Saying that we don’t have
to (or shouldn’t) bring social justice, social change or anti-oppression
into our hour and an half on our matt is something not everyone has
the luxury of doing. While an hour and a half to get away from
it all and focus on your body, your breath, develop non-attachment
and cultivate qualities of compassion, dedication, patience, and peace
is an amazing thing, let’s be real. It’s a privilege. Not just because it’s often expensive, located in parts of town that
are not accessible to certain community members, but also because
there exists an unspoken acquiescence to suspend any notion of having
to do social change/social justice work while we are practicing yoga. This means we are asking people who are targets of oppression (of
all kinds) to enter a space we have designated as an anti-oppression
free zone and feel safe enough to let go, breath and be vulnerable. We ask them to do this not by addressing oppression specifically,
but by suspending discussion—this silences people and ignores the
reality of their experience.
What do we do? How do you
interrupt racism, homophobia, sexism, abelism, or any other oppression
in the context of a yoga class? How do you bring it in the room
and on the matt with you? How do you do this while not chasing
your monkey mind? There isn’t one right way, but it starts with
acknowledging that we can’t separate our yoga practice from our feminism
and activism. It also involves challenging the notion that simply
doing yoga, seeking enlightenment, or meditating is enough to create
social change. Here are some ideas. These are a place
to start, not a floor plan to how to do it right—just like yoga, it’s
a process and the process is just as important as the goal.
Start
a discussion group
- Meet once a week, once a month to talk about these
things. You can bring questions of your own, or develop questions
from articles and anti-oppression trainings.
Some questions you can
start with could include:
1. Why is it important to make links
between yoga, meditating and oppression and privilege? What
do I gain if we do this work? What do I loose if we do not do this
work?
2. Why do I think these discussion are not happening at
yoga studios on a regular basis? What can I do to change that?
3.
How can each of the eight limbs of yoga contribute to undoing sexism
and oppression?
4. What are three things I can commit to doing
as a yoga practitioner that will support social change?
5. How
can this discussion group support social change?
- Read anti-oppression
and Buddhism/yoga articles together and discuss how they connect,
contradict, or support each other. A list of books to get you
started that address oppression, privilege, and power include: A People’s
History of The United States, or You Can’t Stay Neutral On A Moving
Train by Howard Zinn, Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen, White
Lies by Maurice Berger, Transliberation by Leslie Feinberg, Teaching
Community A Pedagogy Of Hope by Bell Hooks, In The Time Of The Right-
Reflections On Liberation by Suzanne Pharr, We Are All Suspects Now by
Tram Nguyen, The Compassionate Life by The Dalai Lama, The Darker
Nations and The Karma Of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad, The Invisible
Man by Ralph Ellison, The White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty, Kindred by
Octavia Butler, White Like Me by Tim Wise, The Sprit Catches You And
You Fall Down by Anné Fadiman. Some books about yoga, Buddhism
might include books by Pema Chödrön, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Dalai Lama,Light on Yoga by BKS Iyengar.
- Ask your yoga studio/instructors
to support community as part of their yoga practice and philosophy. Many yoga classes and teacher trainings are inaccessible for people. Things like childcare, location, scheduling for single parents and
those who do not live near by, language, access for those with different
physical abilities, are just a few examples. Doing trades or
barter for fees is a great idea, but, unless in takes into account
that the working poor often have both less time and money, it does
little to make things more accessible. Look into supporting
yoga classes in places that already serve communities that don’t have
access to your studio. Think about sliding scale teacher trainings,
or scholarships, or donating an instructor training slot. Support
local leadership and local community healing that is already going
on.
