The important point of spiritual practice is not to try to escape your life, but to face it - exactly and completely. – Dainin Katagiri
Listen while you read. Find the playlist for ‘Yoga Practice at the End of the World ’ here.
As a life long yoga student I see this practice both as a path to liberate myself from suffering, and to relieve our collective suffering from the violence of capitalism and settler colonialism. Through the work of Yoga (derived from the Sanskrit word yuj, which means 'to yoke’ or ‘union’) we inevitably learn that since nothing exists outside of ourselves, the pursuit of individual elevation without societal responsibility only strengthens the ego.
The great Zen Master, Dainin Katagiri, says that an important part of spiritual practice is not to try to escape from life, but to face it exactly and completely. He claims that the deconstruction of spirituality into a self-help scheme reinforces a dualistic world view where all things are separate, which takes away from its wisdom – pulling us further from liberation.
Yoga is acceptance and action, a mix that we desperately need as oppression rages on and the average person feels hopeless or indifferent towards their influence in maintaining (or better yet, changing) the status quo. We can sit alone in a quiet room and read all the books we want, listen to lectures about ideas on yoga and meditation, but the work of Self and collective liberation is not the work of the mind; it cannot be intellectualized or theorized. Liberation is the work of inward and outward action, free from motives of personal gain– an especially difficult task in Eurocentric cultures where the rugged individual archetype is rewarded.
So how can we reconcile individual yoga practice with collective liberation? Why should we practice yoga at the end of the world?