Sanitary Discrepancies

3/31/2010
Having stayed at the monastery for a while, it’s beginning to feel very nice. There is time to practice and write, and now that we’ve gotten a bit of a groove, there’s also time to run. The latter is an odd experience; most people don’t really even notice, as if you were just a goat or some other various thing on the road, and others just stare at you like a crazy person. It’s a nice reminder that I am a foreigner, no matter how much I would like to think of myself as otherwise.
It’s interesting seeing the places where the Western and Eastern cultures clash. I particularly notice it in the kitchen. In the shrineroom, things are pretty clear-cut; the Tibetans are clearly the authority in that area. In the realm of email and outer-world communication, clearly the Westerners are the authority. But the kitchen is where both groups feel that they have a wealth of experience, and resist mightily advances into their territory. Suffice it to say that, generally speaking over here, they do not posses our passion for the eradication of germs, and we do not fully appreciate their idea of cleanliness. It’s not that they are not tidy and responsible in relating to the cleaning of the kitchen space, but their methods, by Western standards, leave a lot to be desired. Most Westerners would not have any problem with putting their underwear and socks in the top drawer of their dresser. To a Tibetan, this is a clear violation of Lha, Nyen and Lu, or the principles that underlie the natural hierarchy of the world, and infuse the universe with the grounds on which to base dignity and respect. This is along the lines of ‘Don’t wear your shoes as your hat,’ or why it’s such a big no-no to point your feet at a shrine or teacher. The monks, however, seem to have no problem with sweeping the kitchen counters with the same broom used immediately before to clean the floor. Or to put clean dishes on the filthy rags used to wipe the counters after having been swept with the floor broom, etc. These sanitary discrepancies are giving me plenty of opportunities to relate directly to my desire to control things thoroughly and pervasively, and while scrambling to avoid sickness for my teacher and myself, I am ever so slightly learning to relax into the situation simply as it is.