Soul Musings is a weekly or twice-weekly column by Smitha Murthy, the co-founder of MyndStories. These reflections are tiny snippets from her life, vulnerable and intimate, inviting you to pause and reflect with her. 

What does it mean to truly hold space for yourself?

This question has bothered me all year. I tend to operate on two levels: Rushed or lethargic. For me, life is always at a tipping point between rush and lethargy, never quite a spectrum. 

These binaries haven’t done me good. There has to be a better way to live than this, I thought. That is how I found myself in Dharamshala last month, randomly, on a sudden trip orchestrated by despair and burnout. 

Going to Dharamshala had been a long-standing dream of mine. Many years ago, I attended a lecture by the Dalai Lama in Bangalore. My friend and I arrived for the afternoon session at a college in Bangalore rather unprepared for the magnitude. We were more concerned about being in the shade than closer to the Dalai Lama. 

He came in chuckling, and never stopped chuckling. His joy was infectious. It was hard to hold space for grief, despair, and melancholy at that moment in his presence.  

I don’t remember much of his speech. But I remember this question from the audience.

“Do you ever get angry?”

“Of course!” His response was instantaneous. “Just today, I got angry at someone. A doctor,” he grinned. It was hard to believe someone talk of anger with laughter, but I left that meeting thinking even the Dalai Lama gets angry. Perhaps I can go a little easier on myself. 

I didn’t. 

Many years later, I read the Dalai Lama’s beautiful book, The Book of Joy. Written as a conversation between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the book was a delight. 

The two delight in their friendship, jostle and tease each other, and throughout, hold space for lightness and laughter. 

“The three factors that seem to have the greatest influence on increasing our happiness are our ability to reframe our situation more positively, our ability to experience gratitude, and our choice to be kind and generous.”

I thought about what the Dalai Lama had said when I visited the Tsuglagkhang Complex or the Dalai Lama temple in Dharamshala. I went there anticipating a beautiful, serene setting where monks chat in a web of silence. What I saw was something else. The road to the temple was chaotic, a melee of souvenir shops dotting the steps. At every step, you would find shawls, prayer flags, thangka paintings, musical instruments, and a strange assortment of tacky souvenirs. You look at Google Maps, wondering if you are on the right path. Where in this chaos can there a temple be? 

And it was there. Right at the end of that road, a nondescript gate that has none of the majesty I had envisaged. Step inside, pass the security check, and you are in a hall heaving with people. I wanted to step away from that noise. This can’t be the temple, I think. Kids run around screeching. Most of the Tibetans look like they have been here all night. A few monks wander around, their maroon robes a hue of color. The temple was underwhelming. The noise overwhelming. I do the mandatory circumambulation, the prayer wheels on my right an invitation to turn my mind. Over and over again on the mishaps of the past, the gory accidents and corpses of old relationships. You are never free from the ghosts of loss and grief. 

At one point, the white walls give away to a door. I enter and gaze at Avaloketishvara. There are selfie-seeking tourists wanting to snap their nirvana, and I step aside. That’s when I spot him. An old monk sitting down, prayer beads in hand, in front of a statue of Green Tara, the Goddess of Compassion. In the pantheon of Buddhist deities, Green Tara has always fascinated me. She who hears the cries of those in distress. The one who works overtime, if I may say, to liberate us from our suffering. A couple of other tourists are with the monk, meditating. In that chaos, there’s this small space of quiet. I sit down with them. 

The monk continues to chant. The words make no sense to me. A kid walks in and places an offering for Green Tara, urged by the mother. I try to close my eyes and feel whatever it is you are supposed to feel while meditating. 

The breath. In and out. The monk’s chanting. Random screeches and hoots from outside. The outside world is a magnificent swirl to my inside. I try to ask Green Tara for blessings, wisdom, and compassion. For anything at all. But it’s futile. 

This is not meditation. This is not the peace I came seeking. I swallow the swirl of disappointment. I try to Instagram this moment – look at me. I am in Dharamshala, at the Dalai Lama’s temple. Surely, there’s joy to be found here?

And just at that moment, the phone rings. Amazon delivery. And no matter where you are in the world, you can’t ignore those guys. 

I wearily walk out, phone in hand, leaving Green Tara behind. Leaving all that magic and anticipation behind. For this. For a phone call. For slippers outside. Old odor floating in. Deodar oaks in front. A kid bangs into my knee. 

And I want to sit down there. Right there and cry. 

Something stops me. I wish I can tell you it was Green Tara. The monk. Something esoteric and spiritual.

It isn’t. 

It is just this. 

The Dalai Lama’s words. That happiness depends on our ability to reframe our situation more positively. 

I find nothing positive here, I determine. I am not going to come up with some positivity mantra right now. I shake my fists at the Dalai Lama. I walk away, out of that noisy temple.

And right into a small restaurant hawking “Chinese Sichuan dishes.” The entrance looks utterly shabby. But I emerge onto a beautiful, sunlit rooftop. And there, with a couple of monks sipping Tibetan tea, I have the best meal I had had until then. Sliced potatoes, stir-fried in vinegar, harking memories of my days in China all those years ago. A dog to give me company. The sun warming my icicled mind. 

That’s when I chuckle. Perhaps happiness is this, and you were right, dear Dalai. I didn’t have the ability to reframe that awful temple visit positively, but I had the ability to experience gratitude. For this sun-baked moment of soul food.

That is enough. 

As a first-person essay, this is not vetted by our team of reviewers.