The Place of Pace

These first three days in Leh could be described as lazy days. I don’t think I’ve traveled beyond the half kilometer radius of my hotel since I arrived four nights ago. I’ve managed to walk to the nearby incredible cafe, Booklover’s Retreat, each day and take advantage of their tasty food and wireless connection. But the main reason for my “laziness” is that Leh is at 3505 meters, which is a little more than 2 miles high. I’ve experienced some altitude before, but nothing quite like this. No matter how much water I drink, it’s not an easy adjustment. Yesterday, my yoga practice that is normally ninety minutes lasted about thirty minutes before I found myself gasping for air.
Given this challenge, I found that the pace of my days has slowed down dramatically. Often when I travel I try to balance seeing sights, meeting and talking with people, and some relaxation time. I have over-endulged on the relaxation for the last three days. It’s not really over-endulgence - it was necessity. I’m beginning to realize that this change of pace isn’t such a bad thing. When I’m in New York, I find myself getting caught up in a lot of projects and moving at a pretty hectic pace. I don’t necessarily think that it’s a bad thing, especially since I love living in New York City, but it’s easy for me to lose sight of how much I’m trying to do and how little relaxation I leave for myself.
In these last three days, I’ve also started reading The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, with a commentary by Sri Swami Satchidananda. The sutras themselves are challenging to understand, but Satchidananda’s commentaries really help. The first few sutras focus a lot on how we see and understand ourselves and how this understanding of ourselves affects how we view and make sense of the world. One of the first steps in understanding ourselves is learning how to control and restrain our minds. As I read his words and think about the way in which I’ve found myself slowing down the last few days, I’m beginning to see other ways in which I can exercise more control over my mind and my actions back in New York. And what I’m realizing is that place doesn’t have to affect pace.