Two years ago I was sitting in a 75 square foot room eating cheerios and waiting for the kathmandu bus to roll around the hill. it was only my third day at the monastery and of what I thought would be another spiritual and cathartic experience for me to remember. Instead I was siting alone in a room with a window, one bed, a nightstand with a lone incense holder on top, and my backpack filled with unwashed clothes. The monks do not speak english and I did not want to get in the way of their daily routine of puja and other duties. I could walk out to the hill of prayer flags and listen to them flap in the wind as I stare off in the distance at the Himalayas but I have already done that twice today. Meandering around this sacred place I could not grasp the history I knew was here. This monastery marked the place where Buddha sacrificed his body to a mother tiger so she could feed her cubs. In the distant forests I imagine a tiger charging up and eating me but that irrational fear finally dulled. The neighbors of the monastery watch me as I roam around the hill, as if I didn't feel out of place enough. I strolled down to the cafe at the foot of the monastery and hope to see some monks playing soccer or picking up trash. I ordered some milk tea and sat down to read my book on the Dalai Lama while periodically shooing flies away. I noticed the grandmother of the shop owner outside, squatting and shelling chili peppers on a mat in the sun. I realized that what I had come to this place to learn and what I was reading about in the book I held was to practice compassion and selflessness so I sat down with her and began shelling chili peppers. She smiled and laughed at me. Her son came over and vowed me how to do it properly without spilling all of the seeds out of their pods. Soon it was me, grandma, her son and his wife all sitting around a pile of chili peppers laughing at each other and smiling, not speaking each others' language. This was the experience I was looking for - a connection with a stranger. It was an awkwardly natural interaction between us, something born out of smiles and gestures, without words. I came to Nepal to see how other people live in the world, to experience another life and there I was, being tickled by an old Nepali woman with missing teeth and worn fingers; the fingers of someone who has been shelling chili peppers her whole life.
Growing up in Silicon Valley, I had a very skewed view of the world and its inhabitants. We live in a bubble here that is rarely affected by changes in the economic climate or even climate in general; a place where we can be blinded by our prosperity. I have been longing for a clear perspective of the world and I feel that my trip to Nepal was like dipping my toes into the pool of global awareness. Now I crave to feel that again and to explore the world physically and intellectually in an attempt to feel that twinge of connection with everyone in it; the same feeling I found with grandma and her chili peppers.
