WE BEAT THE NEWS MEGA
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Yup. It just hauls me around and does shit for me. The person in the mirror is not me.
The only “me” is the “logical” voice in my head, and even that is illusory. More trans people should be Buddhists. “No self,” rather than “what’s wrong with me, I don’t think this is normal.”
I'm a Buddhist. No self is a not great translation.
He meant, no atman. The thing all class distinction in Hinduism is based on. The caste (or gender) we're assigned at birth.
Fully enlightened Buddhists have preferences and personalities. They can even have preferred gender expressions. They just don't see these things as unchanging and separate from the context of the environment.
Edit: For clarification.
Of course, it’s not that your personality dies. It’s that you’re aware of your personality and thoughts and actions and not lost in them. You can notice a feeling and not identify it, but rather experience it almost as an outsider. Your body changes and you can lose part of it and not lose yourself. While there is a functional “self” nothing is unchanging and all we really are is awareness unless we’re everything.
Tangential edit: it’s like Hegelian freedom and necessity (Marxist version). If you understand the laws of human development you can create socialism, but it doesn’t change that it’s in your class interests. Necessity gives me desires, but with awareness they don’t go away, but I can operate more objectively and pursue my will. People “used to” pursue their class interests not questioning the class classification. Idk if I’m making sense.
Important thing is having no ego to have to protect, and non-attachment. You are not your body or your thoughts necessarily. You don’t have to judge them.
That made perfect sense to me!
This is my favorite sutra. It's about letting go of possessiveness. All the things we like to appropriate as me and mine.
https://plumvillage.org/library/sutras/discourse-on-knowing-the-better-way-to-catch-a-snake