"Imagine what it would be like if all the people of the world and all creatures and beings of any sort were wedded to one another in mutual caring and respect:
"I straight, take you gay and lesbian. . . .
I Christian, take you Muslim. . . .
I Buddhist, take you Jew. . . .
I robin, take you sparrow. . . .
I rabbit, take you fox. . . .
I frog, take you salmon. . . .
I stone, take you leaf. . . .
"We have come together for this marriage. May each continue to deepen their love towards each other and towards all living creatures that walk, crawl, swim, slither, and fly, above, below, and over the earth. I hereby declare that we are one family of one earth 'till death do us part.
"Seng-ts'an, the third Chinese Ancestor of Zen, taught that 'the ultimate way is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing.' Seng-ts'an's ultimate way is the way of the interface of all beings — human, animal, mineral. Legislating the exclusion of lesbians and gays from society denies the reality of our shared humanity, much like those laws and public policies that legislate the exclusion of birds, animals, and plants from their rightful habitats or allow for the exclusion of salmon from their spawning sites and thus deny our essential human interaction with the earth.
"From the viewpoint of the contemporary deep ecologist or likewise one who has entered the Buddhist path, this sort of selective exclusion simply doesn't make sense. To the Buddhist it is like rejecting the shape of one's own face; to the ecologist it's a pointless and tragic argument with reality. If Seng-ts'an's ultimate way is one of compassionate inclusion and love, then I don't get to pick and choose who gets to love and who doesn't. And since to love is to cherish and nurture life in all its forms, then nowhere in the whole of this wide earth do I get to choose what stays and what goes. Whatever I deny to others, I've already lost to myself.
"If we humans treat each other badly so will we treat the earth. We have sought to shape conditions to our own liking, an ignorance and greed that rests on the same fatal flaw: the belief that we can possess the world on our own terms. If I walk the path of preference, I will be constantly at pains to rid the world of whatever offends me. If instead I come to realize that our lives and histories are shared, then the whole world is kin and I take my place at the table where the entire earthly family is invited to dine. Who then will be told to go hungry? Who will be left outside?
"Whenever diversity is feared as a threat, we suffer. Could we but open our hearts to all our brothers and sisters, our fears would drop away and we would celebrate at last the treasure of a rich and varied earth.
"Indeed, the earth itself invites us into the all-inclusive body of life. Our human lives are not separable from each other or from the lives of earth's other creatures."
