Previous title: “Gang of three” or “The scale of modern practice”

*insert appropriate pithy epigram here*

Another great Teacher Intensive weekend has come and gone and, as all fruitful studies should, it answered some questions and then asked a whole host of others. One of the portions I found the most powerful was our round-table discussion on when and if political material should ever be included in class. As expected, the responses ran the gamut from “good Lord, no, are you kidding? that’s the most inappopriate soapboxing/proselytizing misuse of your teaching energy, ever” to “I love hearing it in class and it connects me to the higher purposes of practice”. And also as expected, the responses to teaching technique have a great deal to do with the context of the class and studentship. I mean, the C word is the one that just keeps deluging me lately: it’s like an even shorter of that excellent Facebook bit that started showing up and going viral a few years ago: “Everything is changing. Everything is connected. Pay attention”.

Since I seem to have garnered the reputation for being so political, even though my own political studies are ham-handed and infantile at best, I thought I’d use this post as a way of explaining why I’ve been drawn to political concepts in recent years and how, if at all, they might harmonize with practice.

I find it fascinating that we [Canada/Vancouver] have transitioned as a yoga community from “you can’t tell anybody what to do, ever” to “you should always clearly tell people what to do with their bodies, but for God’s sake don’t ever tell them to do anything else with their lives” and its more traditional counterpoint “if you’re not telling people how to live yogically off the mat, then you are not teaching the art of yoga”. Active language and commands were seen as an imposition; taking the seat of the teacher was unconscionably presumptuous. Now active language is more accepted, and the responsibility of the teacher encompasses and extends to the body and its health and safety. Or, conversely, the physical exploration is subjective and exploratory on the part of the student but lifestyle decisions are mandated. It’s like you have to choose, as a teacher and practitioner, where the “you have to” energy is going to go, and then once you put it there you run out of gas.

So since the Occupy Movements have been getting traction globally and therefore in the yoga community, little fits and starts of political awakening seem to be jumping like popcorn in the field of practitioners of all styles and levels, from the hardcore hemp-clad unreconstructed hippie activists to the sleek corporate donation projects. And the template of these popcorn-awakenings invariably follow the same rough shape:

“Sure, I love hearing about the environment/animals/poor people/brown people far away/anti-war measures/anti-gun measures/[insert fave issue here], but encouraging activism on [insert non-fave issue here: unions, feminism, voting, protests, revolutions, riots] is A BRIDGE TOO FAR, I tell you.” and then there’s usually a sidebar of why the non-fave issue is not yogic to address: it’s too partisan, it includes violence and violence is terrible, I knew a guy who knew a guy who sat around on his couch on welfare, I studied it in uni and those people were jerks, I needed to clear my own karma, etc. It reminds me of nothing more than students who would show up and do every advanced forward bend under the sun, including the most shin-mangling Janu III variations, and Lotusses all up in their grill, and a million vinyasae, and then refuse to try Handstand Prep.

Those were the days, eh?

Apart from my native fascination with political theory, bred into the bone by many late nights ranting with my dad, I found myself trying to address social and political problems through individual practice: that is, expunging the suffering caused by larger movements of human beings through meditation and asana practice. This method has a long and glorious tradition, that’s where we get stuff like “Occupy Yourself” and such cleverisms, and I buy its logic to the extent that in order to participate in any relationship including/especially groups, you’ve got to keep your individual energetic slate really clean, and that’s usually hard to do, so go to work.

However, I’ve since come to see a lack of practical effort on the part of the yogi when it comes to larger groups, including political groups, but also the organizations that arise from yoga and its business models [studios, styles, co-teaching, etc.] It’s like we can apply the model of practice to ourselves alone, and maybe our friends or beloved, and we can apply it to the whole world, but on the scale of groups, parties and companies, and countries, we can’t seem to effectively analyze or process that behaviour. We just give up. It gets complicated, and while we might critically read scriptural material, we won’t apply the same critical eye to e.g. the newspaper or political blogs. Which is funny, because as Shelley said so beautifully over the weekend, you cannot avoid politics: all of your choices from purchasing power to relationship interaction is political: and pretending that it is not is like avoiding the pain in your body for the glory of a pose. You are embodied as an individual, and we are embodied together. We are social animals, and as we see patterns in nature and on the scale of our individual experience, those patterns also repeat themselves in social, cultural and political movement.

Conveniently [and intimidatingly] there is a HUGE BODY of scholarship and endeavour on this subject. This tends to make people exhausted or inspire distaste, but it need not. It’s a big ocean of study and awareness just like yoga is a big ocean of study and awareness, and I maintain that it is a misalignment to try to treat collective malaise on the level of the individual: particularly if the individual in question is oppressed, dispossessed or otherwise unprivileged. What you’re basically saying, if you say “Occupy Yourself” to a marginalized person, is “You are not only bound to work off the karma of your own birth in this marginalized form, but now you have to work off *mine*, because as a privileged person I don’t want to soil my beautiful mind by learning about activism or standing for any political vantage point, even temporarily, even if I find out I’ve been wrong and have to back down. My ego will not stand for that, so good luck”.

And the bugaboo of physical violence and death is where most peoples’ wheels come off the political cart because generally speaking we’d like to avoid suffering in this life, certainly not cause any more than is the bare minimum of our clutzy efforts to live and die as best we can. Oddly, though, this reticence on our part to cause violence allows the status quo all around the world to continue a death-in-life of those suffering not because we all must suffer, get ill and die: but because particular humans, corporations and governments have a vested interest in making sure that huge tracts of humanity remain placid, that they remain “peaceful”, that they remain silent, and yoga and meditation keeps us peaceful and silent, recoiling from violence with wrinkled noses: and so nothing changes. Which is doubly weird because we appear to be pretty attached to these bodies for people who “know” that they are just temporary. How much of this global suffering occurring today is part of the human experience, and how much of it is inertia on our part?

Okay. Wow. That’s maybe more heat than light, there. Thinking about generating change on the scale that I’d really like to quickly makes me tired, and then sad, so then I know I’ve gotten a bit too feisty and sjeisty. I benefit from privilege in so many ways that just enumerating them can make me very heavy, and I’m not too interested anymore in running the Suffering Simulator 2000 [NOW with Going Viral On Your Own Culture Update v5.01!] because that didn’t really seem to make anything better for anybody. However, I will continue to study, observe, and educate myself on these subjects because they are at the *correct scale* for so much of our global suffering. They are at the scale of humanity as a social animal, and as awkward and limited as many of the devices are [democracy, activism, etc] their technology will only improve by courageously facing them and refining them. The more we turn away from the history of political awareness in this country and continent [and have the privilege of pretending that this embodiment is a solo project, cf. my FURY at this Lululemon-John-Galt business, gaaaaaaah], the more we let the efforts of those who put thousands of man- and woman-hours into making sure we can have access even to these clutzy, awkward technologies to waste. Our romantic soft-focus pics of e.g. MLK avoid examining the relentless rhetorical and bureaucratic pursuit of the mechanics of his vision: how many meetings you think that guy went to? How many times was his issue moved down the agenda, or his staff backstabbed him over a tiny little doctrinal difference? He’s a hero because he did that work, people. The social contract has been dissolving and sadly the turning inward of the yoga student has not addressed that dissolution, as we feel uncomfortable even having conversations with those who disagree, and even after hundreds…thousands…of hours on the mat and on the cushion cannot even sufficiently regulate our emotional responses [see above!] to safely have a political conversation.

I don’t want anybody to agree with me on the specifics, as that would defeat the purpose of the inquiry, but I am a bit frustrated by not being able to talk about it, dig? I know it’s deeply personal and upsetting, but theoretically as yogis we are practicing not letting our reactions sully what would otherwise bring revelation and light. When people say “But what are we going to DO about it?” I always think well shoot, we can’t even TALK about it so there’s no way we can DO anything. And if you feel like you’ve already done your time in the trenches, or your focus is going somewhere else, believe me I get it [I have twins, remember?] there’s no need to take it personally: if this post is not about you it’s not about you: it is a lens through which we see each other and way to expand and continue our work. If nothing more than a focus for your attention similar to the breath or a pose or a mantra or yantra, concentrate, listen and learn. Then practice letting it go. Making talking about politics “unspiritual” or “impolite” allows misinformation to proliferate and prevents like-hearted souls from gathering. Yes, it is reactive in nature but so is a long hold Baddha Parsva Konasana or lying on a bed of nails: to what end are you avoiding the reaction? Transcendence, or inertia?

4 Comments »

February 12th, 2012 Laura Says:

Thank you for this. I hear many of my own struggles in this post. May we continue to courageously utilize and refine the tools we have at our disposal to confront the injustice around us. xo

February 14th, 2012 Sylvia Says:

On the plus side, I feel like looking inward for a number of years is what’s healed me to a point where I’m beginning to be able to effectively take action (again). Burn out is not a fun place to be. As much as it’s a privilege to be able to take time to heal, it’s also effective in refuelling for further engagement.

February 14th, 2012 Sylvia Says:

I’m often silent because it *is* tiring to talk about hard topics. Getting all talky about something too fast has drained me before. I like to listen and then pick my battles; I’m picking more of them lately.

February 18th, 2012 einajs Says:

L, I’m glad…you were in my mind when I was writing

S, I knew I would risk this with this post: that those already thoughtful and active would consider it an exhortation to do more or do differently. It is not. I could have shortened it considerably and had it say: Please do not use yogic rhetoric as a way to dismiss activism. That is my primary objection!

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