Imperfection

The young man sat demurely, whispering beside Mr Hải:

• Sir, I know that this world always has imperfection. Some people are imperfect because they are blind and find it hard to integrate into the community, but society has given the blind special consideration so that they can still live and work.
  Some are imperfect because their legs are paralysed and they can only sit in wheelchairs. Some are imperfect because they are deaf and mute. Some because of cerebral palsy. Some because they are too short, some too tall. Some are imperfect because of mental illness. Some because their faces are deformed and everyone shuns them.
  Sir, each case of imperfection has its own suffering, but also receives some pity and sympathy from society.
  But I have an imperfection that is very hard for others to understand. I realise that I am a girl; all my feelings and thoughts are those of a girl, but my body is a boy's. Everyone looks at my form and thinks I'm a boy, treats me as a boy and forces me to live truly as a boy. But they don't know that I know I'm a girl.
  I don't understand where this ironic imperfection comes from. I know I am a girl, but I have no right to live as a girl because nobody agrees. Everyone looks at my form and forces me to be a boy.
  I suffer immensely. I want to live true to who I am, I want to be loved as a girl. I want to be a wife, to be sheltered, not to marry a wife and be a husband.
  I know you are a person of morality and wisdom; you teach many people to practise settling the mind to gain peace and happiness. I have come here to practise settling the mind, but this suffering cannot be erased. Please give me your advice, hic hic...

Mr Hải looked at the young man with compassion and said:

• I deeply sympathise with you. Your body and mind are opposed, so your life is imperfect. You always long for the body to be like the mind so that you can live normally like everyone else.
  Most people in a case like yours choose the mind as primary, keep the mind as it is, and seek to change the body to fit the mind. They spend money on surgery to adjust the body to match the mind. It is very costly, and afterwards the complications are very dangerous, so none of them live long.
  The body is very hard to cut and alter to match the mind, but nobody is willing to think that adjusting the mind to match the body is much easier.

The young man interrupted:

• How can I adjust my mind? How can I think I am a boy? It's not possible, sir.
  Mr Hải smiled and said:
• The way you've just argued with me is exactly the way my son argued stubbornly with me when I suggested he study construction and architecture. He insisted on studying journalism. He argued fiercely. And yet after 6 months of my persuading him, he agreed to study architecture, and now he is a reputable architect who loves his profession.
  That feeling you have of being a girl is only a temporary feeling, created by karmic obstacles from some past life. Perhaps in a past life you often looked down on women and, whenever you opened your mouth, scolded them: "you women are like this, you women are like that", and so now you have this feeling of being a girl, as the karmic result.
  If you recognise your fault, begin to respect everyone, kneel before the sacred beings to repent, and then ask that your mind be brought back into accord with your body, who knows, by next year that feeling of being a girl may disappear and you may feel that you really are a boy. Then body and mind will be one, and you will live normally with everyone.
  Whenever you sit to practise settling the mind, look straight at that feeling of being a girl and see whether it is real. If you face it for a while, you will break through to see that it is only an illusion.

The young man burst into tears, looking into the distance. 👩‍🌾

There is a person with a mental illness who, after a period of treatment in a psychiatric hospital, improved slightly, no longer had dangerous behaviour and lived harmlessly. But this person had a very clear feeling of being the director of the psychiatric hospital. Whoever asked, he would answer very sincerely that way, that he held the post of director of the psychiatric hospital.

The feeling of being this kind of person or that kind of person is only a temporary illusion. When that feeling is too strong we call it IMPERFECTION. That feeling too is created by karmic cause and effect in some life. If we can correct the fault of a past life, that feeling will disappear.
A person who settles the mind deeply moves towards the state of Non-self, no longer seeing the self as anything, no longer seeing who the self is, no longer seeing the self as male or female. Therefore a person who practises settling the mind will find it easy to eliminate the feeling of being male or female within themselves, helping to heal the imperfection if there is one.