The Space In Between

A traveler in search of authentic Mexico will likely shun Los Cabos, replete as it is with American culture, and choose instead to sniff out the native customs and culinary delights endemic to the country’s mainland. Travelers seek the different. We marvel at an unusual landscape or contrary perspective, even as we delight in similarities. As residents of southern Baja, however, my friends and I have left the beach towns on a quest for something more.

Our search has taken us deep into the mountains where swaths of green, like a living confirmative “Yes”, replace the monotonous grey death of desert that rolls along Baja’s coastline. The balloon of Cabo’s consumer-based relaxation releases and drifts away. Tsegyalgar West’s 3,000-acre wilderness preserve greets us with golden light, soaring eagles, and the whispering of wind in the palms. An 800-year old fig tree - its icterine roots swallowing the great charcoal boulder it grows upon – stands on the main grounds, as if to remind us of the sacredness of this land.

Tsegyalgar West is a Buddhist Dzogchen retreat center just 30 minutes from the Los Cabos airport, yet seemingly worlds away. Visitors can rent a casita or pay a small fee for a campsite and have access to the communal outdoor kitchen, composting toilets, showers, and solar-powered electricity. We have come between retreats, wanting to simply revel in the majesty of the mountains. Those who prefer a more directed experience can register online for a scheduled retreat.

In the three days of our stay we cook and share meals and laughter with the other guests, hike the shrouded pathways that lead to intimidating mango groves, dip our toes in the cool arroyo waters, soak in nearby hot springs, dance, meditate, stargaze, and take great gulps of revitalizing air to remind us what we are living for.

Night comes and I stand alone on the back terrace of my casita gazing at the river valley, the mountains beyond, and the moon, which has donned a tear-shaped halo. The mental division of traveler vs. local, Mexican vs. American, seeker vs. sought, vanishes. There is a vast spaciousness here, as if the land itself is the meditation – that space between thoughts – that space beyond “self” and “other”. And I realize this is why the Seeker travels: neither for escape nor for a taste of the exotic, but to discover that “field beyond wrong doing and right doing” where the crux of humanity lies.

It fills me suddenly. I burst with inexplicable joy.