Inside the Auspicious Cloud: Cooking in a Buddhist Monastery

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting. – Buddha

Until we walk in the shoes of others, we will undoubtedly have difficulty opening our hearts and moving toward a shared understanding of food culture. Last year I contacted The Auspicious Cloud Monastery in Haymarket, Virginia and asked the Abbess if I could donate some time helping them in the kitchen in the spirit of shared cultural learning. I was invited to help them with an upcoming ceremony. The event that we were cooking the meal for was a celebration of the first 100 days after a relative has passed away. As it was explained it to me, relatives have to pray every day for a family member who had passed away until finally, after 100 days, you were released from this burden hence the ceremony. I thought about the difference between my culture’s mourning rituals and theirs. The menu for the celebration consisted of Canh Chua soup, stir fried noodles, green curry with fried tofu, taro root, and coconut milk, spring rolls with glass noodles, tree ear mushrooms, carrots, taro and rice, and finally several different desserts including Che Thai, a liquid dessert with jello, coconut milk and mandarin oranges, and creampuffs with Durian cream filling, all completely vegetarian. Many other dishes would be contributed by family members of the deceased. What a feast, and for me as a chef a chance to learn new techniques and ingredients, and most importantly, a different way of looking at food.

I pitched in to prepare the meal, working in the small cramped kitchen converted from a side porch, clearly not designed for a 6’1” American. I was given mundane tasks, such as peeling and shredding a mountain of carrots for the spring rolls, which I did not mind. It gave me a chance to speak with my hosts, and we chatted as best we could due to our language differences. They attempted to teach me the rudiments of Vietnamese, instructing me to “sing” as I spoke the words. We spoke of everyday things that all cultures chat about, their families, children and grandchildren.

All of the people I worked with were extremely open and welcoming. I was encouraged to go anywhere on the grounds, ask any questions, and take as many photographs as I liked. Would a Western church have been so accommodating? When I came home I made a list of ways that I felt the visit had changed me. The three things that stood out the most from that list were, 1) I felt more humble afterwards, 2) I wanted to try to be more forgiving, and 3) I believed it had made me a more gracious person.

And that is a wonderful recipe for success in any culture.