Praise for Transcending

There is a luminous, vibrant, flowing, empty world beyond the dualism that fragments reality. Contributors to this book bring a Buddhist lens to the spectrum of sexual and gender orientations with brilliance, creativity, and great personal courage. Their collective wisdom expands the relevance of dharma in contemporary culture by calling forth the intrinsic openness of our awakening hearts.

—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, and The RAIN of Compassion

As a cis male, I devoured this book—the best dharma book I have read in a long time. It was both a joy and a responsibility to listen to voices often not heard. I have so been in need, been so thirsty for these points of view, so wanting to understand more trans experiences. Here, generously and honestly, trans folks share their story, their wisdom, their dharma—the dharma. This gem is full of liberating insights on dukkha (unsatisfactoriness), anicca (impermanence), and anattā (not-self). I believe it will make me a better man, a better human, a better friend on the path. I am aware that I now hold responsibility. Thank you for your wisdom, which was painfully missing. May invisibility end here.

—Pascal Auclair was trained by Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein to teach Insight Meditation. He has joyfully and heartfully led silent retreats all over North America and Europe since 2006.

What a joy to read this book! This book is a delight. It records the journey of each of its contributors as they bring more wisdom and truthfulness to being the most authentic versions of themselves in the world. Living as a trans or gender nonconforming person embodies courage, in this culture that affirms binaries and does not see the emptiness of the labels that are put on each of us at birth. This book is an inspiration to those who are seeking a more authentic way of living the dharma, a deeper commitment to nonharming, and a dharma community that nurtures the aspirations of all practitioners.

—Rachel Lewis, PhD, has been teaching the dharma through BCIMS in Vancouver, British Columbia, since 2011, including at a prison and in the Downtown East Side. She is one of the contributors to the anthology Still, in the City.

This courageous and necessary anthology is an important part of the Buddhist canon, that must no longer be in the closet. The authors remind us of how the dharma is a nondual teaching, and social constructs like gender are a concept and not a life sentence. ‘The Buddha was queer, we are all queer’ is also a bold reminder of how the seminal teachings ‘challenge the status quo,’ that everything changes and the path is about abandoning all labels. Like the thirteenth-century Buddhist teacher Dōgen says: ‘To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to let go of the self.’ Only after the authentic study of the self can we surrender to our true essence. Enforcing binary gender onto any society has been one of the world’s worst atrocities. It should be considered a human rights violation. And I apologize for any harm I have caused, and believe that this important anthology will teach us how to live the first precept of non-harm with compassion, wisdom, and integrity.

—Vimalasara (Valerie) Mason-John is an award-winning author, chair of the Vancouver Buddhist Centre, and president of the Buddhist Recovery Network. She is a senior Order member in the Triratna Vancouver Buddhist Centre.

Such an important, timely book—inspiring, moving, and informative. Those who are trans, gender fluid, or genderqueer, as well as people of color, those living with disabilities, and people who are otherwise marginalized, will find their experiences validated here through the courage, vulnerability, honesty, and shared wisdom of these stories. Those who are cisgender, white, privileged in certain ways, will gain awareness and much deeper understanding of the lived experiences of our trans sangha members, and recognize the suffering caused by biases of racial, social, and gender stereotyping. Buddhadharma teaches us to see ourselves and others free from assumptions, fixed identities, and social conditioning—as fluid, changing beings. Where we can hold ways of being a self that are beautiful rather than a cause of suffering—using identity in a way that brings connection, community, harmony, and well-being. I hope that reading this book will help Buddhist sanghas of all traditions provide the safety and acceptance where all can explore the fluidity of changing identity. Where we can allow the possibility of changing views with tenderness and wisdom, rather than judgment.

—Adrianne Ross, MD, has been teaching the dharma in the Theravāda tradition for more than twenty years in the United States and Canada. She cofounded the BC Insight Meditation Society and contributed to The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women.

This is a book of great importance. In these times of cultural and societal shifts in consciousness all our voices need to be heard, our identities accepted with dignity, and our stories respected. This groundbreaking book introduces us to our family of dharma practitioners giving voice to the essential teachings of living dharma. The authors invite us to shine a light for their journey on the path of the Buddha as they pave the way forward for the inclusivity of the trans community into the global sangha. Until all voices are heard and seen, we will not be living in an equitable world.

—Koshin Paley Ellison, Sensei, cofounder of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care and author of Wholehearted: Slow Down, Help Out, Wake Up

I believe that we will never see a true inclusive Buddhadharma until all voices of our diverse and beautiful community are expressed. The liberatory quality of dharma is most profoundly expressed as the union of wisdom and compassion pulsing through our relative selves, which includes our bodies and identities. For too long we have struggled with a white supremacist patriarchal heteronormative interpretation of dharma that denies the importance of identity including gender and sexuality. The voices of Transcending embrace the beauty of the relative self and identity as a ground from which we began our work of liberation. This anthology is more than a book about transgender Buddhist practitioners sharing their lives; it is a text that will save the lives of countless transgender and queer practitioners who need to know that there is a place for them in this rich tradition. Moreover, this anthology is a groundbreaking testimony to the truth that the future of Buddhism will be queer, beautiful, fierce, fabulous, and offer the space for all of us to show up and be present.

—Lama Rod Owens, coauthor of Radical Dharma

Copyright © 2019 by Kevin Manders and Elizabeth Marston. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

Published by

North Atlantic Books

Berkeley, California

Cover art and design by Jeff Boozer

Book design by Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Printed in the United States of America

Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices is sponsored and published by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences (dba North Atlantic Books), an educational nonprofit based in Berkeley, California, that collaborates with partners to develop cross-cultural perspectives, nurture holistic views of art, science, the humanities, and healing, and seed personal and global transformation by publishing work on the relationship of body, spirit, and nature. All editor proceeds are being donated to Trans Lifeline.

North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Manders, Kevin, 1971- editor. | Marston, Elizabeth, 1980- editor.

Title: Transcending : trans Buddhist voices / Kevin Manders and Elizabeth

Marston, editors.

Description: Berkeley, California : North Atlantic Books, [2019]

Identifiers: LCCN 2019019190 (print) | LCCN 2019022274 (ebook) | ISBN

9781623174156 (trade paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Transgender people—Religious life. | Gender

nonconformity—Religious aspects—Buddhism. | Gender identity—Religious

aspects—Buddhism.

Classification: LCC HQ77.9 .T7143 2019 (print) | LCC HQ77.9 (ebook) | DDC

201/.7—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019190

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019022274

This book includes recycled material and material from well-managed forests. North Atlantic Books is committed to the protection of our environment. We print on recycled paper whenever possible and partner with printers who strive to use environmentally responsible practices.

Acknowledgments

Kevin Manders

The first acknowledgment needs to go to Siddhārtha Gautama—the Buddha—the awakened one. Without his enlightenment and his spreading of the dharma, absolutely none of this would be possible.

I would like to acknowledge that my work on this book was done on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations.

I dreamed of this book long before I even knew another trans, genderqueer, or nonbinary Buddhist. This book wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for the help and support of a lot of people. First and foremost, there would be no book without Liz. You were the very first other trans Buddhist I met. It’s been a long road; you have my utmost respect, gratitude, and appreciation. Thank you. I love you, dear dharma friend.

Thanks to everyone at North Atlantic Books—including Ebonie Ledbetter and Adrienne Armstrong for their exceptional editing skills; Tim McKee for taking a chance on this project; Susan Bumps for the utmost patience with getting the ball rolling and helping explain things; and Ruby Privateer for her editing, for her wise vision of this book, and for steering this project to life. Thanks to Lama Rod Owens for making the connection to North Atlantic Books.

Thank you kindly to all of my friends, partners, sanghas, communities, and family. Thanks to everyone past and present who has been a dharma friend or shared sangha space with me. Lauren—I love you, and you mean the world to me. Thanks for all your help, your love, and the support at the end. You were a lifesaver. Jenny, my sweet dharma friend—thanks for your support, friendship, and love on the path. Lu—you hold a special place in my heart. Coral and Kathleen—thanks for being the best dharma buds. Much love and respect go to La, Caitriona, and Lev. Colleen—thanks for your love and support. You make my heart smile and so much more. I have so many people to thank, but extra-special thanks, love, and gratitude go to Roxy, Teresa, Matsui, romham, Monique, Michael, Jason, David, Chance, Finn, Ray, Tārā, Joshua, Tree, Rabbit, Charlotte, Penelope, Ljós, Emerson, Padma, Kerry, Devien, Mel, Tim, Josie, Kait, Florence, Naomi, Gillian, Julia, Em, Thuy, Kira, Shannon, and to everyone in our Queer and Trans sangha. Thanks to everyone else who has supported me and this book.

Lobzang Jivaka (Michael Dillon, 1915–1962) was one of the first trans Buddhists I ever heard of. He was an early inspiration on this path.

This book wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the many teachers, spiritual friends, and mentors who have taught me the dharma. Thanks to all the cis Buddhist teachers who endorsed and supported this book. Your support for trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary Buddhists means so much. Thanks to Kyira for helping me get on the path twelve years ago, and for all the support in the early years, and still to this day if I need it. Thanks to my old sangha—you helped me grow in the early years. Thanks to everyone at BC Insight Meditation Society for helping me to continue to grow on the path. Thanks to Adrianne for the guiding support and James for additional support at times. I especially want to thank Rachel—your support and belief in me for all of these years means everything to me, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without you. It has led me to wanting to see this book published. I also feel incredibly blessed to learn the dharma from Ajahn Sona and Sister Mon at Birken Forest Monastery.

Last but not least, I want to thank all the contributors to the book. Without all of you, there would be no book. Thank you all for sharing your wisdom and your stories of joy and heartbreak on this path. With mettā and gratitude to all trans, genderqueer, and nonbinary Buddhists.

Acknowledgments

Elizabeth Marston

I’d like to acknowledge the unceded Coast Salish territories where this book was written, and their peoples, displaced by colonialism and subsequently oppressed. This is an enormous crime, and as a descendant of settlers, it was done in my name. I choose not to forget. I encourage others to choose not to forget. While it may be true that there is only the present moment, every meditator knows that the present moment is full of stories, and in this way is both enchanted and haunted by what came before. May discovering the reality upon which those stories supervene not deter us from remembering and retelling those stories, especially the ones that the powerful tried to erase.

Preface

La Sarmiento

Being an immigrant to the United States, a person of color, and genderqueer, for much of my life I never felt I belonged fully to any particular group or community. A coping strategy I learned early on was to assimilate or conform to the dominant culture so that I didn’t stand out, in hopes of being accepted and loved.

That no longer worked for me in my early thirties. I was living my life for everyone but myself. Years of fear, anger, frustration, and resentment began to seep out of the near-perfect image I had created to hide who I really was. I could no longer keep up the facade.

After a series of failed, monogamous, and not-so-monogamous relationships, I realized that I was the common denominator. Rather than focusing on everyone and everything outside of myself, I needed to take a good, hard look inward to understand and accept who I really was.

As a recovering Catholic, I was always intrigued by Buddhism. I appreciated how direct, real, and true the teachings and practices were, with no reliance on anyone or anything but myself to wake up to the truth of reality. I often thought that following the path of Zen would most match my temperament, and in the summer of 1998 I stumbled upon Tara Brach’s classes. Tara’s deep and compassionate teachings on radical acceptance were the elixir I needed to soften the edges of my rigid, perfectionistic, need to be right habit energies.

A few years into my practice, I happily found on the internet that there was a trans dharma teacher named Caitriona Reed in Southern California. I was overjoyed to finally be reflected in this way, and contacted Caitriona immediately. Her warmth, kindness, generosity, and fierce take on the dharma led me to attend one of her trans weekend retreats at Manzanita Village. At that retreat, I had, for the first time, expressed gratitude for being born female and appreciated the depth of relationships with women I’ve had all my life that I wouldn’t have had otherwise if I had been born male. This was significant for me in my practice of self-acceptance.

Over the years, I began to be aware of how strong these tendencies were that gripped my sense of self in comparison to others and the suffering it brought with it. My desire to accept pain yet not suffer became an aspiration that led to my finding my inner courage and strength to come out as genderqueer and to use the pronouns they, their, and them despite the pushback that often accompanied such a transition.

The need to assimilate, conform, and belong no longer was important to me. What was important was for me to be my authentic self, to claim my belonging no matter who I was with or where I was, to remember my Buddha-nature. This empowering stance has freed my heart and life in myriad ways by knowing that I was worthy of love and a long-term relationship and recently deciding to undergo top surgery to align my body with how I’ve always envisioned it to be. I am clear that I don’t want to transition to become male. I just want to be La with a masculinized chest. It has taken me fifty-two years to love who I am on the inside, and I don’t want that to change.

The middle way of my gender identity has allowed me to be able to see where we as a culture/society can get caught, with regards to binary stereotypes in all of their manifestations. To go against the stream of the deep conditioning and to be free is not always an easy line to tow, and I no longer know any other way to go.

I honor and respect all the ways my trans siblings come home to themselves in this incarnation. The stories you are about to read represent a beautiful spectrum of experience and expression that inform and enlighten our ways to true freedom.

Deep bows for the courage, strength, and perseverance it takes to be fully who we are and to be fully alive!

Preface

Caitriona Reed

Twice a year, for ten years, beginning around 1998, we held retreats for trans folk at Manzanita Village, our center in the mountains of Southern California. These were not meditation retreats; they weren’t even particularly Buddhist in flavor. We created them simply as an opportunity for all of us to be together, to play, to learn.

People came from across North America, and occasionally from overseas. Sometimes the folks who joined us for these retreats were taking their first excursion out of the proverbial closet—doubly so, because this was very different from the usual support-group situation. For one thing, it lasted a whole weekend. It was a deep dive, with a clear invitation to be open, to be real, and to test the boundaries of who we think we are.

But isn’t that what being trans is? Isn’t that what we’re called to do as transgender people? To be open, to be real, to live in our bodies, to use our natural intelligence, to come home to our humanity?

In addition to those just beginning their transition, some of the people who came to the retreats had been living publicly and visibly as women or men in their gender of choice for years. Others were defiantly ambiguous, genderqueer, presenting their ambiguities to the world just as they were—something that was still relatively new in the 1990s. I remember how proud I felt, and how impressed I was with my people. Some of those people became regulars. Some of them remain my best friends to this day.

Trans people are required to be resourceful. We are forced to challenge the assumptions laid on us at birth. But doesn’t that lead us to question the compartmentalized thinking that society takes for granted? Haven’t we also had to confront our sense of being outside, being other, and a paralyzing sense of unworthiness and shame—questioning our right to exist?! That was one of the key themes that would keep calling itself out, demanding that we unpeel the layers of expectation and anxiety, privilege and lack of self-love.

I’ve always been amazed by how smart most trans people are. But intelligence can be a double-edged sword if it cuts you off from your body, your senses, and your emotions. Being cut off from parts of yourself is an occupational hazard for anyone marginalized by society. We can use our smarts to dodge pain. Cutting parts of yourself off starts as a defense mechanism; then it becomes a habit. This was another theme: how to celebrate the blessing and miracle of being transgender, of being human, without overthinking it, without dodging the pain.

Let’s take this anthology in that same spirit. Let’s take it as a celebration of who we are, outside of the forced definitions. Buddhists speak about suffering. But as Thich Nhat Hanh famously remarked, Suffering is not enough. The idea of suffering so easily becomes a way of resignation—resigning from responsibility, resigning from looking to see what’s possible. Like so many others, I have misunderstood and misused teachings about suffering and