Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website.
[00:00:16] Speaker B: So welcome everyone.
We have Shelly here for the first time.
So thank you for joining us. Hope it's okay if anyone needs to move to a chair and please feel welcome to do so.
And we have Josh Traney to be Delaware. And I want to thank Howard and Wayne for helping us train and also get our technology working.
We're not really a megatur ancient gardening so we don't have big fancy setup. So we set up a bunch of laptops around the Zundel.
We support laptop audio. Okay.
And we have a special guest in the room. Reverend Dean Williams. It's a crooked river.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Crooked rivers outside in Cleveland Evanston suite and practice living San Quentin Sancti way that in ancient times.
So you can't come back by your name on us.
[00:01:28] Speaker B: And I think Dean and I we practiced together at Udambara Zen Center. Did you Fijika together.
Okay. So that was quite a bit after.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: Yeah
[00:01:45] Speaker B: her and thank you, Kimberly. Welcome Kimberly. Also from Ohio. Yes. Yes. We have pilgrimage from Ohio to Chicago. Zen Dean told me at the last minute. Who's counting their stage plan also would have maybe asked him to hold it over talk here.
[00:02:06] Speaker C: Well, I know how to time these videos
[00:02:10] Speaker B: well. Wealthy end.
It's also wonderful to see Dennis back in the house here in the cloud looking amazingly vibrant actually after a significant surgical procedure.
So an Asian in the words someplace in the national park somewhere bcu as well.
So it's with great pleasure that I welcome Steven Tierney to be with us today.
This is Pride month and we have to search far for our nears and queer ancestors so we can feature their voices. We're growing them in Chicago then.
And it's a vibrant prim month here.
And also Stephen is a transmitted teacher in the Suzuki Moshi lineage. I believe you're a dharma grandson of Darlene Cohen and Darlene is a bomba teacher that we studied here.
So it's wonderful to have your energy with us.
You're the guiding teacher at Oceani's Compassion.
Ah, there's Darlene. A lot for it all. Wonderful. Darlene has a book. And since Darlene has passed away, Stephen is promoting her book. I hope.
And did Cynthia Keir collect those stories? I can't remember who it was. Yeah.
And also Stephen is a psychotherapist in the Bay Area. So I also weigh graciously, informally of Your presence. Although I've been around San Francisco Z Since the 80s, somehow, you and I, Stephen, I don't think, cross paths that I remember, but we'll talk about that later. Anyway, I'd like to just pass it to Ray to do another introduction and just say hi to Steve, and then you can get the show on the road. So thank you very much for joining us.
[00:04:28] Speaker D: Yeah, it was. It was my pleasure to invite Reverend Tierney on behalf of the Clear Dharma Group. He and I connected, I think, for the first time, correct me if I'm wrong, at the Branching Streams Conference in Santa Cruz. I forgot which saint it was, Santa Cruz.
And then connected again when we were in.
When I was in California at Tassajara and in San Francisco. And Stephen was very generous with his time, attention, administrations, his wisdom, and I. I couldn't think of anyone better to invite.
So we're very, very glad you're here, and I'm. I'm glad my Sangha gets to share in knowing you.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Now, thank you both very much, and thanks, everybody, for having ancestor come to visit you on. On this particular Sunday morning, I read what your LGBTQI group there wrote. May we pay homage to our queer ancestors through liberating beings from discriminating conditions and allow all to freely enjoy their true nature. May we bring queer wisdom to every moment, letting go of the delusion and free of attachment from whom we think we are. And that really is sort of what we bring together as. As LGBT folks, as straight folks, as bodhisattvas, as students, as teachers.
And so it's this wonderful opportunity. Once a year, we. We get a few weeks in the end of the year where we. We take time to do exactly what that says to. To think about, which we should always be thinking about as Buddhists, where we were, where we are, how we got here, and. And sort of, why are we here? Why are we staying?
[00:06:14] Speaker C: Why are we.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: So this is like a homecoming for me, actually.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: It's.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: When I was a little baby gay back in the 60s, in high school, Catholic high school, they used to bring us to Chicago to visit a school and rectory there because it was. They were trying to convince us all to become priests. And the first thing I noticed was that at that particular rectory, I don't know what order it was. It's been a long, long time. But all of the priests took the first name Mary. And I thought, oh, well, there could be something. There could be something going on here that's interesting.
What turned out not to be interesting, but that's a Different talk for a different day. But I lived at the time in a place called Monroe, Michigan, about 45 miles away from Detroit.
And, and so for me, coming to. To Chicago back then, way back then, was like coming to heaven. It was, you know, discovered Halstead street when I was supposed to be doing something at the church, and that there were actual gay people walking around, talking to each other and being seen and being visible in the beginnings of those days, and that most folks who were not gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender seemed to be pretty much leaving everybody alone. And I know that's a light brush and that there was massive struggle in Chicago as there was everywhere else, but I know that for me, I found the possibility of safety and community in what was already, at the time, being referred to, sometimes with reverence and sometimes snidely, as Boys Town. And so that really gave me hope that it was possible to live safely and to live with well being and good health and to see the vibrancy and the creativity of our emerging community because of who we were and in response to oppression.
So Rita Mary Brown, in her work called Sappho's Response, said, an army of lovers cannot be defeated.
So thank you, Chicago, for much of my early awakening as a gay person, an activist, and eventually as a Buddhist teacher was largely fostered or encouraged right on the streets of your city. And so then I would go back to Monroe, Michigan, and. And have to be somebody else, as your. As your notion said, letting go of the delusion of who 3 of attachment from who we think we are or who we were being told we should be.
And I think one of the things that's wonderful about LGBT Pride Month is that it doesn't just apply to us. You know, it applies to every little boy who wanted to be a ballet dancer and his father wanted him to be a teamster, every young woman who wanted to be an astronaut, every and. Or an engineer and. Or a lawyer, and the parents wanted her to become a nun or a schoolteacher or a wife and mother, and all of those things are possible. But. But I think the notion of finding that voice to say who and what we. What we have become and who we want to be is a true gift of. Of our movement and other liberation movements that we, because we're good bodhisattvas, we share with everyone.
So when I look at Chicago and follow you, as I do with great love, during the last couple years, all the people of Chicago came together to support and be present for those who were attacked by our federal government cabal. And you came together with such compassion for those endangered brothers and sisters and families. You set up community defense networks. You set up know your rights support networks around the city. You took care of each other.
You stood when other people would not stand.
And in your statement for this month, it says, liberating all beings from discriminatory conditioning. And so we knew that from our pain, from our suffering, we learned some things, and we banded together, and we found allies, and we moved forward. And so. So it was. You know, it was very important for us. And then that. Then it couldn't be just about us. It had to be about others.
There's a beautiful poem that's called the Unbroken, and it says, there is a brokenness out of which comes the unbroken, a shatteredness out of which looms the unshatterable. There is a sorrow beyond all grief, which leads to joy and a fragility out of whose depths emerges strength. There is a hollow place, too best for words, through which we pass with each loss, out of whose darkness we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound, whose serrated edges cut the heart. And we break open to a place inside which is unbreakable and whole while we learn to sing.
And so I think that's what our movement, you know, really only about 50 years old now, started with, was really so important, because we started with trying to just find safety and protection for ourselves and our brothers and sisters and our emerging families, and then figured out that what we were learning about being present for each other could really change the world in radical ways. If anyone had said to us in the beginning that there would be a zendo in seventh in Chicago.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Excuse me.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: That was welcoming and opening to LGBT folks and having a special month and special celebrations and members of the. Of the Sangha and the leadership, we would not have believed it.
And so I think. I think that becomes really important.
So this month, we take time to celebrate that in our communities and in our families and in our Sanghas and whatever spiritual homes we have. And we express gratitude and compassion, as you say in your statement, for those who walked before us. And when I first got the invitation, I thought it was very nice to celebrate the ancestors. I turned 75 this year, and the first LGBT organizing I did was 50 years ago, by which time I was moving to Boston and getting organized, helping get things organized there.
So the idea that. That this could lead to my spiritual practice in Buddhism and as a Zen teacher seemed. Seemed out of place. At the time. I had been raised in a different church, which Definitely was not supportive and still has a great deal of difficulty.
But that's another talk for another day as well that you don't need to hear from me. But I'm reminded of our Bodhisattva prayer for humanity. May I be a guard for those who need protection. May I be a guardian of the earth, a shelter for those without refuge, and a guide for those wandering in the dark, etc. Etc. Enduring like mountains and oceans. May I serve the whole web of life until all beings are free from suffering and awaken to their true nature.
And so I think those of us in the Sangha today who are LGBTQ have an opportunity to say, you know what? We learned not because necessarily we wanted to, but because we didn't have any choice. If we wanted to survive, if we wanted to have safety, if we wanted to have access to healthcare and mental health and wellbeing and recovery, if we wanted to build families and communities, we needed to learn how to do something.
And so I think what we know is that it's important for us to show that to our families, our colleagues, our neighbors, our elected leaders, that the power we have as Buddhists is that we live by vow, about to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings, not just the gay ones, not just the LGBTQ ones, but for all beings.
And I think that's one of the really important things that we have to offer as. As Buddhists, as Zen Buddhists, is that we live by vow that we wake up every day, that in our ceremonies, when we have them, we repeat our vows.
And one of the teachings that I really like is by Shohaku Akamura, who said that it's important to live by vow, that in some lineages and in some traditions, people live life concerned with karma.
And he taught that teaching describes karma as habits, preferences, or systems of judgments based on what others teach us and what we learn by doing and responding.
So when we think about the idea of who we are and who we think we are, mostly it's because we were taught, you know, by our families and by our schools and by our churches and by political leaders and by the mental health community back in those. Back in those original days, who we were, and that that was often defective or ill or in need of repair.
And in the spiritual tradition where I came from, it was considered a sin, of course, to be. To be who I was. So that was. I was really loaded as a young child with, how do I walk a path with dignity and. And graciousness and compassion for others, Much Less what would come to be what we love is to walk with pride.
And so what Shohaku Akamura says is that instead, in Zen Buddhism, we don't live by karma, we live by vow. A vow being like a magnet or a compass that shows us a direction in which we walk towards the Buddha's path, walk with the Buddhist path.
So I think it's wonderful that we bring our full range of emotions and strengths and culture and humor to the bigger mix in our cities and in our towns and in our families and. And it's. It's quite wonderful if you think about it. You know that there's. Ada Limone, who was the 24th poet laureate, said it's a wonder that anyone gets along at all or can be in relationship. It's just amazing because our brains are different, our hearts are different, our minds are different, our experiences are different.
And then she said we should live intentionally, mindfully, in a cornucopia of difference. In a cornucopia of difference, a state of abundance, of human capacity, creativity, and learning. She says that we should be a melting. Not a melting pot where everything loses its unique flavor and blends, but a tossed salad or a rich stew where each individual item can be tasted in its fullness, enhanced by the melange of flavors around us.
So. So I think that's a beautiful idea, that what we bring to the larger community, to the larger world, is that richness that comes from having to struggle for having to walk towards liberation, towards the basic right to be who we are and to be the people we want to be.
And so that's poetry, and it's beautiful, and we can practice it sitting in our zindos on a Sunday morning or afternoon. But the fact of the matter is that we also know that there are 400 laws and legislatures across the country in the United States right now. Horrid and hateful laws seeking to deny access, to roll back access to health care and mental health and safety, and that these are horrid, hateful, and repressive, and that it's mostly being done by people in corridors of power who use it to divide and conquer and to rile up their quote, unquote, their base.
So we need to maintain diligent effort, and we need to be active and engaged in whatever ways that we can do that comfortably. Not everybody will do all of the same kinds of activities. But wise action is required, I think, for those of us who try to live the bodhisattva life. But I think in addition to that, we also brought Our culture. Look around that room and look at the pictures on zoom. This morning, we brought our culture of beautiful people sitting together, loving each other.
You got up on a Sunday morning.
A little earlier for me than you, but we got up on a Sunday morning, and so we care enough about ourselves to come to practice, because what we do is so important.
You know, we also brought the culture born on dance floors and street fairs of the repressed back in the day, you know, the disco and. And all of the other ways in which we were out and loud and proud and. And we did all of those things, and we brought that to folks.
And, you know, we sometimes forget the cultural contribution we made. But I'll just give you one quick reminder. There's a show on TV that some of you may have seen called RuPaul's Drag Race. It has been on for 18 seasons. It's won 29 Emmy awards, and there are 20 versions of it in countries all across the globe.
So you might think, wow, that's amazing. I may have watched the show or I may have, you know, seen a few other folks, but. But that's really pretty awesome. And in celebration of that, I saw RuPaul on a talk show the other day, and they said, wow, you've made it safe for transgender folks and, you know, for the drag community to be safe by bringing it into people's homes all across the country and the world in ways that people could accept and get to know and people who might, if they thought about it politically, be subject. You know, be likely to be oppressive and. And discriminatory. But, you know, because it's on a TV show that has competition, people were. Were able to. To come forward and. And to begin to understand and know. Know the characters for 18 seasons that have been on that show. And one of the.
The interviewers on the show said to RuPaul, so while you were the first one maybe still to have brought dragons into American homes, RuPaul said, no. How about the Fast and the Furious, honey? It's all drag.
So what RuPaul has given us and what our community gives us is the opportunity to say, we are each unique individuals, and we're stronger when we come together, but we are each unique individuals that bring our own sense of spirituality, our own sense of compassion, our own sense of bodhichitta, that capacity to love, into everything we do. And so, as we teach that, it's not like you need to go to Japan to learn it. You can come to Chicago to learn it or in Ohio to learn it or in. In San Francisco to learn it, even in Detroit to learn it. These days, some of you know Zenju Ursula Emanuel, who has a prayer that says, may all beings be cared for and loved, be listened to, understood, and acknowledged despite diversity, differing views, be accepted for who they are in this moment, be afforded patience, be allowed to live without fear of having their lives taken away and their bodies violated. May all beings be, well, in the broadest sense, be fed, clothed, and treated with fairness. And it goes on. But we had to learn that in the LGBT community because we quite literally weren't allowed to marry, weren't allowed to have children, and our children, if we did have them taken away, weren't allowed to have jobs. When I was a grad student in college, I wanted desperately to be a teacher. I love teaching and working with children.
And the dean of the school, which was Wayne State University in Detroit, took me for a walk outside and said, you know, I just have to explain to you that. That you being in the School of education is just not a good idea, because we have to sign off on you getting a license to teach in Michigan. And gay people. He didn't use the word gay people, but. And he said, queers are not allowed to teach in grade schools or high schools, so we can't sign off on a teaching certificate, so go find another major.
And, you know, my first response. And this was back in 1970, so my first response was to clutch my chest and say, what do you mean, gay people? Who are you talking about?
But he knew what I was only beginning to imagine at that time, beginning to understand and that. And that it was our basic right to. To live where we wanted to live, to work how we wanted to work, to give our great gifts. You know, looking around all of you, whether you're gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, you all have these wonderful, wonderful gifts. And there were people that wanted to tell us how we could give them and to whom we could give them. And so that just. That wasn't very good.
So I think coming out was the. It was and is in those days, and still the single most important political organizing thing that we can do as LGBT folks and having the support of our allies and all the other communities in which we live and all the sanghas in which we practice is really important.
But I think what attracted me to Buddhism and to Zen Buddhism in the first place was the gift that the Buddha offered us, which wasn't just coming out, but it was coming in the opportunity to take that journey home. The longest journey I ever took in my early days. I've been practicing Buddhism now for about 30 years. And it was that first, that trip home, home to my heart, home to who I was, you know, to cultivate the habit of being open in the fullest sense of that word and what that means. And I, that in the Buddhist places where I practice. And, and at first it was in Boston where I lived for many years. And then as someone said, you should go on a retreat.
I said, well, that's a good thing. And so I looked up where I could go on retreats and I lived in Boston where I think there were seven zendos at that time of various lineages. And then there was a thing that said, you can go on a retreat for a two week period in the south of France with somebody named Thich Nhat Hanh. And, and I, if I didn't know I was gay before that, I thought, oh, you want to choose Massachusetts or the south of France? I know where I'm going.
And so it turned out to be a wonderful accident. And I studied for two weeks with Thich Nhat Hanh. And, and in those days they did the precepts differently. So I took the precepts for the first time and was given my first dharma name, Vai Thich Nhat Hanh, at Plum Village.
And it changed my life. Not just because of that, because I didn't really understand who he was or what he taught, but he talks a lot about engaged Buddhism and how our journey was home to ourselves, figuring out who we were, figuring out how we could be that entity only to the degree that we were interconnected with all other beings. So the teachings about engaged Buddhism became an important foundational part of the PR of my practice then and through to today. And I know for many of you as well, so we want to, as you say, honor our ancestors in Buddhism and those who were gay activists in Buddhism and so forth. And, you know, there certainly are some and many more that we can research and find and honor even just by holding our hearts to all of them, to all of our ancestors. But we think of Isaan Dorsey, who founded the Hartford Street Zen center in San Francisco. There's a book, if you haven't had a chance to see it, called Street Zen. Isan Dorsi was a wonderful person, a great teacher, also a drug addict, a drag queen, and in his earlier life, a sex worker. But he found his way to Zen practice because in Zen practice, he found his way with Suzuki Roshi and his heirs. He found his way to a place that didn't Judge all that doesn't matter what you did for a living or how you dressed, what mattered, what was in your heart and. And how willing you were to share that with others. And so he founded, probably the first that I know of in the nation, Sanga. Completely dedicated in those days to gay men, but very shortly after that to gay men and lesbians, transgender folks, and then to everybody forming the community that now practices there. Still to this day, we think of our ancestor who's still alive and wonderful. Teachers in Jew Earthal Emmanuel, who I quoted earlier, black lesbian feminist Zen transmitted teacher beautiful messages.
If you don't know about her, she has a little tiny book if you're new.
One of the easiest ways to get to know our practice is it's called Tell Me a Little Something about Zen. And it's really accessible. We had in New York Koshen Paley, Ellison and Chodo Robert Campbell, who set up the New York center for Compassionate Care, Contemplative Care, now called the New York City Zen Center. And they've been around for a very long time. Plus his first name is Koshen, so that's good.
In San Francisco, we had Jeffrey Schneider and Tova Green, who've set up the original Queer Dharma inside of San Francisco Zen center, where it has been supported by all of the leadership, all of the abbots and elders for more than 30 years.
We have at San Francisco Zen center, currently the abbot of one of the major, largest zendos in the country is a gay man, David Zemami. And the national organization for Soto Zen Buddhism is called the scba, and the president of the SCBA is a gay man. And I have the honor of serving in that role this year.
And so times have changed and we do have ancestors.
But I think one of the things that's important is as we celebrate our connection to those ancestors, what we want is, is to also just checking the time here, making sure we're doing okay.
So what we want is also to realize that who are the ancestors now are sitting in the Zendo with you there and sitting in these zoom rooms. In Eihei Dogen's Koso Hatsugamon, he says, may the merit and virtue of the tarmagates refresh the inexhaustible Dharma realm so that we sh. The ancestors share with us their compassion. Ancient Buddhas and ancestors were as we and we shall become the Buddhas and ancestors.
What in past lives was not yet complete must now be completed. And this life saved the body becoming from accumulated.
From accumulated lives. After enlightenment, we will be exactly the same as those ancient ones.
So the ancestors, you know, the first time somebody used that reference, referring to me, I thought, oh, my goodness, an ancestor. But it didn't take long, because in practice in America is not terrifically old. The gay and lesbian rights movement is not terrifically old. And so if we were able to show up and survive, we do, in fact, have some history and some. Some ancestry that we can share.
And so it's important to realize, as you look around, that your ancestors, you will be the ancestors for the next generation that comes. Whether they came for the first time today. Welcome, folks. Or they come for the first time in the next year or the year's coming, Those of you who are willing to walk the Buddha's path to live as bodhisattvas will be the ancestors that change Buddhism, containing our history and so forth, but also giving us the opportunity to change and roll out into the communities where we live for the people with whom we live and to understand that while we honor our traditions and lineages and forms and rituals, we also honor the fact that people are changing and that we're learning new ways to be present for each other with integrity and compassion.
And we all remember in the Upada sutta, when Ananda says to the Buddha, I think I've figured it out, Buddha. There's teachings and there's rituals and there's forms, but I think I'm having good spiritual friends. Kalyana Mita is half of the spiritual path. And as you all know, the Buddha shook his head and said, no, Ananda, don't talk like that. Having good spiritual friends is the entire of the Buddhist path. We walk each other down the path as human beings. We, of course, drift to the left or drift to the right. We stumble from time to time, and we stop. And it's absolutely okay because we have our good spiritual friends.
And if you look to your left and your right right now, you look into the screen and just give each other a great, big, huge smile, because we walk this path not by ourselves, but because we are in this together. And this month, we're celebrating the LGBTQ folks.
But just like there is no darkness without light, there wouldn't be any LGBTQ folks if there weren't our straight allies and friends and family members. So I think everybody gets to celebrate this month, and that's a wonderful thing.
I also think that a lot of Buddhist practice, and especially in Zen, is about living ethically. And I think we have an ethical mandate not to live in isolation.
So sometimes when we're feeling bad or we're feeling like we don't quite understand the practice on the Buddhist path.
Sometimes we don't quite understand the politics. Sometimes when we don't, don't feel like we're able to stand for the oppression that we're getting from wherever it might be coming from.
I think we have this opportunity to say, but we have our sangha, we have our kalyana mita. And if I don't show up on the bad days and allow you to be of service to me, then that denies you the opportunity to be good bodhisattvas and to be of service. And so I think we are ethically committed to being connected with each other and walking the path together.
And so I want to leave some time for us to have some conversation. And so I will just say that I think, you know, we hear a lot about pride. And in certain spiritual traditions, they say pride is one of the seven deadly sins. And the recovery community, they say that pride to be the root of most of human difficulties. But in Buddhist tradition, where pride was once considered to be one of the five poisons, I think that we should understand that pride is different now. Pride is not something that we were taught to cultivate, but I think we should all be cultivating it now. I don't think it's a negative habit. I think we talk about a little bit about delusional pride, which is just, you know, living in oppression, treating each other not kindly, and then throwing on a striped T shirt once a year and going for a parade down the street.
But then there's the divine pride, the pride that says each of us has Buddha nature and every single one of us has Buddha nature. And so wise pride is a reflection on who we are, our true nature.
Our true nature. Because it's only true if we're interconnected. A true nature that can, you know, be the result of oppression, but is the outgrowth of that. And so I think, you know, in some of our teachings, we talk about becoming the Buddha by vow. We are Buddha. And I think another way to think about that as we go along is that we don't necessarily want to be the Buddha, although I think we probably do. But what we want is to be available for the experience of awakening in Buddha Dharma. We want to be experienced, have that experience.
And I think our zazen practice gives us that as soon as we discover where we are, as soon as we discover a place where we can sit undistracted, which is a Sangha full of people who love us and who will accept us with our. With our good, good strengths and with our challenges and we finding what feels like real life. Finding what feels like real life.
And so I think what Mary Oliver said is in one of her poems. I don't know exactly what prayer is. What I do know is how to pay attention.
I do know how to pay attention. And so I think that's what we offer each other in Zen practice is that beautiful gift, paying attention, the Zen of paying attention.
And so I think I'll close and open up for whatever time we have left, some discussion with just a quick poem which is by Ada Lamon, who is the Poet Laureate of the United States. And this is called Instructions for Not Giving On Not Giving Up. More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy colored blossoms to the slate of sky in spring, it is the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all of the shock of white and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets leave the pavement strewn with confetti of aftermath the leaves come patient plodding, green skin growing over whatever winter did to us. A return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty.
Fine then, I'll take it. The tree seems to say a new slick leave unfurling like a fist into an open palm. I'll take it all.
So I think that's, you know, the message of this month for all of us is, you know, may we have the clarity and compassion that we cultivate when we're in Sangha together.
And may that wash away the burdens of the invalidating experiences that we grew up in, the detrimental effects of some human interactions.
And in this Sangha today we have this wonderful opportunity that we can extend forgiveness and love to ourselves and then to each other. And all beings can be free from the prison of the past and all beings can find peace in the present moment. And that's really what Buddhist practice is about. This month as we celebrate ourselves and in future months as we celebrate each and every one of you who's here.
So I think I'll leave it at that and answer any questions or engage all of you in conversations about your own divine pride, your own genuine wise pride and wise action.
And once again, thank you for allowing me to be with you on this day in this month.
[00:35:43] Speaker B: I just want to thank you very much for connecting to us, reconnecting to Chicago and you are clearly are in our family.
Our family here.
And if you ever show up in Chicago, come by, you'll be really happy. We have a lot of good spiritual friends here.
And your wise and spacious and inclusive and diverse teaching is really wondrous.
And I would like to invite anyone in the room or cloud. I think, Wade, you'll tap the cloud and maybe the room as well. So anyone you'd like to say something or have any comments, please feel welcomed. And thank you very much, Steve, again.
[00:36:35] Speaker D: I see.
Oh, I'm sorry, I. Yeah. Josh in the room. And then I see David Ray.
[00:36:42] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Steve. That was so inspiring.
And speak. And thank you for bringing up Zen Master RuPaul, who I've been watching since season five. So I haven't been around since the early days. But I guess I would like to ask you. I've been doing some meta practice in the morning at the end of my exasm.
And as you know, the outer circle, those you conflict with and which is not separate from us.
And so for me, the outer circle right now are people who are actively promoting practices and laws that hurt others.
And I haven't quite got to the end of the meta practice really, like fully in my heart, other than just to kind of take on that suffering, feel it.
So I guess just your thoughts on like, nothing is outside, right?
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Nothing is.
[00:37:42] Speaker C: We, we're all together, including the people in this room, but also the people that are actively hurting other people, those are part of us as well.
And how you through the earth sounds like incredible life that dealt with that, that outer circle.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
Thank you very much. Yeah. I think, you know, one of our teachings in Buddhism is to pay attention.
And Shantideva, the Buddhist monk that talks about in, you know, talked in his teachings, which I love particularly because what I counted one day because I was a little bit crazy. He uses the words joy or delight 57 times in the reading that I was looking at. And so I thought, well, he didn't live in an era of our current leadership and political organizers who know about causing fear and causing anger and maybe don't even believe in all the hateful stuff they're doing. But they see it as an organizing tool, which is just awful. But what Shantideva says is we must pay attention to everything and then we must figure out what's important because otherwise we can feel overwhelmed. You know, we can look at election results or look at the amount of money people are spending or look at the fact that they're having a Cage fight on the front lawn of the White House. We could just be overwhelmed.
And I think one of the things that we get to do without not calling it a spiritual bypass, really get to do, is to say there are about 20 of us here today, and we're here for an hour and some time, maybe two hours. So that's 20 hours that we are putting peace and love into the world.
It's 20 hours that we're not sitting in the coffee shop down the street waving the Chicago or New York or Washington newspapers at each other, saying, look again, look how awful this is.
But we, in fact, through our practice, through our panoramic awareness of what's possible in life, through our bodhisattva vows, we just spent this morning contributing to the world.
And, you know, there's an old saying in Buddhism about change the world one mind at a time. And so what we do in practice is, is mind training.
And so I know that for me, I don't watch the national news anymore. And it's not because I'm not concerned. It's because I know that the news is for sale, and they. They sell it by making me afraid or angry. And so I don't need to know that I still am involved in community organizing, food programs and youth programs and other types of stuff, because that's a way for me to give back to the world. I'm still involved as often as possible when anybody will have me coming and practicing with other Sanghas and. And speaking when asked, because that's a way for us to. To be there. And so that outer circle of folks, I do think, you know, meta practice starts with self. You know, the Buddha said, you can search the whole world over. You will not find anyone more deserving of your love than you. And I think that's that ethical integrity that we have. It's like if we've been practicing for a few minutes or a few hours or a few decades, people look at us and say, you know, the Buddha said, you teach 24 7. Doesn't matter where you're sitting or what color your robes are. And so how do we walk through the world saying, I found a place there in the Sangha in Chicago where people believe each other, trust each other, encourage each other, put up with each other with love and compassion.
And they do that for me, and then I've learned to do it for them. And that goes out into the world.
And so that outer circle, which might be a particular political party or, you know, the Billionaires Boys Club or whoever it might be.
I certainly don't wish them any harm, but I don't spend a lot of time trying to offset our newest trillionaire and his actions, because I think I can be more effective spending time with you and listening to the compassion that you just spoke with. So.
So I think it. I think it's focusing, remembering that meta practice goes out in circles where love can grow and be expanded.
And while I'm aware of those folks in those outer circles, I'm not going to give them the benefit of my time and my heart.
And everybody will do that differently. And probably some folks that are here today will tell us different ways to do that, but for me, I know they're there, but I'd rather focus on. On the 20 of us that are here. Thanks, David.
[00:42:06] Speaker E: Hello. And thank you so much, Steven, for that talk. Thank you.
I'd like to tell you something about Ancient Dragon, and then I'd like to ask you a question. And the story about Ancient Dragon is that I started coming in 2020, and one of the first things that I saw was a little index card on a bulletin board that said something like, queer Dharma Group, call this phone number. And immediately I knew, oh, okay, this place is safe. And. And that makes a place safe in a way that really, maybe nothing else can do now.
Now, Ancient Dragons is a somewhat different place in that it's so queer here. I mean, there are. There. There's. There's such a. There's such a vibrant queer presence in this community as, as Wade has rightly complained once or twice, people don't really show up for the Queer Dharma Group as much as they used to because it no longer feels like, oh, I need this little enclave of. Of fellow queers. And what a wonderful outcome. Though it's still really, really important for the Queer Dharma Group to continue exist so that people will have that experience that I have, you know, when they came in. But here's my question.
It's about generationality and the different experience of different age groups, especially for queer people. I've been teaching college undergraduates and graduate students for almost 30 years. Sometimes I say generationality is a crock because people are just people. But it's also true, right, that, you know, different experiences, like, you know, you and I lived through the AIDS epic epidemic, you know, I was in my 20s or you were probably in your 30s. The world is very different now. The way that queer people connect is very different now. All of that, the challenges are different. And so, yeah, I know that must mean, you know, that Buddhist practice is Buddhist practice for queer people of different generations is different. So I'd love to hear your reflections on that, on sort of generationality and age difference.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, There is a wonderful poem that I won't read for you, a total thing right now because I want to get as many people to have questions as possible. But there's this idea. If we think about the trees and we think about the forest, it says the roots run deep, drinking from shared waters, holding memories of storms weathered together, of droughts survived by drawing from collective strength. Collective healing is the SAP that flows between us.
And so I think I understand on some days that what you and I and others of our generations went through is not what folks today are going through. That that's very different. So if I show up at a meeting or an organizing meeting or setting up a conference or something, and I have all these ideas about what ought to happen, because here's what worked before.
The young, younger folks reasonably think, oh, isn't that cute? Isn't that charming? And they're right to think so. And it's, and it's, each one teaches one. You know, we get this wonderful opportunity to say that our experience is useful. You know, it is the roots for the tree that's growing now, but the branches are the beauty. The branches are what we encounter and we can be in those branches, as will the middle aged folks and the younger folks and the folks coming up in, in the next.
And so I think that's the wonderful thing to realize is that we, we paved some roads and it's wonderful to be honored as ancestors that did some of that work. And we paved the roads. Not because we liked paving, I didn't. Anyway, we paved it so that folks could walk on it and run on it and have a street dance on it and, and march on it and, and whatever they're doing.
And so we, we, we, we get this opportunity to say, ah, you know, somebody said recently, and I loved it. The quieter I get, the more I learn. And so we show up in a sangha like this and I look at the ages of folks on the screen and in that room and it's like we have such, you know, the depth of practice. And there are some days, I've been practicing zen Buddhism for 33 years and there are some days when somebody comes in and they're just, they're just for the first time or maybe a few times they've been coming and, and they've read a pamphlet or one book and then they ask a couple questions and it's like, oh, wow, what a beautiful. What a beautiful, fresh, open hearted, wholehearted way of approaching our objectless meditation or our. Or our Bodhisattva way of life. Hadn't thought of that or hadn't thought of it in a long time. You know, when you get to be my age, you'll realize some things we did think about and now we don't remember. So it's all of that. And that's why I think the multi generations, the metaphor for the trees is just a really beautiful one, I think, allows us to think about the roots and where they came from and that people tried to pull out the roots at various points, but the trees are growing, and they're growing in the beautiful faces sitting in that sangha and on these zoom rooms today. And even sitting in a national park, it looks like with trees in the background.
Thank you, David.
Anybody else have a thought or some guidance for us?
Well, I think we have three minutes, if my time is correct. So maybe I will read you that poem and I'll send it to you because I think some of you might
[00:47:18] Speaker C: want to have it.
[00:47:19] Speaker A: But it's by a woman named Kenny Chang, and it's called Belonging, Collective Healing. And the tree to belong is to know your place in the forest, not as a solitary trunk standing out against the wind, but as part of something ancient and ongoing. Rather than roots intertwined beneath the soil where no eye can see, the branches reach upward, outwards towards the light. Each one a story, a generation, a dream carried forward. We are the fruit of those who came before, sweet with their wisdom, shaped by their seasons. The roots run deep, drinking from shared waters, holding memories of storms weathered together, of droughts survived by drawing from collective strength. They whisper, you are held. You have always been held.
Collective healing is the SAP that flows between us. What nourishes one, nourishes all. What wounds one, sends tremors through the network.
When we tend to our own healing, the whole tree strengthens. To connect with the branches and roots is to remember we are neither the first nor the last. We are the living bridge between what was and what will be, bearing both the scars and blossoms of our lineage.
Hence, in this connection, we find our truest self, not isolated, but interwoven, not alone, but belonging to something far greater than any single life that's any Chang. And I think that that sort of sums up what we're all trying to do this month and in our sagas and in our spiritual practice. So thank you, everyone.
[00:48:50] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Stephen, and thank you for getting up early in California to be with us during prime month which can be challenging but in about the area so we will end with the bows and then say goodbye to everyone and thank you so much for reminding us of the deep healing practice that we do in our Sandras and in Zaza. May our intention equally extend to every being and for place with the true queer compassion of you Buddha's way these
[00:49:32] Speaker D: are numberless we vow to free them Delusions are inexhaustible we vow to cut through them Dar my gates are boundless we vow to enter them Buddha's way is unsurpassable we vow to realize it being we vow to free them Delusions are inexhaustible we vow to free to cut through them Our minds are boundless we allow to enter them Buddha's ways unsurpassable we vow to realize that being high numberless we vow to free them Delusions are inaccessible we vow to cut through them Karma hates our boundless hear how to enter them with us May is unsurpassable Leave out your eyes.
