Tibetans, Nepalese, and Namaste

It seems there are strained relations between the native Nepalese and the Tibetans. Whenever I talked to a hindu Nepalese, and they would tell me the religious breakdown of the population, they would always say, the king is hindu, 48% of the general population is hindu, 48% is Buddhist and 4% other religions (muslim, Christian, etc.), and that there were more hindus than anyone else. To which I would reply, I thought the proportions were the same? No. hindus are the majority. What’s the percentage? 48%. And the Buddhists? 48%. The same percentage. Yes. Then they’re even? No. more hindus, many more. What are the numbers again? 48% both. Okay. I get it. That said, they both subscribe to a caste system. A minimum of three. Bottom – untouchables, middle – normal blue collar folk, and I never met the third kind, Top – royalty. Even the Buddhists have servants. Which I imagine they look at as an act of grace, and maybe it is here. Who knows? Anyway, that brings us to namaste, which means something like I recognize the light (Buddha) in you, as the same light (Buddha) that shines in me. Now, given a sentiment like that, uttered 100 times a day or more, you’d think that honesty and compassion would rule. Not so. Everyone is trying to rip everyone off and lying in the process. They don’t seem to treat each other with much respect (hey! It’s like NYC!) I was hiking down a dirt lane and there was a guy with a mule. The mule had a broken leg, and I saw the guy kick the mule in the broken leg! I shook my finger at him but all he did was say “namaste.” I don’t know, maybe up there they have a way to heal the mule’s broken leg, and he was just trying to get it to a place where it could get care, but it didn’t really seem like it. It didn’t seem very “namaste” to me. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of people that seem hard working, honest, and kind. It’s off season here, so maybe the hawks are trying harder to reach their prey… The very first thing that happened in the airport was a kindly looking taxi driver came up to me and quoted me a price for a ride to the city. I said I wanted to check with official taxi stand to see their price. He told me the price would be the same as his. Then he talked to me of how terrible it would be to live in a world without trust, without integrity, without belief in others. I explained that I was from Brooklyn, and no offense to him or his honesty, but I wanted to check the price anyway. Of course, he was trying to rip me off. It turned out to be a blessing. Those lines were used a couple of times on me (trust me, honesty), and every single time it was some sort of scam. Namaste. It’s like many of the Buddhists all over the world, how many actually practice compassion in their everyday life?