Empty your mind.
That’s what meditation tells us to do. I have trouble emptying my mind. When I do yoga, that’s when I let my mind wander. It wanders off to distant places. It’s a playground of possibilities.
I should be emptying my mind when I do yoga. I try to focus on the pose. But my mind needs to go somewhere.
I have been practising yoga for a long time, off and on, until I finally gave up and gave in.
Outdoor yoga in Utrecht, Netherlands, June 2011
My late maternal grandfather was still doing yoga even before he died of lung cancer in his mid-seventies. My friend’s mom, a chain smoker and a yoga instructor in northern Germany, introduced me to a few poses while on holiday on a Danish island. My Swiss/Italian reflexologist friend brought me to her yoga class in London. I didn’t understand it at all. I did not sweat. I didn’t see the use of contortionist poses. What was yoga supposed to do for me?
Later, I decided to give it another chance. I noticed that yoga teachers possessed the kind of bodies I wished for myself — slender, fat-free, and toned. Their faces showed the health of their bodies. They moved like cats. Maybe that’s the result of practising yoga.
In 2002, I joined a local health club in London that offered yoga and other classes. I cycled to the club every day to take fitness classes and swim in the over-chlorinated indoor pool. I was introduced to different kinds of yoga – the simplest kind, the kind that made you sweat profusely, and those that made you hold your position until you wanted to collapse.
When I moved to the Netherlands, I actively sought out places where yoga was taught. It took a year or two before I found a club that was convenient. I learned my Dutch that way. The classes at the sports club on the other side of the canal where I lived were always full. The yoga mats were as densely packed as the country’s reputation of being the densest in Europe.
To fulfill a dream I’ve had, I brought a Hatha yoga teacher from the Himalayas to conduct a class in my house. On centrally-heated oak parquet floors we did what-I-called “authentic yoga.” A year later, we did it in our back garden with even more people. The friends and neighbors who participated also brought vegetarian dishes to contribute to the shared meal afterwards. The experience manifested the true meaning of yoga: union.
Now in Maui, yoga is a regular thing for me. I still practise it indoors though I long to do yoga on the beach or in the park. The single experience of doing yoga on the campus lawn last year left a vivid impression.
My front garden in Wailuku has two levels of lawn with a view of the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps one day, I will organize a yoga session out here.
In the last pose, the corpse pose, we are told to lie on our backs with our eyes closed for five minutes before we conclude with “namaste.” That’s our last chance to empty our minds.
By then, my mind is bored with the playground of possibilities. I feel a calmness. I resign to emptiness.