Why Digital Nomads need Santosha: making peace with the impossible

When I’m hit by what feels like an existential crisis, I'm looking at the ocean and tropical hills. Trying to find a temporary home in Mazunte that suits my (humble) needs, has become a challenge of soul-crushing magnitude over the last week-and-a-half.

The sun glitters on waves lapping playfully against gleaming black rocks some hundred steps below, and a cat lasciviously sprawled across the stairs had greeted me with a friendly yawn when I walked up to the bright room painted a cheerful blue, just under the thatched roof with no corners. A soft breeze gently moves the mosquito nets over the thin-mattressed, sagging cots. 

And that is part of the problem. It's several of them. I'm standing in a dorm. And it’s the last option of my increasingly desperate search for decent accommodation in Mazunte, Mexico.

As a digital nomad and writer, an inspiring workplace with some kind of desk, a surrounding that allows focus, and a good internet connection is important. As a nest builder living from the heart, a cozy, aesthetically pleasing place that feels homely is important. As an occasional introvert, privacy and my own space is important. As a rambler with minimal income, affordability is important.

Like most people, I need a certain, more or less inspiring environment in order to feel balanced and at home, to feel free to flourish and create.

Or maybe just to function.

invite you to check in for a moment and list the five things which you absolutely need to thrive. Beyond vital necessities, that is. And then let's extend the experiment: which of these can you deal without? Where and how do you compromise? What are your priorities?

At this point, I've investigated up and down my priority list for a week. I've told everyone and the universe that I am looking for a little private home for a month, ideally pretty, affordable, with a nice view, clean kitchen, and decent internet.

Apparently, the universe didn’t listen.

During my search I've come across all kinds of places.

I've tiptoed through a room whose former resident was clearly a fan of safer sex but not of dustbins. Possibly in an attempt of reconciliation, a tree had disposed of its offspring through the open window and everything that wasn't covered in condoms was covered in seed pods. The view towards the horizon was stunning, admittedly.

Following a hand-painted sign, I visited what looked like an abandoned building by the beach and turned out to be a decrepit but still semi-working hostel with a Mad Max kind of vibe where a bunch of long-term squatters were busy roasting indefinable items on an open fire, carefully circumventing the holes in the floor through which the water was visible.

Following a recommendation, I went to look at a big building that featured a stunning view over the ocean on one side and an eternal construction site with garbage piling up on the other. The only available room I was shown didn't have windows and a stinky hole in the ground for a toilet.  

I've trespassed into lovingly decorated properties, knowing that they were far beyond my budget, and stumbled into luxury resorts.

I've been promised a place in a month from now, but time travel isn't my strength yet. And while roaming up and down the coast, I've gone through all kinds of motions. It's interesting what the mind comes up with when (seemingly?) essential needs are not met. It’s even more interesting to re-discover what those essential needs are.

As it happens, I had gone to a talk on Santosha at a Yoga center a few days earlier.

Santosha is one of the yogic ethical principles and part of the five Niyamas, the guidelines on personal conduct. It translates as contentment and describes the experience of acceptance – to be at ease with the situation you find yourself in and to be at peace with yourself. In that aspect it’s closely related to equanimity. It doesn’t mean we don’t care or that we become indifferent, it rather tells us to embrace the wholeness of life. Or so they say.

I’ve encountered this particular faculty in my yoga and meditation practice.

I’ve clearly not practiced enough.

“You are not experiencing suffering, you are suffering your experience,” the white-clad teacher had declared with a soft voice, her delicate physique gracefully draped over a thin meditation cushion while everyone else was shifting uncomfortably around their bolsters and mats and blankets on the floor, caught up in the eternal search of a better sitting position.

Pain, she explained, does happen physically or energetically in our experience but it’s the suffering that makes it bad, or rather, since the dual thinking of right/wrong and good/bad is antithetic to Santosha, let’s us experience agony.

Great, I thought at the time, do tell someone who is experiencing excruciating pain that it’s basically their own fault that they hurt.

And what is wrong with wanting a nice home with decent internet?

“Nothing,” says the inner, annoying teacher voice, “but you are resisting the actual experience and therefore you suffer.” It’s negativity and complaining which takes us out of Santosha the most, the fairy teacher had explained.

I tell the voice to shut up, sit down on one of the cots which sags a little deeper and focus on the bright blue walls.

Breathing is great for any kind of upsetting situation, so I breathe a little more consciously and start to talk myself into looking at the bright side. There is nobody in the room but me. Maybe I’ll remain the only one and have that, admittedly, pleasant room with its stunning view all to myself, despite this being high season and every other halfway decent place being booked out? The internet at this place is not bad and maybe I can deal with not having access to a kitchen and eating out for some time?

Optimism traipses shyly back into my worldview.

Ten minutes later a big sweaty guy tromps into the room and whams down his backpack on the cot next to me. Fantastic.

“Optimism is not Santosha,” the teacher had said and rearranged her white scarf with a svelte shoulder shrug.

“Santosha is saying yes to the experience in the present moment.”

As much as the yoga teachings seek balance and lightness, looking only at the bright sides will lead to a halfhearted experience since we would be living only one extreme while the law of polarity requires both – and every facet in-between. And when life crashes and the bubble of optimism bursts, she explained, we would not have practiced balance. Santosha means not to focus on events but rather to provide a contextual container.

“Imagine you are a host to your emotions, the good and the bad. They will come and go – you don't have to make dinner for those that are painful but they can still be welcomed with kindness and acceptance,” she had continued.

It did sound fairly convincing at the time. And I do know that I have come into this situation with certain plans and expectations that may turn into an additional obstacle if not fulfilled, or, in the words of the teachings, into a mental resistance against the experience.

I think of the cat again.

Fact is, I need to work. And for my work I need internet. Or so I tell myself. Fact is also, I really like some privacy and being able to prepare my own food. A person is a structure of her memories and habits. I am not my thoughts alone – but I am the sum of my experiences, thoughts, my physical configuration, emotions, likes and dislikes. Now the only question is – what of it can I tweak in order to make peace with this experience as it is and maybe even find some joy in the process?

When someone questioned the Buddha about their fear of death, the stories recount his reply as this: “why don't you die now and enjoy the rest of your life?”

I push my laptop bag a little deeper under the cot and dig for my bikini.

For now, I’ll go for a swim. Ocean therapy. The rest will come later. Hopefully.