20:04]

Some of you may already know it, but it's been a story that comes up for me in many different contexts, and I find it really helpful. So it's Case 35 in the Gateless Gate. It's based on a Chinese folk tale, and the Seijo in the story, the main character, is a young woman. When the story starts, she's actually, she's a girl, and she plays quite a bit with her cousin, whose name is Osho. And Seijo's father sees his daughter and... and nephew playing together so happily and spending a lot of time together, and he says, kind of casually, I think someday you will be married.

[21:11]

And they grow older, and perhaps he forgot, the father forgot what he said, but he arranged for his daughter to be married to someone else. And on hearing this... Otsu became very, very upset and decided to leave and set off on the river in a boat at night. And as he was paddling down the river, he heard someone running along the path and turned, and it was Seijo. And she said, I want to go with you. So she... got on board, and they paddled down the river. I don't know what kind of boat it was, but I imagine it was a rowboat of some kind. And they came to a village and stayed there for a while, and they had one child, and then they had a second child.

[22:17]

And then Seijo began missing her family and said to Otsu, let's go back, I'd really like my parents to meet our children, and I'd like to see them again. So they headed back, and when they got to the town where Seijo had grown up, they got out of the boat, and Seijo waited with the children by the river, and Otsu went up to her parents' house and knocked on the door, and her father opened the door and was very glad to see him, and he said, I thought you'd be... Otsu said, I thought you'd be very angry with me because I left and took your daughter, or your daughter came with me all these years ago, but I want you to know that we're back and we have two children and I'd really like you to meet them. And the father looked very puzzled and he said, what do you mean? Seijo has been sick in bed the whole time since you left.

[23:19]

And then he looked toward the room in the back and this very pale, thin young woman was lying on bed, and she got up and slowly walked towards them, and then walked out of the house, and at the same time, Seijo was coming up from the boat with her children, and when the two women got close, they became one. And the question in the koan is, which is the real Seijo? So can we say which is the real sejo? Were there two? Was there one? And how does that story resonate with you and with your life? I think that's the important question with any koan or teaching story. How does it speak to you and your life right now? One of the...

[24:22]

ways in which the story speaks to me is that when I feel divided or not able to express a part of myself that I feel is very close to my core, you might say, I don't feel whole. And I think that's the experience I had growing up. And, you know, in my early 20s when I got so many messages about why my sexual orientation was, there was something wrong with me or with it. I couldn't fully feel comfortable being myself in some of the contexts in which I was living my life and how different it feels now. And particularly, I think, every year when we've marched in the parade, I find myself with this big grin on my face the whole way down Market Street.

[25:33]

It's just to be with my community in the context of... I'll just say a little bit about our contingent. Up until now, we've always had... and we will this year, a very large papier-mâché head of the Buddha made by Annie Hallett that walks at the beginning of the procession, and then often people dancing behind it, and then often one or more of our abbots walking with an attendant with a parasol, and then a float, which we set up as a zendo, and people from Green Gulch sometimes have brought bamboo or... big paper mache flowers. And usually every year so far, Blanche Hartman, our senior Dharma teacher, has sat in Zazen on the float the whole way. And it's such a joyous experience to be part of that contingent and to march down Market Street with people bowing to us.

[26:41]

When you see the Buddha, many people bow and others cheer and... I think it, for me, also brings back that experience I had at my first Pride Parade in Boston. But to be marching with my community feels so empowering, actually. And in the commentary, in The Gateless Gate, Robert Aitken, who edited one translation of The Gateless Gate, said... living a divided life is debilitating. So I think that's a pretty powerful statement. You know, and you think about the two Seijos. Well, it's hard to say which was the real Seijo, but it seemed like the one who stayed behind, who became ill and weak, was not fully living her life.

[27:41]

And yet the... Seijo, who left, also missed her family. So, you know, when they came together, there was some, you know, let's see, Smiley, it was really a very, an experience of becoming whole. And I think whenever we can find that in our lives, we feel supported, we feel energized, we feel able. to express ourselves. There's another talk by Suzuki Roshi called Express Yourself Fully. That and One with Everything, they're both talks that he gave near the end of his life that they're in the volume, not always so. And we studied them in the LGBT study group at Tassajara this year.

[28:42]

So Express Yourself Fully. I think that in part means don't hide. You know, find ways of... bringing your full self into every aspect of your life. And that's not so easy to do. And I think in order to do that, each of us needs friends, allies, people who understand when things are difficult and can support us to be fully who we can be. And I wanted to give a couple of examples of allies, people who I've experienced in my own life as allies, for me as a lesbian. And I think...

[29:43]

I want to tell one story that comes from my family, and then also how we can be allies for one another in community. So, the story about my family has to do with my cousin Alice, who lives in Boston, and her two daughters, Emma and Sasha. Emma is older. When... I actually moved to San Francisco in 1990 to be with my former partner, Fran Peavy, and I'm going to say a blessed memory. She died a few years ago. And after we lived together for a year, we wanted to have a ceremony of commitment. So we couldn't be married. At that time, it was 1991. We couldn't legally be married, so we had a ceremony of commitment.

[30:45]

And I went to visit my cousins in Boston, and Alice and her daughter, Emma, her older daughter, who was eight, picked me up at the airport, and I told them about the ceremony we were having. I was very much looking forward to it, and I invited Alice to come to the ceremony. And Emma immediately said, Can I be the flower girl? So she and her mom came to the wedding, and she was one of the flowers. We had two flower girls. And later on, in her teens, Emma became a wonderful ally to her younger sister, Sasha, who came out as a lesbian in high school. And Emma joined... the Gay-Straight Alliance at Brookline High School in support of her sister. And then, unbeknownst to me, they at some time later agreed with one another that when each of them got married, the other would officiate at their wedding.

[31:51]

So two years ago, Emma married her partner Jake, now her husband Jake, and Sasha was one of the officiants at the wedding with... Jake's brother. And then one year ago, Sasha married her woman partner named Alex, and Emma officiated at that wedding. So I tell that story because times have changed a lot in that now queer people can be legally married, and that's an incredible change that's happening throughout the country. But also, you know, how Emma was an ally both to me and is an ally to her sister. And the other, it's not so much a story, but just in terms of how Zen Center embraces pride and how this year, I didn't know if there would be enough people to organize

[33:00]

the parade, and we had a residence meeting. Or even if there was enough interest in our continuing, I didn't want it to happen if there wasn't enough enthusiasm for it. And so we talked about it at the residence meeting, and our first question was, who would be interested in marching, participating? And many people raised their hands. And then, who would be interested in helping to organize it? And Dan and Brendan stepped forth. and they're both heterosexual men. They've worked really hard to organize the parade. We've been a team. And I'm just so appreciative... your wholehearted embracing of this parade and feeling that it would be of value to the whole community to have it happen again. So thank you so much. So... Also along those lines, we have a sister sangha in Rome whose teacher, Dario Girolami, often comes to city center at this time of year.

[34:21]

He's marched in the parade a couple of times. He and I have the same teacher, Agent Linda Cutts. And Dario's... Sangha is mostly heterosexual, but there are some gay and lesbian members, and they've started marching in the Pride Parade in Rome, which is not an easy thing to do. And they've also made a T-shirt, so this is my third T-shirt to show you. I don't speak Italian, so I'll say what it says, but it might not be correct. So harmony of difference and equality in Italian. And it makes me very happy to think that they used the same logo as ours, which is a beautiful enso made by Kaz Tanahashi. And to think of them marching in Rome.

[35:25]

And again, Dario is a wonderful ally as well. So it's almost the end of my time, and I just wanted to say that it's so important for us to be allies to people in other groups who may be historically marginalized, and also for those of us who are part of, and I think that term may not roll off the tongue, be so familiar, comfortable for some of you. But, you know, there's some... All of us have multiple identities. So I could say I'm a woman, I'm lesbian, I'm older, I'm from a working-class background.

[36:25]

So some of those identities give me more power and privilege and some less. So... historically, women have less power and privilege than men. LGBT people have less power and privilege than heterosexual people. But I'm white, so I have more power and privilege than people of color in our society. So if we look at that, you know, for me, it's very meaningful when people are my allies in terms of my sexual orientation. But can I also be an ally... to someone who's a person of color, and what does that look like? So I think that is a theme that we're also exploring at Sense Center. We've embarked on a three-year study of white power and privilege and how we as a predominantly white organization can be more inclusive, and that doesn't just mean welcoming.

[37:27]

It goes way beyond. So... I think that as we touch on our own areas of experiencing less power and privilege or less of a sense of feeling whole because of who we are, we may be able to understand and reach out to others. And that's my hope, I would say. So I would like to end with a song. And some of you received the words to the chorus. I'd like to teach the chorus, and then I'll sing the verses. And this is a song by Laurie Wyatt, but it was sung quite a lot by Pete Seeger, who died this year. It was a wonderful champion, a wonderful ally to many different groups.

[38:28]

Oh, good. Copies. So the words to the chorus are two lines in Spanish and two lines in English. Somos el barco, somos el mar, yo navego en ti, tu navegas en me. We are the boat, we are the sea. I sail in you, you sail in me. So why don't we say the words once together and then... I'll sing the melody and we can sing it. And I think as we repeat the chorus after each verse, you'll get it. So let's say the words. Somos el barco, somos el mar. Yo navego en ti, tu navegas en mi. We are the boat, we are the sea. I sail in you, you sail in me.

[39:29]

So this is the tune. Somos el barco. Somos el barco. Somos el mar. Una vega en ti. Tu navegas en mi. We are the boat. We are the sea. I sail in you. You sail in me. Let's try it together. Somos el barco. Somos el ma. Yo navego enti. To navegas and me. We are the boat. We are the sea. I sail in you. You sail in great.

[40:31]

The stream sings it to the river. The river sings it to the sea. The sea sings it to the boat that carries you and me. Somos el barco. Somos el marco. Yo, Novago and T, to Novago sent me. We are the boat, we are the sea. I sail in you, you sail in me. Now the boat we are sailing in, Was built by many hands. And the sea we are sailing on. It touches every land.

[41:32]

Somos el barco. Somos el mar. Yo navego en ti. Tuna vegas and me. We are the boat. We are the sea. I sail in you. You sail in me. Oh, the voyage has been long and hard, and yet we're sailing still with a song to help us pull together if we only will. Somos albaco. Somos al mar, yo navego enti, tuna vegas and me. We are the boat, we are the sea, while I sail in you, you sail in me.

[42:46]

So with our hopes we raise the sails to face the winds once more. And with our hearts we chart the waters never sailed before. Somos elba, oh, somos elba. Yo navego enti, tuna vegas and me. We are the boat, we are the sea. I sail in you, you sail in me. So may we all celebrate pride in ourselves. one another, our city, and the world this weekend. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[43:52]

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 Dorma.

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