Spoiler alert – I can’t.
Leslie here.
Despite personally experiencing direct and life-changing benefits of meditation, I struggle to maintain a solo home practice. To help myself out, I have been seeking a local meditation group to keep me accountable. This process has been… complicated.
In my search for local organizations, I’ve found lots of valuable offerings that aren’t for me: kirtan-singing groups, groups who chant mantras, monasteries that offer culturally-grounded ritual celebrations, and centres that focus on trademarked pranayama and kriya methods. All worthwhile, just not what I was looking for.
Then, excitingly, I found a local group that aligned with my goals, was affordable, was connected to an established tradition, and worked with my schedule! Finally, I wanted to know: who are the teachers, and what’s the state of the lineage?
Well, it turned out that the lineage was problematic at best. I did my due diligence and dug into the history of the separation of this particular sect from a more well-established Buddhist lineage. I found leaders whose actions appeared to be driven by religious ego and a desire for power, and teachers who were trained to completely reject all other Buddhist wisdom and authority outside of their sect.
Unfortunately, controversy in spiritual communities is nothing new, and I keep discovering more of it. Last year, seeking inspiration for my own practice and teaching, I picked up a book of contemplative reflections on yoga philosophy by a popular teacher, only to find out about their blurry boundaries and cult-of-personality style of teaching – making me seriously question the legitimacy of their thoughts on spirituality and shelf the book. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen that underneath the popularity of a method is a leader whose spiritual, political, interpersonal or sometimes criminal conduct puts the whole operation into question.
Our own history at the Branches is not untouched by this unfortunate trend. Years ago, some of our more experienced teachers (Leena, Emma and Carin) were trained in a school called Anusara Yoga led by John Friend. He turned out to have sloppy boundaries, and engaged in ethically murky sexual and financial relations with some of his students. As an organization, the school moved on without the leader, but none of the Branches folks stuck around to find out how it went. Too messy.
When I think about my own commitment to yoga, I question whether I should expect ethical perfection from a lineage or tradition? That’s unreasonable – lineages are made of people and people clearly aren’t perfect. Of course a teacher’s poor behaviour undermines and can even negate their authority to teach. But does someone’s behaviour negate the teachings themselves? And if the teachings still have value, how can the rest of us care for, preserve and perpetuate them during gaps in guidance from elders or teachers we respect?
The team here at the Branches has had more than a few conversations about the lack of trustworthy elders in our own yoga community, particularly in the aftermath of leaving our most influential yoga school behind. We don’t follow a guru, and some of us look to teachers we admire and learn from online rather than within a face-to-face relationship, or to teachers who aren’t necessarily connected to a lineage either. Scholars deem this “post-lineage yoga,” but traditionalists decry the lack of respect for tradition and authenticity. It’s not perfectly clear how to proceed.
That said, I will keep looking for a good meditation teacher.
And as an organization, we will keep trying to become the elders we wish we had. One way we try to do this is by creating the community that our senior teachers originally sought in the Anusara world. Teaching movement, sharing yoga, and stewarding a community shouldn’t be a popularity contest, an ego-boost, or a power-play. We aim to be teachers who work alongside our students on the path, rather than performing like pop-stars on a stage. We aim to teach from a place of humility and genuine commitment to study and practice, rather than forefronting charisma. It’s hugely important to us, then, to offer the teacher training that our senior teachers, Leena & Emma, wish they could have had and to platform guest faculty who embody these values.
To those who love to practice yoga, but are struggling with how to engage beyond the damage done to various communities, I extend compassion and a wish for perseverance. Yoga is bigger than all of us. May we all find a way to relate to it and each other in a good way.
With care,
Leslie
The Branches 