The Questioning Monk by jaylar True Story Contest contest entry |
“You would say ‘It is summertime,’ and you would say ‘It is wintertime,’ and you would say ‘It is spring time.’ But you would never say, ‘It is fall time.’ You would just say, ‘It is Fall.’” “But teacher, why?” “Why.” This guy and his questions. Always a question. It doesn’t even have to be a good question. It can just be a dumb, pointless question like, “But teacher why?” Questions for the sake of questions, if you ask me. Answers don’t even matter. Just ask questions. He’s showing off to the other monks that he can think of the questions they can’t. As a teacher, it gets tiresome always having to get back on track after a question like that. “But teacher why?” Come on, dude. “Because I said so, that’s why.” No, I didn’t say that. I wanted to though. If you can’t stand the questions, get out of the classroom, that’s my attitude. They’re innocuous, these questions, really. The monastery hired me to teach these monks English, and if questions like, “But teacher why?” help them learn, well, it’s on me to answer them. “It’s another idiosyncrasy of English,” I tell him and wait for him, or anybody else in the class to ask what an idiosyncrasy is, but nobody does. Maybe they already know, or maybe they just can’t pronounce it. Instead, the entire class, all 20 or so Buddhist monks dressed in their burgundy and gold robes sat on the floor of the classroom nodding their heads in understanding. Conversational English benefitted these monks the most, so that is what I focused on. That day’s class focused on talking about weather and the different seasons, because a monk had stopped by my room the evening before and asked if I would. Next on my list of things for that hour was to teach the phrase, “It is humid today” even though there in the foothills of the Himalayas in the village of Puruwala, India, I knew humidity wasn’t an issue, but these monks, mostly from Tibet and Nepal, traveled around a lot, so who knows where they might be later? If they should ever find themselves in a humid climate, I wanted them to be able to say so. Just as I was about to start the humidity talk, up shot a hand. A question Another question. From that same questioning monk. Maybe he’s going to finally ask what “idiosyncrasy” means. Do I even know what it means? Would I even know how to answer if they did? Now, I hoped he wouldn’t ask. “Yes?” I called on him. “Teacher,” he said. “When is it appropriate to tell somebody to ‘fuck off?’” “When is it appropriate.” I thought. This guy already has some good English skills. The other monks never say, “When is it appropriate.” These are Sakaya monks from Tibet and Nepal. They are not the Zen-like monks you think of with Japan. They watch a lot of movies and listen to western music and want to know what things mean. I would hear what they are listening to a lot of the times. Know what they really liked? Gangsta Rap. Old school stuff. Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and other rappers of their ilk. And movies? I sat with them for some of their Friday night movie viewings. I’ll just say PG-13 was a little too tame for their tastes. So, to hear phrases such as “fuck off’ was just a part of daily life. Mind you, these monks were dedicated to Buddhism. They were worldly though, or at least wanted to be. They wanted to know of the world beyond the Monastery walls. They utilized technology to soak in western culture and think about life out there in the world. They were curious and wanted to learn as much as they could. When I thought about it, “When is it appropriate to tell somebody to fuck off” is actually an excellent question. “Well,” I told the class. “First of all, don’t. But if you really must, only when you are really mad at somebody.” I really had their attention. They wanted to know this. I kind of wanted to get back to humidity, but this was important to them. I was thinking, this subject deserves more time than we have left in this class to devote to it. This would be a great subject to teach at our next session when I can talk about what different profanities mean. If they don’t hear it from me? What then? They hear these phrases in their pop culture binges, and not knowing just how much they are not appropriate, say them to people who don’t deserve to have them said to them? I realized just what a cool job I really had. I get to teach Buddhist monks how to cuss and swear and tell people to fuck off. Won’t that look cool on my resume? “We’ll spend next class talking all about this. I promise. For now, though, only say that to each other. When visitors are at the monastery, don’t let them hear you saying that. You guys are monks, after all. People have a certain image of you. Don’t ruin it for them.” They understood. After getting back on track, we talked about humidity and the hour was up. I told them all to fuck off and go do whatever they do with the rest of the day and I’ll see them at dinner.
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