Posts
First of all, allow me to explain that this post is intended to provide proper advice to future potential (or, would-be) transgenders and not so much for existing transgenders. It is meant to provide them guidance from the viewpoint of what I understand of the Buddha's teachings. Hopefully it is correct. You may check with other Buddhist teachers. However, I noted that there are very few Buddhist teachers who is willing to talk about this subject. Moreover, I suspect they may not know much about what a transgender has to undergo. After all, most of the Buddhist teachers have been monks most of their lives. Because I am a layperson, and I do read a lot of these "things", I am more in a position to provide my views on this issue. I can tell you there are very little Buddhist insights on such issues. Buddhist teachers are generally very reluctant to go into these subjects. As a result, many of these affected persons have few persons of religious knowledge to turn to. I am not a Buddhist teacher, but at the very least, I am laying down the points for you guys to consider and check further on your own. This is also in line with the Kalama Sutta taught by the Buddha. As advised by the Buddha in this Sutta, he advised us to check ourselves. What I am going to say below may disappoint some transgenders, but it is meant to provide the Buddhist viewpoint and in the long term, to do what is more in line with the Buddha's teachings. It's time someone says it as it is.
Referring to this news recently, I do sympathise with her situation.
https://malaysia.yahoo.com/news/lifestyle/thai-beauty-pageant-finalist-denied-213503571.html
While I understand and sympathise with the LBGTQ cause, I am not an advocate of gender change. I do not advise the change of your original gender of birth through medical operations and surgery. I feel that one should accept the karma that you are born with and not try to force things to change, especially things that cannot (or should not) be changed. Your human physical body is one such "thing". I am not referring to any physical defects. If your body has no defects and fully functioning, I do advise people to accept the body you are born with, and do the most with it to benefit yourself and others. Do not subject your body (and mind) to unnecessary surgeries and hormone pills.
If you have a problem accepting the gender of your birth, from my understanding of Buddhism, it is mostly due to misconceptions in your mind. The reason is that mind itself has NO GENDER. There simply isn't any gender to begin with. So, how can anyone says, you are born in the wrong gender body. Usually this is the reason given by people who want a sex/gender change.
Does eye consciousness have gender? Does ear consciousness have gender? Does smell consciousness have gender? Does taste consciousness have gender? Does your touch consciousness have gender? Does thought consciousness have gender? You ponder and contemplate whether any of these have gender? In Buddhism, what makes up your so-called "soul" is actually an illusion that you create of your own. From the interactions of the six sense consciousnesses (note: each of these function separately but they can be very spontaneous and simultaneous as well), you amalgamate them as they do appear to function from one single unit or entity. However, there is actually no entity. At any time, one of these sense consciousnesses will arise and within a micro-split second, another will arise. And it continues that way seemingly endlessly arising and falling. One time you see something. Then a sound is heard. Your consciousnesses keep shifting from one to another - all within the same physical body. And that is due to the mind is attached to the body. Without the mind, the body is a dead flesh and bone and blood. It will not function at all. The heart will not beat. Without the body, the mind cannot function wholly. Its tendency is to attach itself to a body. Even after death, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, once explained, that the consciousness attach itself to a subtle air-body in order to go to the next rebirth. This is the bardo body.
Therefore, if you explore deeply both the mind and body, you will find that only the physical body has a gender. Not the mind. Your so-called "soul" or "spirit" is an illusion. That is the theory of "non-self" (or, more commonly referred as "emptiness" in a broader context). If you understand all this, you will accept that you are WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. In psychology field, there is such a thing as learned concepts. Somewhere along your life, you probably "learned" or "pick up" INCORRECTLY that "you" are a female in a male body, or vice-versa. If you are really serious to fix this misconception, you need to explore and think backwards, what really happened in your life. What is the thing (or things) that had affected you psychologically? Contemplate in this manner. There are relevant mindfulness meditations that you can do, if you are interested.
Back to the story in the article, you may realise by now that you can surgically change your body, but you cannot alter (or find it difficult) to alter certain documentation provided by your government authorities. Also, there is the question - can you alter the DNA that you had at birth? Does thumb prints tell gender? I am not sure but can you change the thumb prints? Perhaps, thumb prints do not tell gender, but DNA does, I think. In any regards, you may change the physical appearance, but a person born as a male, cannot truly be a fully functioning female no matter how good the surgery went. You can splice the dick (and you lose it forever), and use only the dickhead skin as your "vagina", but will it be the same as that of a natural woman? You probably know the answer. It's the same for a woman who surgically turn into a man. Will he have a natural dick? A natural man have morning erections. A transgender does not. A natural woman does not need to lubricate artificially. A transgender need to do it often, otherwise the "hole" may close up. At least, this is what I understand. Hopefully I have not understood wrongly. It will never be the same. IT WON'T. IT NEVER WILL. I do not mean to sound cruel, but in reality, a transgender has become a "freak", i.e. neither a whole man nor a whole woman. An unnatural person. But if you are already a transgender, there is no turning back. You have lost your natural private parts forever and have to live and accept the artificial ones that you have installed on you. Again, for this, there are mindfulness meditations that you can do for this situation. I do hope that society will not discriminate against transgenders. Treat them as you would a normal person.
Rather than suffer (and continue to suffer) in a self-perpetuated lie and self-delusion, it is much better to accept reality and live to ACCEPT the body you were born with. If you have a male body, learn to accept your male body. But if you like another person of the same gender, that is a different issue altogether. But we're dealing with transgender issue here. Don't let your friends or doctors mislead you that it is okay to go under the knife to transmute your physical body. Yes, it can be done, but your life will continue to suffer and there will still be problems faced in society. You may need to continue to take hormone pills, which will likely have an adverse effect on your health later on. Therefore, it is best to learn to accept the genderlessness of the mind and utilise the impermanence of the body to practice the dharma and benefit the society at large. Don't have too much attachment to the gender of your body. The body is just a "temporary house" for the mind. Very soon we will have to leave the house anyway.
There is a reason why we are born as males or females respectively. We may not understand the karma we have behind the reason, but we need to live fully our own karma. If we try to change our karma forcefully, we only will end up creating more negative karma. And we will again face the same issue in our future rebirth. So, it is better to live and accept our present karma and utilise our present karma for the benefit of ourselves and others. That is also the bodhicitta practice that we can do. Have compassion on your physical body. DO NOT MUTATE YOUR BODY IF IT IS NOT NECESSARY!
A better way to change your gender, if you are a male but wish to be a female (and vice-versa), is to go pray before a BUDDHA. Make some offerings and then make your aspiration. If you believe in Tibetan Buddhism and do have faith in the deity TARA, that is who you should make known your aspirations of your preferred gender. Tell TARA that you are a male currently but want to be a female in your next life. Yes, aspire for your next life. Not in this present life. In this present life, you need to have patience and plant good merits. That's what you need to do. And hopefully, you may get your wish fulfilled in your next rebirth. HENCE, YOU CHANGE YOUR GENDER IN THIS MANNER. The natural way, that is more in line with Buddhist practice. However, I must point out that even this sort of aspiration is not correct. By right, we should not be wishing for such "things". If you aspire for a female body, for example, you may not get back into a male body for many aeons of lifetimes. So, be careful what you wish for. In any regards, one should be wishing to liberate oneself from the cycle of birth and death and other such noble aspirations! The latter aspirations are definitely much better.
Last but not least, I do hope you will learn to have your peace of mind. Learn to unravel the misconceptions you may have with regards your gender. Do some mindfulness meditation as I have mentioned above. Drop me a comment if you have any question. May Buddha always bless you with a healthy body and a peaceful mind!
Do support my blog by exploring my other posts. https://buddha-and-me.blogspot.com/2012/12/anti-blessings.html
#transgender #lbgtq #sexchange #bodhicitta
No comments:
Post a Comment