My yoga class ends with Shavasana (shah-VAHS-anna), a Sanskrit word meaning corpse. The pose, the second to last of each class, is simple. I lie flat on my back, legs slightly apart, arms at my sides, palms up, as if I’m about to receive a gift from heaven. As if I’m ready to grab what I’m being offered. As if I’m stretched out, stone-cold on an autopsy table. Steph, the instructor, always introduces Shavasana as the hardest pose of the class. “Get ready for Shavasana. This will be the hardest pose of the class.”
Note to the yogis who found this story by searching for one of the yoga-oriented words I’ve used to tag this post: I’m not going to argue with you over the proper goal of Shavasana. Steph tells me to clear my mind. For me, that means no brainwaves. Corpse pose, body and mind.
I have an active mind, an untrained mind, an immature mind, at least when it comes to meditation. I try to wipe it clean of thoughts, but they pop up unbidden and unwanted faster than I can irradicate them. My go-to strategy is to focus intently on the music that accompanies the class, the mystical pan flutes, wind chimes and synthesized gusting breezes that compose so many yoga CDs. This is cheating. My mind isn’t blank, but it’s not active either. It’s just riding a wave-crest of new age clichés.
In a surprising twist, Steph chose not to play any music in her class today. Because I’m self-centered, I assumed she did this because she’s on to me, she knows I’m not meditating, just listening to music. She spoke to us for a few minutes using a calm and relaxing voice. So calm and relaxed that I couldn’t hear what she was saying. But when she stopped talking, I knew it was time to start. And then my thoughts came, washing across my brain like so many PowerPoint slides. They washed in from my left brain, washed in from my right brain, and faded out and back in from my very soul.
Dammit, I wanted to get my arms comfortable before we started.
I can hear the basketball bouncing in the gym.
Focus, Jeff.
I should get a donut on the way home.
Breathe, listen to your breath.
Who keeps making that sound?
I wonder if Susan has this problem.
This is ridiculous.
I should write about this.
I should write about all these thoughts.
Great idea, Jeff. Think about that later.
FOCUS!
Clear your mind. Seriously, clear your mind.
It could be a humor piece.
LATER!
Jesus, how much longer is this going to last?
Steph’s right. Shavasana is hard. At least it doesn’t hurt. After we wrap up Shavasana, we sit crisscross applesauce on our yoga mat. Each participant holds their hands together as if in prayer, bows forward and says Namaste, a Sanskrit word meaning I bow reverentially to you, or in some interpretations, the sacred in me bows to the sacred in you. I haven’t done this. In the four months since I restarted yoga after a decade-long break, I haven’t said Namaste at the end of class. It seemed like praying in a religion I don’t fully understand.
At the end of today’s class, a session that by all accounts went poorly for me—I lost balance twice and nearly crashed to the floor, and of course I failed miserably at Shavasana—I was moved to participate in the Namaste salutation.
Steph: “Namaste.”
Me (and everyone else): “Namaste.” It just felt natural.
Getting in the car to drive home, Susan wasn’t crazy about my donut idea. I had eggs instead.
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Previously Published on jefftcann.com and is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: iStock
