Notes From A Burning House

The groom deserved to be called by his Nigerian name at the wedding, I insisted on that with a promise that I would practice saying it. 

First they taught me how to spell it: Iheanyichukwu.  What had I gotten myself into?  Yet the phonetics were less intimidating than the name written.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Practiced it over and over.    Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.

Suddenly I noticed how blunt and utilitarian are most of the names I hear.  Joe.  Sue.  Tracy.  William.  Nothing like the sheer linguile joy of uttering a name like ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo.  Wheeee!  A name you can climb on, like a beautiful old tree, stand up in the branches and bellow with joy.  “Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!!”   

A name with a satisfying flavor, like herbed coffee. 

Once I started practicing, I couldn’t stop.  It didn’t quite become a mantram, but it began to creep in as an expression at different moments.  A shout of glee, an expression of wonderment, a universal benediction.  “Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo, my good man.”  “And also with you.”

An eon ago, when I was an undergraduate at Eugene Lang College in New York City, I used to eat my meals at New YorkUniversity’s dining hall.  (Flashback: it was Clinton’s first term as President, David Dinkins was the Mayor of New York, and Twin Peaks was on the air.)  There, I met a woman with a deliriously beautiful name that was invented outright by her parents: Avendwee.  Pronounced AH-ven-dwee.  Like a melody on a Balinese flute.  I wrote a short epic poem, most of it in nonsense language and heavily influenced by cheap wine, and mercifully lost to us; I remember only that it took place “in the seat of the valley of Bonnegin Mitz / The sunny, green valley where Avendwee sits.”  It involved nations that fought their wars with tiny, tiny armies so as to minimize the damage.  (They could have just played chess or compared yams, I suppose; but these are sober reflections.) 

The flesh and blood Avendwee declined my offer for dinner and a moonlight walk.  At least the poem made her laugh – a sweet triumph in itself.   

As I remember it, Bonnegin Mitz was a lovely, green place; Ike and Amy may even have chosen to get married there, if they had seen it.  Who knows?  The day may come that they walk there, perhaps with their children (who all, I hope, have equally fun names).  As it is, they got married on the beach in Malibu, with the Pacific Ocean as their chapel.  When the ceremony was concluded, I wanted to raise a triumphant shout – and of course by now you know that shout would have been, “ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!!”  But that would have looked strange.

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The following appeared in Parabola Magazine in the Spring 2004 issue.  The theme of that issue was “Marriage.”

As a Dharma Teacher in a Korean-American Zen Buddhist sangha, it has been my privilege to perform several wedding ceremonies. It is emerging as one of my favorite activities, even though my married friends poke me and say, "Always the minister, never the groom."

The notion of a Buddhist wedding can be elusive. The original Buddhist movement emphasized the spiritual attainments of a celibate and homeless clergy. Marriage was viewed by the elite as a fetter tying one to the attachments and worries of family life. Of course, Buddhists have been getting married all this time; yet, when Westerners inquire about a "Buddhist wedding," it is hard to point to any one ritual. Buddhist weddings draw on cultural traditions in countries with deep Buddhist roots. In North America, those roots are still finding soil. Moreover, no one I have married so far has even identified themselves as Buddhist; they simply felt, for their own reasons, that a Buddhist officiant would be appropriate.

Without a mature American Buddhist tradition to draw from, the ceremonies have all been essentially interfaith events, incorporating familiar images and wedding rituals yet crackling with creative energy. The point is not to be unique, but to underscore clearly the transformation that is being witnessed–and allow the invisible to manifest as something visible. We treat the marriage not simply as a legal arrangement but as a vocation. The couple are ordaining as married people. It is a vocation that involves family and friends in an intimate way. Having their community witness that compact is highly significant in itself, and thus the ceremony must use terms that make sense to everyone present. At ceremonies where I have presided, we have used unity candles or incense or both; we’ve had grooms from Jewish families stomp on glass; we’ve incorporated chanting to Kwan Seum Bosal, the Bodhisattva who embodies compassion.

Sometimes couples employ their creativity in order to "simplify" their wedding vows, and here the officiant has to be on guard. There are ten vows that I present to them, and we discuss them at length in the context of their relationship. Some couples want to bargain with the vows, which is something most of us are doing all the time with our lives. They think the vows are too hard, and they don’t want to set themselves up for a fall. "I can’t vow ‘not to give way to anger,’" they say, "because I know I will do that someday."

"You better believe it," says the officiant, "And because you made this promise, it is on you to work with your anger and come back home to your vow." From the perspective of Zen practice, vows do not describe an ideal world to which we then compare ourselves. Vows are a powerful declaration of one’s direction in a world that shifts, jerks, and frequently knocks us over. Since we know we are going to stumble, we can relinquish our need to be right and embark on the journey with a non-knowing mind.

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Not that I know anything about the subject first-hand.  Never even been engaged.  (Almost, once.)  How do people do it?  How do you stay in a healthy and fulfilling orbit with another body through the years?  I admire and appreciate married people, just as much as I admire the Sunims (Buddhist monks).  My parents are still married after 37 years.  I’ve asked them how they do it, but they have no explanation to give me.  It is a miracle, a mystery.  Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo, my friend.  Only say, “Thank you.” 

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Bertha tells me about a wedding she went to, the same day that I stood in front of the ocean with Ike and Amy.  The groom, she recalled, surprised his bride by singing her favorite song for her, “Somewhere Over The Rainbow.”  It was evident to anyone with a sense of hearing that the gentleman had no sense of pitch whatsoever.  At all.  Couldn’t carry a note in a bucket, he knew it, and that wasn’t what mattered.  Bertha reported there was not a dry female eye in the assembly; I would add, boys sometimes cry at that stuff, too.  (They are likely to hide it, however.) 

When Lee and Rodney got married, he surprised her by producing a saxophone he hadn’t played publically or privately in years.  He had secretly practiced for months leading up to the wedding so he could play her a song at their reception. 

Ron and Deirdre were married in front of a very large canvas they had painted together. 

Mauro and Rachael rallied a village’s worth of friends and family to camp out for one week and build, by hand, the scenery and the props for their wedding.  For a week, people slept outside, got sunburnt, hit their thumbs with hammers and got sweaty, while babies cried and pets ran around.  Their wedding did not stop at affirming community; it was community.  They built a nuptial tent and fountains and table settings forged from tree stumps and gigantic mobiles that amazed the children and an outdoor movie screen, and an outdoor shower of deadwood and brush, with a brazier to heat water for hot showers in the woods.  When I woke at dawn to do my usual morning practice on a nearby hillside, with families snoozing in their tents, the entire event felt like a tremendous gift. 

What could I say?  I didn’t have the word yet.  Now I do.  You know it, don’t you?

Ee-han-yee-CHOO-koo!  And the same for all of you.

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[These images were provided generously by Lori Holmes, Rudy King, and Amy Lewis.  You can enlarge them by clicking on them.]

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