Good morning, everybody. And thank you very much for inviting me to come and speak. I think this might be the second time I have come here to speak, to give a Dharma lecture on Sunday, since I was ordained in 1982. So if I do anything... that's really deeply against the rules. Would somebody please tell me? So, today I'd like to talk about love, commitment, and What's the difference if it's socially acknowledged or not?

[01:03]

And so today is Pride Day. Actually, I expected that there would be very few people here because I thought you'd all be at the parade. But If you want to join some of the events in San Francisco, San Francisco Zen Center is having a float in the parade in which people from here and from San Francisco City Center do zazen meditation on a float. So they'll be maybe reciting sutras or just sitting zazen. doing what they do anyway, but they'll be on a flatbed truck doing it. I suggested that they use non-skid sticky mats under their sabutons in case of sudden stops.

[02:13]

Okay, so... The teaching of the Buddha is that... we're all the same and because of that we have beautiful difference and beautiful variety and that we also can study in this lifetime when to bring out that unity and when to bring out that variety and there are times for both even within the conventional world in which there are driving rules, recipes, this and that, there are times for unity and times for difference. And the Buddha's teaching was actually that there's a transcendent unity and that in our difference we're all deeply interrelated, so much so that we can't exist without each other.

[03:22]

And so everyone in the rainbow is part of who we are and how we express ourselves. And this is a fundamental teaching of the Buddha Dharma. When we say to save all beings, what does it mean to save all beings? How do we save all beings? And what is the way in which we do that? If we think that we save beings, that we have something that beings don't, and that we are going to do the saving, and that the other lucky beings are going to be the recipient of our skill, that's actually a problem in practice. To save all beings is to allow all beings to save us. to be completely united in inquiry and in response.

[04:32]

And sometimes just a difference is an inquiry. I don't know if that's understandable or not, but sometimes I feel like rejecting something that's different from me or that's something that's different from what I want. If I can notice that there's a rejection occurring, my natural curiosity will arise. And I'll be able to notice how that which I had formerly rejected is actually part of myself. Tozan Ryokai, when he was enlightened, spontaneously made a Dharma verse. Don't see the world or yourself as an object, or far from it you stray. Today, as I walk alone, whichever way I turn, I meet myself.

[05:41]

He or she is just me, though I am not he. If you understand that you as an object is not you yourself, then you have your own true way. So when we talk about commitment, and when we talk about love and honoring, and when we talk about what is the difference, if there's social acknowledgement or not, this is the basis, this is the foundation, the bottom line, is that our descriptions of ourself and other, of this and what, that, right and wrong, good and bad, gay and straight, or used to be LGB and then became LGBT, and then it became LGBTI, LGBTIQQ, and before we know it, it's going to include every initial of everything that describes everyone in every corner of the globe.

[06:52]

It's going to be an acronym that's so long that it's going to take the entire sum total of human life to represent it. And that is how things are. That's what it means to save or to allow the possibility of saving. In political reality, it may not mean saving. I'm using it as a metaphor for saving, as an example. of how to wake up. I hope you understand. In preparing for this lecture, I was thinking of my dharma, my ordination brother, not at the same time, but same teacher, Isan Dorsey. For people who don't know Isan, Isan died maybe 18 years ago?

[07:58]

18 years ago of AIDS. Ihsan was indescribable. He was incredible. He was... When he was a... female impersonator, speed freak, and drug addict, he represented compassion to his community. When he was the director of Beginner's Mind Temple at San Francisco Zen Center, he represented a kind of human messy and fussy meticulousness that simultaneously woke everybody up and irritated them, because he was human. He was so human, and he was so himself.

[08:59]

But when Issan was ascending the mountain, becoming an abbot at Hartford Street Zen Center, I'll always remember the moment at which he approached the front door. Part of the mountain seat ceremony is when the shinne, which means new life, is walking around to the different altars in the temple. And one of those altars is the San Mon, the gate, the front gate of the temple. And at each altar, the person makes a statement about the meaning of that place in the temple. When Issan came to the front door, I was sitting in a packed... I think each of the rooms at Hartford Street, in which there were maybe, I don't know, 150 or 200 people packed in, was about 15 by 15. There were two rooms, and there were hundreds of people there.

[10:03]

You couldn't even sit Seiza. You were held in to immovable zazen by the people on all four sides, and maybe even sometimes top and bottom. Isan offered incense and said, the doors of Hartford Street Zen Center, Isanji, one mountain temple, stand wide open. Thank you. Stand wide open. While I remain within this place, though the doors may close, the doors shall never be closed to any living thing. The doors of Hartford Streets and Center, Isanji, One Mountain Temple, stand wide open.

[11:08]

While I remain, the doors will never be closed to any living thing. So at that moment, chills ran down my spine. And that was so amazing when he said that. I can't do justice to how he said that. At that time, he knew that he had AIDS. Actually, he knew that he was HIV positive. And his AIDS was to become full-blown, and he was to die about 10 months later. So... I looked at Street Zen, which is Tensho David Schneider's book about Isan, and found this description of Isan by Peter Coyote, a long-term member of San Francisco's Zen Center. There's a kind of high episcopal elegance to Zen Center that has always rubbed me the wrong way, a kind of grandeur that bled over into being judgmental.

[12:18]

I struggle hard, you know. My feeling is you make a mistake, you just go back to your breath. So that atmosphere put me off. But Issan was just so human, so hip and so wiggy. And obviously nothing in Buddhism was contradictory to everything he was. So how could there be a problem? He seemed to be very comfortable with his practice, very comfortable with himself. One way Issan allowed himself to be authentic was that he described himself as a faggot, speed-freak cross-dresser. And a certain point, if you do that, you realize that definition is a joke. No definition can create a whole person where most people would define themselves as the director and hide that other definition. Issan fronted that. So what kind of airs could one put on?

[13:21]

He just had a humorous thing like, you know, I'm the worst nightmare your mother could imagine. Here I am. He was forgiving toward himself. That's forgiving toward other people. You really felt that he was not judgmental. Consequently, he just gave you a big field to run around in. So commitment in Buddhism occurs within this big field that Isan embodied. commitment is a kind of conventional statement that we make in the context of universal truth. In Suzuki Roshi's translation of the Sando Kai, which we call the harmony of difference and equality, but he called the oneness of one and many, he said, the words we use are different. good and bad, respectful and mean, but through these words we should understand the absolute being or source.

[14:30]

Within brightness actually is utter darkness, but you should not meet someone just with darkness. Within darkness there is brightness, but you should not see others only with the eye of brightness. Darkness and brightness stand with each other, like one foot forward and the other behind in walking. So in making a commitment, we understand from universal truth. When we are with universal truth, we need to understand the expression of universal truth is our interdependence right here and right now. And so that is the basis of what we do here. That's why the teaching of the Buddhas and ancestors is nothing other than their everyday activity.

[15:35]

The teaching of the Buddhas and ancestors who marry is nothing other than their marriage. I had the good fortune to be able to go down to City Hall last week. And though I was not actually performing any marriages, and though I'm not, you know, I didn't have an official role there, I walked into City Hall, maybe it was two days after the weddings began. And in City Hall, there were about 20 marriage stations set up. And every so often, between all the columns and pillars at the top of every one of the staircases and beside everyone's office, there were four folding chairs and a reading stand.

[16:39]

And deputies had been delegated from all over City Hall and all over the city. So the people I spoke to were in the Transportation Department, in law enforcement, and in accounting. And they were marrying people and acting as the officiants for weddings, for civil ceremonies. So there's no... There's no... Religion allowed, no religious implements, and it's a ceremony that's very vanilla. But it still has the elements of commitment. And the people who work at City Hall in San Francisco were competing over who would be the person to get to marry someone that day. There was a table with a high school teacher and a clerk. a county clerk from some other department like planning.

[17:45]

They were sitting at a table, a folding table that had a tablecloth on it, and it had brochures that said something like, so you want to get married? You know, as if marriage were a completely new institution. And in a way it is. It is. And In the Abhidharmakosha Basham of Vasubandhu, the Abhidharmakosha Basham is a kind of encyclopedia of Buddhism, and Vasubandhu was one of our ancestors, a Buddhist teacher in our lineage. There's a statement about what changes when commitment is made. So when you make a commitment, you don't get a sudden glow or... You know, you don't turn blue. Your voice doesn't change. The next day you still have to go home and decide who's going to wash the dishes, right?

[18:53]

But there is a kind of non-cognizable form that changes the structure of awareness. And it is called Avishnati Rupa for people who want to look it up. The regular rupas, the regular form, are eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, mental senses, and their sense fields, which is what's seen and what's heard and so on. And also the ability to sense, the field of sensation, and then the sense consciousness. are the 18 cognizable forms. But there's also this non-cognizable form that actually changes a person's moral landscape and moral abilities, moral climate, when they take a commitment, when they make that commitment in front of someone else.

[20:04]

Now, I'm not saying everybody should get married. Don't get me wrong on that. I'm not saying... that opposite-sex couples should get married or that same-sex couples should get married or anything like that. So this is not about should, but about when they do that, when a couple does that in front of other people, something happens. In our wedding ceremony, we say we're married mind to mind. body to body, nature to nature, and true nature to true nature. And how do we realize that? Well, it's very simple. Two people stand up with someone officiating the ceremony, and a group of people gathers round. Now, I am heterosexual, celibate, monastic.

[21:09]

And I used to think when I performed marriages that it didn't make any difference, that I could perform a same-sex marriage, and it didn't make any difference whether the law recognized that or not. But I have to say that my opinion has changed, and that it's changed because of what I see and hear and because of the struggles. that same-sex couples have had to be legally recognized for a long time, but particularly since the 2004 events in San Francisco. And that it really is different when society recognizes these marriages as marriages and not as domestic partnerships. You know, Shakespeare said, what's in a name? a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. That's universal truth.

[22:12]

What's in a name is universal truth. And the fragrance of a rose is a conventional truth. But if we didn't know that a rose was a rose, if we didn't know that a rose was a rose, we might not be able to perceive a rose as different from other flowers. Gertrude Stein says, a rose is a rose is a rose. So people have different ideas about whether a rose is a rose or whether a rose is who knows. So people have different ideas about that, and all of them have some truth, even the crazy ones, even the dreamy ones. But when real living human beings stand to bless an occasion, and when it's recognized in law, there is a truth to that, and it has an effect in the bodies and minds, not only of the people receiving the vows, but of everyone all around them.

[23:27]

So... So in mid-May, when the decision happened, I talked about it at Hartford Street. I went over the Supreme Court decision in that talk, and I won't go over the whole thing again now. It's 120 pages long, and it is just one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I've ever read. It's very accessible. The Chief Justice, Ronald George, decided to take on the writing of the document himself, which is unusual. Usually it's written by a committee or by another justice. But he decided to take that on himself. And so I'll go over just a little bit of that Supreme Court decision so you can get the flavor of it. So this is a complete paraphrase of about the last 15 pages of the decision.

[24:34]

To maintain different rules for opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples, the state would have to prove that the state interest in maintaining such a difference is both constitutionally compelling. It means it has to be really, the state has to be really interested in maintaining that difference to maintain the constitution. and also that the different treatment is necessary to that interest. So the Proposition 22 Legal Defense Fund and the campaign say that it is both compelling and necessary to preserve the term marriage for opposite-sex couples because that's our common law understanding today, that something would be damaged about marriage. And the California Constitution doesn't prevent an initiative to change marriage law.

[25:43]

And the Attorney General and the Governor recognize that the Constitution itself doesn't reserve that term marriage for heterosexual couples. But they are against the courts deciding that because they think that that is more than the legal responsibility of the court. They think the proper way to decide issues of marriage would be by a vote of the people. But the California Supreme Court itself disagrees. They said that their job, it's their job, their obligation to scrutinize the law and make sure that it is above politics. And so they continue to keep that right.

[26:49]

And they said, basically, this is one of the beautiful parts of it. Although the understanding of marriage is limited to a union of a man and a woman, is understandably the predominant one, undeniably the predominant one. If we have learned anything from the significant evolution in the prevailing societal views and official policies towards members of minority races and towards women over the past half century, it is that even the most familiar and generally accepted of social practices and traditions often mask an unfairness and inequality that frequently is not recognized or appreciated by those not directly harmed by those practices and traditions. Did you get that? Okay. So like interracial marriage, exclusion of women, and separate but equal laws. Those were the things that the court cited.

[27:54]

So basically, What the Supreme Court said was that it can't be considered a compelling state interest to keep marriage only for heterosexual couples. That limitation isn't needed to preserve the rights and privileges and obligations of opposite sex couples. And that extending access to the designation of marriage to same-sex couples wouldn't change anything and wouldn't infringe on the rights of churches and temples and religions to say what was right or wrong within that sect. So that wouldn't change anything. But not extending the right does change a huge amount of harm to same-sex couples.

[29:03]

Okay? So it works a real and appreciable harm upon same-sex couples and their children because domestic partnership doesn't give them the same protections under the law. And this is the part that really got me from a religious point of view. that because the designation of domestic partnership doesn't have the history, doesn't have the background of marriage by several thousand years, that it's not the same. It's not legally the same, and by society's respect and dignity, it's not the same. So that's the kind of harm. that it says that because of the long and celebrated history of the term marriage and the widespread understanding that this word describes a family relationship, unreservably sanctioned by the community,

[30:18]

The statutory provisions that continue to limit access to this designation exclusively to opposite-sex couples, while providing only a novel alternative institution for same-sex couples, likely will be viewed as an official statement that the family relationship of same-sex couples is not of comparable stature or equal dignity to the family relationship of opposite-sex couples. Furthermore, because of the historic disparagement of gay persons, keeping the distinction is all the more likely to cause the new parallel institution that has been established for same-sex couples to be considered a mark of second-class citizenship. Finally, in addition to the potential harm flowing from the lesser stature of domestic partnership, that upholding the differential treatment would be understood as validating a more general proposition that our state by now has repudiated that it is permissible under the law for society to treat gay individuals and same-sex couples differently from and less favorably than heterosexual individuals and opposite-sex couples.

[31:46]

Do you understand? So it is just a name. You know, I can marry same-sex couples within the sangha, and they will be blessed by that union and by the social support within the sangha. But recognizing the marriage, please excuse me if this is overly political for you, I really was convinced by the Supreme Court decision. I know that as a priest at San Francisco Zen Center, for me to sit on the Dharma platform and say something that some people in the room may be distinctly opposed to is... you know, it's risky. So please, I beg your forgiveness if you're opposed to this.

[32:48]

But I have to say this because for me, the Supreme Court decision struck something about my life and practice that I have to bring forth. So for people who disagree with this, I really do beg your patience. And I acknowledge that there are many points of view in California and not just this one. And there will be an initiative on the ballot where voters decide whether or not to repudiate this Supreme Court decision. But for me, this is very convincing. And maybe I should say what the dissenters said to give them equal airtime. Okay, so I'll say... a little something about what the dissenter said. Please, if your legs need resting, please rest them. If you can sit in such a position that you can give me your upright attention, then you can decide for yourself, from your own conscience, whether what I'm saying is valid or invalid.

[34:06]

As the Buddha said, don't take Paraphrase, don't take my word for it. Be a lamp unto yourself. Don't believe me. Look inside and outside and at the place where there is no outside and decide for yourself. So the dissenters said that the argument was flawed for several reasons. The first one is that it indirectly grants the courts powers to change the Constitution. And also, this was an interesting one, and this was written by a lesbian Supreme Court justice, I believe, that gay culture is much more accepted than it was when the interracial marriage decisions were made. And so to make a decision that depends on special civil rights designation and the precedent of interracial marriage is that we've moved beyond that as a society, and it's actually kind of, I got the tone in that, that it was actually kind of patronizing.

[35:23]

Maybe patronizing is too strong a term, but that basically it separates out gay culture in a way that it shouldn't be separated out to use interracial marriage and special protections as a basis for a court argument. And the other one is that although this is a good thing, the other dissent was although this is a good thing, it isn't the time. That eventually it might be the time, but right now the voters' passage of the initiative only four years ago, could you please leave your shoes right on the porch outside and please come on in? And because that passage of the initiative shows that the voters of the state of California really do uphold the distinction between marriage and domestic partnership. Please come in and find a seat anywhere. This seat is available, and there's some more chairs, and there's also cushion space right in front here.

[36:32]

Okay, so any open seat is fine. Okay, so that's, I'm trying to give equal time to the dissent. So the part, but the part that was convincing to me is the part about respect and the respect of society being a fundamental cornerstone of an institution of commitment, such as marriage. And that's the part that really got me. Respect is when we give someone or something the space it deserves and needs to be itself. I think I'm paraphrasing a quote from a book I read, but I can't remember which book. It was some Dharma book that I read recently when I was thinking about kindness and respect. that the author said that that's just the space that we give, the listening, the deep listening that we do to allow someone or something to be themselves.

[37:44]

That's part of our teaching. That's even part of the forms. You know, if we think that the forms are about being right and doing this or that exactly the right way, well, that's true. There is a form that's so... It's so articulated that it works for a beginner and it works for someone who's been practicing for 35 years. So let's say there's a form for bowing. And for a beginner, you just know you have to put your hands together. And that means this and that come together as one, not one, not two, just like marriage. But for someone who's been practicing for longer, it's, oh, hold it up at the tip of your nose at that level. For someone who's been practicing even longer, it's bring the fingers together and unite the many fingers too. And for someone who's been practicing a really long time, or is yogically inclined it might be, make the palms of the hands, the whole circle of the palms of the hands, touch evenly.

[38:56]

And make the strongest part of the palm relate to the chakra of expression. You know, so it goes all the way through, and these forms are like that. You can try it yourself, okay? So feel like, you know, the beginning. You just put your hands up together, and oh, then you know it's not two, not one, okay? And then you can try bringing the fingers together or putting it at the tip of your nose, okay? And that feels different about... three to four inches from your face. But then try making the whole palm, the whole circle at the palm touch evenly. You feel the difference? And now try taking the strong part of the palm and relating it to the chakra of expression, which is the base of the throat. You feel? Okay. Suddenly it's united with your breath.

[39:57]

So the form's Thank you. So the forms are completely designated and completely specific. But if we think that there's a right way and a wrong way to do it and that we have to do it according to that designation or else lightning is going to strike us from the sky and we better do it right and we kind of overachieve in that way, we're missing the point. So if we think that Is this the kitchen crew leaving 11 o'clock? Thank you. If we think that the form of marriage, a religious form of marriage, if we do it just so, that that's the same under domestic partnership or under a socially sanctioned marriage, legal and socially sanctioned marriage, we've missed something. We've missed that space.

[40:58]

that makes it alive. So that's the important part of love, commitment, and acceptance. I'd like to close with a poem by Thich Nhat Hanh that was one of Isan Dorsey's favorites. And that is, please call me by my true names. So anyone who has it memorized could say it along with me. I don't have a monopoly on the wisdom of Thich Nhat Hanh by any means. Do not say that I will be gone tomorrow, for even now I will return. Look deeply. I arrive in each fresh moment to be the bud on a tender spring branch, to be the fledgling wing still soft and fragile, joyfully chirping in my new nest, to be the green caterpillar on the rose's stem, to be the hidden jewel ripening within a stone.

[42:25]

I still arrive so I can laugh and cry, so I can fear and hope. My birth and death breathes in rhythm to the heartbeats of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the water's surface. I am the bird who arrives in spring in time to catch the mayfly. I am the frog singing happily in the clear autumn pond, and I am the grass snake drawing near in silence to feed upon the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

[43:42]

I am a member of the Politburo with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who must pay his debt of blood to my people. dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy opens like spring. Its glow makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. Tears stream out from my eyes, enough to fill four great oceans. Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my laughs and cries. at once so I can see my joy and pain as one please call me by my true names so that I can wake up and the door of my heart can be left open the door of compassion can I say it again?

[44:53]

I love this poem. It says it all to me, so I will. I'll say it again. Do not say that I will be gone tomorrow, for even now I will return. Look deeply. I arrive in each fresh moment to be the bud on his tender spring branch, to be the fledgling wing, still soft and fragile, joyfully chirping in my new nest. to be the green caterpillar on the rose's stem, to be the hidden jewel ripening within a stone. I still arrive so I can laugh and cry, so I can fear and hope. My birth and death breathes a rhythm to the heartbeats of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the water's surface. I am the bird who arrives with spring in time to catch the mayfly.

[45:56]

I am the frog singing happily in the clear autumn pond. And I am the grass snake, drawing near in silence to feed upon the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Politburo with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who must pay his debt of blood to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp. My joy opens like spring. Its glow makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.

[46:57]

Tears stream out from my eyes enough to fill the four great oceans. Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my laughs and cries at once. So I can see my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names. so that I can wake up and the door of my heart can be left open. The door of compassion. Thanks. So, with that, please forgive my words, which may not speak directly to your experience. Though I realized that as a Zen priest that every time I open my mouth to speak the Dharma, I put my foot in it.

[48:10]

That's how it is. Because the Dharma cannot be measured in words, but and yet on Sunday morning, this is what we have to do. We have to gather to speak and to hear our true name. I really appreciate your attention, and please have a wonderful day. Thank you very much.

[48:47]

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