Introduction to Vipassana and Gender Exploration
This is where I’m at. I don’t want anyone to think that if you practice mindfulness, you are ready to explore and transition. I have no idea! It’s up to you completely. Mindfulness as a practice of liberation — liberation from greed, hatred, and delusion — is a great framework to keep reconnecting for me because there’s a common thread in nature of the mind. If that’s too out there… There is something that is very important to reconnect with the body using sensations. Those very subtle cues that the body goes through are entry ways to start building the relationships with the body and mind: soft, hard, moist, dry, heat, coolness, tension, and pressure.
I wonder if there’s anyone who has not been traumatized growing up. I use this word widely. Accidents, medical procedures, assault, neglect, bully, systematic oppression… There are enough trauma studies to show that it is difficult to get in touch with the painful part of ourselves without being in touch with the body. Embodiment helps to establish some sense of safety. It seems like that was the case for me; I had no idea gender transition was on the horizon when I started the practice. Calling up curiosity around gender (or race) means to question my own existence. I would imagine it would be meaningful for anyone (and scary). For me it’s not negotiable as a trans person, otherwise the world will crush me. Before praising the wisdom and love of “wise and compassionate” people on the margin, there needs to be a culture to reconsider what condition led them to take risks like that to survive.
Besides the practice, I have amazing support around me. My friends, especially trans friends who go through different yet similar flavored experiences. My husband who is encouraging to live my truth and willing to explore non-traditional, non-monogamy marriage (Whatever that means TBD). Therapist. Meditation teachers who are accepting and caring. Somewhat healthy and broken my aging dancer body. Unstable but successful career. Warm and comfortable apartment. Resources to see my doctor and continue with the transgender medical care. I feel appreciative of my external support AND transition has much to do with internal landscape that I did not get in touch with until I started my own liberatory practice and educating myself around gender and race.
My introduction to Vipassana meditation on a retreat setting was at Kyaswa monastery in the Sagaing Hills of Upper Burma in the beginning of 2018 leaving 10 days before the closing of Miss Saigon on Broadway (I had had enough). I met my teachers from the US there whom I slowly opened up over the years and built much appreciation for. All the foreigners were mostly White people except myself, but everyone else was Asian in the monastery. I learned by diving into the deep ends for 3 weeks on a silent retreat, being ordained. One of my tendencies… just jumping off.
Fast forward to 2019, I was sitting in a floating bungalow on a lake in Southern Thailand, another 10 day silent retreat. I remembered this nightmare I used to have when I was kid. I would have it and sleep walk out of fear. As a queer child there was so much pent up energy and restlessness inside of me, probably out of fear of not fitting in. This nightmare might not sound scary, but rather peaceful; it was a gentle moving scenery of a grass hill, and there was a girl in a red dress and hat holding a red balloon. She was standing beside a dollhouse as big as her. In one sitting, I saw the imagery and understood that the girl was me. I was afraid of the dream because I was her and I was not allowed to be her. That’s when I remembered that I was not comfortable in my male body. A few months later, I came out to my friend and my husband as a non-binary. In the fall, I reintroduced myself as he/they when our Broadway rehearsal started.
My first direct encounter with trans people had happened before JLP but one of the cast mates was the first person who introduced me to the use of pronouns. Zie became my actual friend who I cared for and who cared for me. We met in 2017 while we did the first workshop for JLP.
At that time I had a 300-hr certification for teaching mindfulness from MNDFL. I had been to a few weekend retreats and a 7-day Zen retreat, only having started formal daily practice at the end of 2014 with my mental breakdown. I was straight up gay Asian man on Broadway who had not been educated enough around internalized white-superiority or exploring gender identity and sexuality. My career and romantic relationship were on the verge of big changes; I felt disheartened being in a show about a misogynistic white savior story about the Vietnam War written and produced by White men, and could not wrap my head around the fact that my my fiancé who’s White American was suggesting an open relationship right before our wedding which led to our new relationship dynamic and made my transition smoother. I digress… Some awareness around racism on Broadway was brought up, and meeting my friend at JLP was my initial unintended shift around my gender identity. With practice, it was natural for me to start noticing different aspects of life that I had not paid attention to before, which ended up being mostly unpleasant oppressive truths about gender and race. That was partly why I left my 2nd Broadway show 10 days before the closing to go to Burma. At the end of the day, one aspect of mindfulness is training the attention. One aspect of many.
It was not like everyone called me they/them. Plus, I could not imagine taking up space like that. Not worthy was the understatement of my life. My friend kept checking on me and included me when some trans non-binary clothing line came to the cast and gave us sample clothing. But I remember feeling like a fraud. Was I really non-binary?
Then Covid-19 pandemic happened. I was exhausted already from the show and took the time off to go back to school and join my teachers for online-at-home-self-retreats during the lockdown. Over the pandemic year of 2020 I was on a few retreats for over 30 days in total. I don’t know how I did that with a 1 bedroom apartment in NYC with my husband working remotely with an anxious dog, but we worked it out. Their weekly gatherings were helpful as well. Insights really worked their way into my life since Kyaswa, and especially those during the pandemic led me to make my decision to medically transition. Not because I was wiser or more accepting, but I felt just a tiny bit safer in the chaos of the world.
