Once I had to visit a senior acquaintance of mine, so I bought some strawberries at the marketplace before I went over to his home. An elderly lady of the household washed the strawberries with just a little water from a small kettle and put them out in a bowl to serve the guests. I thought the strawberries should have been washed many times more with more water to clean off the dirt, bugs and pesticides. When I saw her washing them with only one bowl of water, I did not think the berries would be clean enough.
Because I am very particular about cleanliness, Master Baek once called me a person "who would even wash water before drinking it." There was no way I would eat those strawberries.
How uncomfortable it is to have the notion of uncleanliness in one's mind! Even though I did not touch the strawberries, I imprinted dirty strawberries in my mind, which will cause me later to pick and eat only dirty fruit.
