Features

The Woman who became a Man

Published

5 years ago

2021/02/21

by Bhante Dhammika of Australia

We are used to thinking of the world in black and white terms, of things being either right or wrong, up or down, one thing or another. A good example of this would be the popular but mistaken understanding of kamma as either good or bad. The Buddha by contrast, said that kamma can be good, bad or a mixture of the two (vitimissa dhamma), which of course accords much more with reality. In fact, few things are either 100% good or 100% bad. When it comes to gender we commonly assume that people are either male or female whereas the categories are not always that clear, a truth that the Buddha recognized centuries ago.

He was aware that there were those who were of indeterminate or mixed gender (i.e. partly male and partly female); he called them “men-like women” (vepurisika), “those with the characteristics of both [genders]” (ubhatovyanjanaka), and sometimes spoke of what he called “sexual indistinctness” (sambhinna). He made a rule that such people were not to be ordained as monks or nuns, probably not because he considered them to be immoral or perverted, but simply because there was no positions within the Sangha which they could fit into. In fact, it is remarkably that the Buddha made no moral judgments about those whose gender was mixed.

Today, the condition the Buddha recognized is called transgenderism. It should be understood that transgenderism is not homosexuality – the first is having the strong feeling that one’s gender is the opposite of what one’s body indicates, whereas the second is being sexually attracted to those of one’s own gender. The first is about identity whereas the second is about sexual attraction. There are several stories in Buddhist literature about people changing their gender. The most well-known of these, from the Dhammapada commentary, tells of the man Soreyya who was transformed into a women after being entranced by a young monk’s physical beauty. Of course, this scenario is not possible, but the story indicated an awareness of transgender desire. However, today medical science has made it possible for transgendered people to change their gender.

One of the first people to have done this was Laura Dillon. She was born into an aristocratic English family in 1915 – her brother was Sir Robert Dillon, the eighth Baronet of Lismullen. Educated at the best girls’ schools and Cambridge University and used to privilege, by the time she was 15 she started to feel she had been born into the wrong body, a female body. She started to cut her hair short and wear more masculine-looking clothes, which was thought of as eccentric but something she would grow out of. She never did. When she was 24 she sought treatment for excessive menstrual bleeding and her doctor gave her the male hormone testosterone thinking it would cure this condition. He also recommended that she consult a psychiatrist who eventually put her in contact with the pioneering plastic surgeon Dr. Harold Gillies.

Over a three year period the doctor performed 13 operations on her which included removing her breasts, constructing male genitals and in effect transforming her into a man. Because of contacts in the records office she (now he), managed to have his name changed to Michael and he officially became Michael Dillon. He then embarked on medical studies and became a doctor, worked in the marine industry for some years, and published a book on transgenderism without revealing that he himself was transgendered.

The Woman…

The book attracted a great deal of attention from both doctors and psychologists as well as from the general public. This eventually led to Dillon being identified as transgendered and him being hounded by the press wanting a bizarre and lurid story. So negative was the pressure that he decided to quietly disappear to India.

Long having an interest in Buddhism, he made his way to the Himalayas where he lived in a monastery for some years and later at the Mahabodhi Society in Sarnath learning Dhamma and meditation. Later he settled in the Rezong Monastery in Ladakh where he ordained as a monk taking the name Jivaka, after the Buddha’s doctor of that name.

For the first time in his life he felt comfortable and accepted, writing several books on Buddhism including a study of the Vinaya, and after a serious illness passed away in Darjeeling in 1962. He also wrote an autobiography called ‘Out of the Ordinary’ which Fordham University Press published in 2017, its delay in its seeing the light of day due mainly because his brother who tried to stop its publication.

During Dillon’s youth as a female she was often mocked and teased because of her distinct boyishness and after becoming a male he was hounded by the press, thought of as a freak and rejected by his family and former friends. Today, some transgender people suffer insult and even physical violence. The problem does not lie with them but with people’s ignorance and misunderstanding. Buddhists at least should have more understanding of transgender people because their condition may well be explained by Buddhism – specifically by the doctrine of rebirth (punna rupati).

A person may be reborn as, say, a male in successive lives during which time masculine attitudes, desires, traits and dispositions become strongly imprinted on their mind. This would determine that he be continually reborn into a male body or that his consciousness would shape the new embryo into a male form – whatever factors are responsible for the physical characteristic of gender. Then, for either kammic, genetic or other reasons, he may get reborn into a female body while retaining all the long-established masculine psychological traits. Of course, this same process could be responsible for a male feeling that he is really female.

If this or something like it, is the cause of transgenderism, it would mean that this condition is a natural one rather than a moral perversion as most theistic religions maintain. In the Udana, the Buddha said that traits or dispositions (vasasa) developed through a succession of lives (abbokinnani) may well express themselves in the present life and that they need not be “an inner moral fault” (dosatara). Thus, informed Buddhists should be accepting and understanding if or when they encounter a transgendered person.

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Features

The challenge of keeping value-based politics alive

Published

8 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Anti-migrant protests in Durban, South Africa. BBC

The current outbreak of anti-immigrant protests in Durban, South Africa is bound to have taken many a subscriber to value-based politics or political idealism quite by surprise. After all, this is evidence that despite the historic accomplishments of nation-builders of the stature of the late President Nelson Mandela it cannot be taken for granted that identity politics, including racism in its worst forms, is no more in South Africa.

At the time of this writing details are scarce on the substantive root causes of the protests but it could very well be that economic grievances, particularly on the part of the majority community in South Africa, are contributing considerably to the disaffection. Shrinking employment and material prospects are likely to figure majorly among the factors igniting the unrest.

Fortunately, the local authorities in Durban are losing no time in calling for peaceful co-existence among the relevant communities and are pointing to the vital importance of stepping-up national integration processes. Apparently, immigrants in sizable numbers from neighbouring countries are present in Durban. However, international TV footage of the protests quoted some local authorities as saying that the majority of the immigrants in some centres that housed them were not illegal migrants and had the documents that entitle them to be in Durban.

In the Durban protests the world has fresh proof of the socially divisive consequences of the gathering globe-wide economic disaffection, touched off particularly by the continuing crisis in West Asia. Going ahead, the world would need to brace for increasing identity-based unrest of the kind it is just witnessing in South Africa.

Considering that the material lot of ordinary people everywhere could only aggravate progressively, with the US and Iran showing no signs of negotiating an end to their confrontation any time soon, it will be left to the more democratic and progressive sections of the world community to initiate positive measures collectively to bring a measure of relief to the discontented.

The swiftness with which such relief will be provided would depend crucially on the importance those sections taking up these undertakings attach to value-based politics as opposed to Realpolitik of power politics.

Going by these yardsticks, Italy could be considered to be moving in the right direction. Recently Italy came to the fore in initiating the collective named, ‘Rome Coalition for Food Security and Access to Fertilizer’, which has as one of its aims the swift provision of fertilizer to economically weak African countries.

In a recent statement Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Antonio Tajani, said that a principal aim of the project was to ensure that the farmers of Africa gained easy access to fertilizer, considering that food security is a growing concern among some of Africa’s economically vulnerable countries.

The statement went on to mention that some 30 countries hailing from the Mediterranean region, the Middle East, the Balkans as well as the FAO had been invited to join the coalition. The venture is far-seeing in that food security is main among the reasons for social discontent which in turn could degenerate into endemic political turmoil and bloodshed. Separatist violence and geographical fragmentation of countries wouldn’t be too far behind these developments, as Africa itself has often proved.

It is hoped that more G7 countries would take the cue from Italy and do what they could to ease the hardships of economically distressed countries, particularly of the global South. In these efforts they would need to break rank with the US, which is today brutally indifferent to the consequences of its policy of making ‘America First’, come what may.

Going by current developments, the Trump administration seems to be blithely oblivious to the wider, deleterious effects of its policy course in West Asia. Besides rendering Iran militarily and otherwise impotent nothing else seems to matter to Washington, as regards West Asia. This is policy short-sightedness of an extreme kind. After all, right now West Asia could be said to be sitting on the proverbial powder keg.

On the other hand, Iran is not giving the world the impression that it is doing anything constructive to get out of the policy straitjacket that it wove for itself decades ago. Rather than enter into a policy of ‘live and let live’ in relation to Israel in particular and initiate a process of reconciliation with the latter, it has chosen to operate within policy parameters that continue to damn Israel. This has put Israel always on the ‘defensive’ so to speak and prevented the opening up of space for meaningful dialogue.

That said, Israel is obliged to explore the possibilities of entering into a negotiatory process with the Arab-Islamic world that could lead to a de-escalation of tensions and bloodshed. It cannot continue to look at its neighbours through lenses that distort them as archetypal enemies who should be ‘wiped off completely from the face of the earth.’

In other words, the need is urgent for Realpolitik to give way to value-based politicks. Italy is beginning to prove that the latter approach could be pursued with some success. May be the EU and the UK could throw their weight behind these initiatives as well and establish that international politics could be refashioned on the basis of humane, civilized norms. The UN would need to be fully supportive of these moves and prove an organizational nucleus of the operations that follow.

In fact the time is ripe for people of conscience to collectively stand up on the side of peace and say ‘No’ to war and violence. Organizations such as the ICRC, the WHO and Medicines Sans Frontiers have already taken up this call. Referring to the widespread destruction of health facilities and their dehumanizing results these organizations have said, among other things, that ‘This is not a failure of the law. It is a failure of political will.’

True, ‘failure of political will’ among those powers that matter accounts for the runaway, uncontrollable nature of war and destruction in contemporary times, but more fundamentally it is a failure of the human conscience. It could very well be that the phenomenal levels to which violence and war have been unleashed today have had the effect of deadening consciences. This is a matter for urgent study and wide discussion.

Features

Vesak celebrations … with Cuteefly

Published

8 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions // Gift pack

I would describe Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka as innovative and creative, and she operates under the name of Cuteefly.

Indunil always comes up with something novel to celebrate special occasions, and she does it with candles … and that’s her profession.

She was in the spotlight when she created a happening scene, with candles, for Christmas, Sinhala and Tamil New Year, and Valentine’s Day.

As lanterns light up Sri Lanka for Vesak, the Colombo-based candle maker is quietly turning wax and wick into little pieces of the festival.

Candles reflecting Vesak themes

Her candles reflect Vesak themes – light, peace, remembrance, giving, etc., to enable you to fill your Vesak celebration with devotion and beauty.

Among her Vesak creations is a lotus-shaped soy candle, scented with sandalwood, lavender, etc., meant to burn during this Vesak Poya Day.

Indunil Kaushalya Dissanayaka: Customers
praise her for her creativity

These handcrafted Vesak candles are perfect for offering at the temple, she says.

What makes her creations so novel is that they come in different shapes, scents, themes, and all are handmade.

What’s more, her customers have heaped praise on her for her creativity.

According to Indunil, her creations are perfect as a thoughtful gift … to bring beauty, unity, and light into every moment.

Says Indunil: “Our beautifully handcrafted Unity candles are designed with premium detail and love, making them perfect for celebrations, gifts, and meaningful occasions.”

Cuteefly, says Indunil, is available online.

Readers could contact Indunil on 0778506066 for more details.

He Facebook Page is: Cuteefly.

Handmade with love

Features

Dark Spots …

Published

8 hours ago

2026/05/28

Sahan Weerasooriya

Yes, dark spots do crop up on the skin, especially with sun exposure and, of course, as the skin ages.

However, these tips should be of immense benefit to those who are faced with dark spots.

* Lemon and Honey Glow Mask:

You will need 01 teaspoon lemon juice and 01 teaspoon honey.

Mix the lemon juice and honey well and then apply this mixture, only on the dark spots.

Leave for 10–15 minutes and then rinse with cool water.

Benefits:

Lemon helps brighten pigmentation.

Honey moisturises and heals skin.

Gives a natural glow.

* Aloe Vera Gel Treatment:

All you need is fresh aloe vera gel.

Apply the gel apply on dark spots, before going to bed.

Leave overnight and wash in the morning.

Benefits:

Reduces acne marks and pigmentation.

Soothes irritated skin.

Helps skin repair naturally.

* Turmeric and Yoghurt Paste:

You will need 01 teaspoon yoghurt and a pinch of turmeric

Mix the yoghurt and turmeric into a smooth paste and apply on affected areas.

Leave for 15 minutes and then wash gently with lukewarm water.

Benefits:

Turmeric brightens skin naturally.

Yoghurt removes dead skin cells.

Helps fade dark spots gradually.

Use these packs 02-03 times a week as results are generally seen over time.

You can also try this out: Mix a ripe papaya into a smooth paste and apply to the face, or directly on to the dark spots. Leave for 15-20 minutes and then wash with lukewarm water.