Holy shit he even brought up white supremacist beauty standards and antiblackness causing low self-esteem in Black people, and how Malcolm X changed people's thinking with "Black is beautiful." Sometimes a comrade wears a monk's robes lmao
Okay an elderly monk saying "Does everyone really have to get married? Some people are 70 and were never married, you know" has a particular ring to it XD
"It is your own perspective and values that break your heart at the sight of your [disabled, chronically ill] child. Are you really doing her any favors? If you, her father, never smile at her and always have tears in your eyes, always sad on her behalf, how can this be healthy for her? She's doing her best, yet you are causing yourself misery and harming your child.
"In fact, even if she compares herself to her healthy friends and feels down about being sick, you should be the one encouraging her, saying 'Health is not the be-all in life and bodies are immensely diverse. You are beautiful just as you are.' If you say this half-heartedly while crying inside, you will not even convince yourself, much less your child.
"You have to change your thinking. Your grief comes not from your child but from yourself. You are weeping at your own reflection. Parents of disabled children should be happy, and if they are not, it is because their desires were not met. This also makes children think of themselves as less when they deserve respect just as they are, not to feel themselves to be lacking for not meeting an arbitrary standard."
"Nature has tremendous variety. There's no saying what is normal; what you come across all the time is what you define as normal. We should reframe our thinking on these things. It is from the viewpoint of the majority, the mainstream that your [disabled] child is a problem; it is the failure to meet this standard that troubles the heart."
Lmao is he taking a shot at a specifically Christian slant of ableism? Because he criticizes people who call disability a disease, the wrath of God, or punishment for sin. Buddhists don't talk about God or sin, but we all know a religion that does all the time... :blobcatgiggle: And, of course, in Korea right-wing Protestants are the foremost peddlers of anti-queer bigotry which he also criticizes by the same logic :blobcatpopcorn: