I Learned Yoga/Buddhism Through an Abusive Group. Now I Teach It. What Do I Do?

Notes on transparency, repair, and renewal.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

In January of 2018, Shannon Roche, current CEO of Yoga Alliance said the following in a video announcement of YA’s updated sexual misconduct policy:

There’s a deeply troubling pattern of sexual misconduct within our community, a pattern that touches almost every tradition in modern yoga.

Every human being deserves to practice yoga free from abuse, harassment and manipulation.

In honour of those who have spoken up, and in honour of those who have been too hurt to speak, we have to start somewhere, and we have to start now.

“Almost every tradition.” Did she really say that? Yes she did. Is that accurate? Yes it is.

You can scroll to the very bottom for an incomplete List of abuse documentation. Roche is speaking for the yoga industry here, but her statement might equally apply to Buddhist organizations, so The List is in two parts.

Please note I’m not talking about “Yoga” and “Buddhism” in some general sense, and as you’ll see from the list below, I’m not referring to organizations that are strictly indigenous to India or South Asia. The focus here is on modern businesses that conduct their affairs mostly in English and are responsible for the global commodification of yoga and Buddhism as wellness and spirituality products.

When I present The List publicly to groups of teachers and teacher trainees, I can feel the air get sucked out of the room.

Why?

Because virtually everyone who has professionalized into yoga or Buddhism over the last thirty years has done so in relation to one or more of these groups.

The List makes clear just how terrible the yoga and Buddhism industries have been at fostering the communities of competence, safety, dignity, and even love that their marketing has promised. The List lays bare the toxic outcomes of (mainly) male charismatic leadership over brands that vie for commercial legitimacy within an unregulated field. The List shows that the main thing that facilitates practice — a safe social space — is actually a very rare commodity. On the…