My thoughts on Bhutan so far:

It’s a land so steeped in history, traditions, gods, deities, kings.

Symbols.

Nature.

There really is a feeling in the air of a greater power: that you are not alone.

My focus for day 3 is svadhyaya, or self-study.

At first it seems that all I can do is wonder about those around me: young, beautiful women carrying babies swaddled on their backs; old, wrinkled women bent over in fields, pulling potato after potato;  Buddhist monks – some no older than 10 – rocking and reciting mantras in a collective murmur.

And I ask myself how they can live so simply, without the modern conveniences I’m used to.

In the Bhutanese language, the same word is used for both “thrown out” and “lost”, and there is no distinction between “to need” and “to desire”. If something is thrown out here, it is lost to further use, and if you want something here, you probably also need it.

-Jamie Zeppa, Beyond the Earth and Clouds

The group asks our guide questions about wealth, status…things.

Concerned with how the Bhutanese can live with so little.

But maybe we should have considered how we could live with less.

Less stuff, less petty worries, less rushing.

And yet, more.

More connection to nature, more respect for elders, more reverence for the unseen.

And this becomes my version of self-study.

How do I take just a part of this simplicity back with me?