07/25/2025
Before postural practice or asana, before breath work - even before meditation, the very first steps on the path of yoga practice are ethics: how we respond to others and ourselves in the shifting landscape of humanness.
This is where traditional yoga study actually begins, and the place that the most experienced practitioners frequently arrive back at.
The point is not to learn right from wrong. The point is to notice the impact of our thoughts, words and actions - to experience our inseparability from others and the environment.
The precepts of yoga are simple albeit challenging, moment to moment practices that point us experientially to our interwoven nature:
•ahiṃsā - proactive protection of those in danger & refraining from harm
•satya - honesty, truthfulness, authenticity
•asteya - equitable distribution of resources
•brahmacharya - wise use of our creative energy
•aparigraha - holding life gently, working with our attachments & aversions
These precepts are compassion in action, and speak loudly, clearly to our collective suffering in this moment. Like all socially engaged practices or forms of activism, yoga asks us to start where we are and use what we have to speak out and act up against organized and state sanctioned violence.
The deep breath we practice in class? Grounding for hard conversations. The determination of a balance posture? Steady passage through challenging decisions.
The sitting in meditation we do in the studio? Embodied experience that can help us hold many truths at once, speak truth to power and live our relationships in a way that divests from abusive power structures.
They are like a compass, aiming our hearts and actions at justice and collective liberation, related to, but off of the mat.
May all beings be protected and nourished. May all beings be sovereign. May all beings be free and may our practices of Courage be a support to those in pain.
