Chasing Contentment

Seek it and it will evade you. Wait for it, and it’s more likely to come. Judith Hanson Lasater explains the paradox of santosha.

- Judith Hanson Lasater

IN 1991, I TOOK MY SECOND TRIP to Moscow to teach yoga. On our first day there, I was sitting with a group of American yoga teachers, having lunch in the cafeteria in our hotel, when we were approached by a group of Russian yoga teachers. I knew some of them from my previous trip and began casually chatting with one of them. I can’t remember what I was saying, but I’ll never forget how she studied my face intently as I made small talk. At one point, she firmly grasped my shoulders and said, “Stop! Let us speak of real things.” Though startled, I agreed, and we dove into discussing the deeper teachings of yoga.

Dharma—which means living in harmony with the order of life and the Universe—is all about looking at “real things,” and yoga gives us many opportunities to practice doing just that. Lately, I’ve been focusing on santosha (contentment), which Patanjali introduces in the Yoga Sutra (2.32). It is presented as a practice to be undertaken—Patanjali exhorts us not to just be content, but rather to practice contentment. We are to live it.