by Nina
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| Speak Up by Mimmo Rotella* |
Yesterday’s opinion piece in the New York Times Yoga Teachers Need a Code of Ethics about yoga teachers who sexually abuse their students prompted a discussion between Brad and me. The basic message of the opinion piece was this:
“I believe all organized yoga teacher training should include training in ethics and, if affiliated with Yoga Alliance, point students toward that resource. Each community center, meditation group and yoga studio should post a code of ethics, as Jack Kornfield’s Spirit Rock community recently did.”
I told Brad that the problem with this proposal was that yoga already had a code of ethnics: the yamas. Between non-violence (ahimsa), sexual responsibility (brahmacarya), non-stealing (asteya), greedlessness (aparigaha), and truthfulness (satya). you’ve basically got all the bases covered. Someone who is sexually responsible, doesn’t want or try to “take” what’s not theirs, refrains from hurting others, and is truthful isn’t going to be raping their students, molesting students in classes, emotionally manipulating their students, or cheating on their partners by having multiple affairs with their students. And many teacher training programs do introduce teachers to the yamas and niyamas and also train them in a code of ethics that explicitly mentions refraining from having romantic or sexual relationships with their students. But unfortunately just having a yogic code of ethics isn’t enough to stop some teachers from abusing their students. After all, look at the Catholic priests who abused children. Obviously, the Catholic Church has a code of ethics for priests and obviously the priests understood what was expected of them, but just having a code wasn’t enough to stop their behavior. The same is true for yoga teachers. Maybe every single yoga teacher out there doesn’t know about the yamas and the niyamas and other yoga teacher codes of ethics, but certainly all of the abusive yoga teachers mentioned in the New York Times did!
Brad agreed that a code of ethics isn’t enough. He said that people who have been abused by yoga teachers and/or know about abusive yoga teachers need to speak up!
As it happens, we’re in the middle of watching “The Keepers,” which is partly about the sexual abuse of Catholic High School girls by Catholic priests. So I reminded Brad that as that series shows it is often very hard for people who have been abused to speak up. They are afraid of not being believed. They are afraid of being blamed. They are afraid of being shunned by their community and “losing everything.” They are even afraid the abuse was somehow their own fault.
Brad replied that yoga students typically aren’t part of a repressive institution like the church, and those girls couldn’t just walk away from their school and families, so he didn’t feel that the parallel was justified. I agreed there was a significant difference, though I still feel that some yoga students have similar fears and concerns.
But as I thought about it afterward, in the end, even for the Catholic schoolgirls, it was when they were finally able to talk about the abuse many years later that they began to heal. In the series, one woman explicitly said as much. And, of course, all the people who eventually came forward and are still coming forward about sexual abuse in the Catholic church did a lot to bring system-wide changes in the church.
From that perspective, this New York Times article did us in the yoga community a service just by raising the issue to the general public. I hope this will encourage others to speak up as well.
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sorry I pushed publish too soon. Can you use this one instead?
Hi Nina,
Yes, yoga already has ethics! But in fact the yamas and niyamas, technically, are moral principles rather than a code of ethics. They are meant to be utilized as a foundation for a code of ethic. Yoga Alliance did not have a decent code of ethics until a few years ago. And without licensure, it doesn't really matter because there's no way to hold abusers accountable (but that's another ball of wax). The Kripalu research consortium suggested in a 2014 article (for the first time I think) that ethics are also a "process tool" of yoga – along with postures, meditation and breathing practices. If, as a yoga community, we placed the yamas and niyamas squarely the realm of practice (rather than just principles to frame and stick on the bathroom wall in a studio) – I would like to think we would have fewer stories such as these.
I agree. Not every class emphasizes the yamas and niyamas. Even for those that do, there are unethical people in the world that somehow excuse themselves from culpability (Bikram is a good exampled). It certainly would not hurt to have a very specific code of ethics so that everyone knows precisely what is not allowed. It may also help people find the courage to speak up if they are abused.
Thanks for commenting! Hopefully the various schools of yoga–and independent studios–within the yoga community at large will step up.
I trained at Kripalu a long time ago, in 1993. I can't remember if we called it ethics or not, but there was plenty of time spent discussing appropriate attire, student/teacher relationship does and don'ts, and other issues that left me with a clear understanding of my boundaries as a teacher. Ironically, Kripalu later was the subject of a "guru scandal" but that doesn't mean I didn't adhere to what felt like good advice early on. As yoga has become more mainstream, I've been surprised to see how many teachers think it's ok to date students as long as they move into a different class. Call me old school, but I didn't and wouldn't use my role as a teacher to expand my social circle. It just feels yucky! As for Yoga Alliance, I have no use for it.
Thanks for commenting! Yes, I know about the situation at Kripalu (which the community there did deal with very well). And, yes, we do have the problem of the yoga community not being organized as a single entity (and I understand the reluctance of many to avoid having this happen), so there is no way to have a single code of ethics and/or to enforce it. We need to hope that individual schools of yoga within the community at large and independent studios will step up.
I agree that it is important for the survivors of abuse to speak up, for their own healing as well as for the health of the community. But it is also important for those who are in authority positions in the yoga community to see what responsibility they can take for this! In what ways can they (we) make the conditions more welcoming for people to share their experience? In what ways can we show people that we will all support those who have been wronged, as a community, as well as calling for those who have committed the wrongdoing to take responsibility for their own actions? I don't think it works to place all of the responsibility for dealing with the situation on the shoulders of survivors. Not that I'm assuming that's what you meant, of course – I am just wondering how the community as a whole can deal with this issue when it comes up.
I agree with all of this! Of course the responsibility should not be just on the shoulders of the survivors. And of course the community as a whole needs some way of preventing and dealing with this problem. Right now the "community" isn't organized in any way (and there is some resistance to doing this, which I understand). So for now, we need to hope that individual schools of yoga within the community or independent studios will step up.