on ahimsa, or non-violence
As I deepen my yoga practice, I'm working to better articulate my own experiences to learn from and, hopefully in the future, teach with. Yoga's eight-fold path guide us to live a meaningful and balanced life. This is the first in a series of blog posts where I'll use these eight limbs and their subsets as different containers to explore myself and my beliefs. Beginning with ahimsa.
Ahimsa: the first Yama. nonviolence.
Yamas: one of the eight limbs of yoga. restraint. ethics to guide your actions.
Ahimsa, or non-violence, sounds easy. Not killing, fighting, or starting genocides is morally quite popular and (usually) not too difficult to implement. But it is more challenging to apply ahimsa to my own life when examining its subtleties.
so what is ahimsa
to do no harm
Re-framing "non-violence" to "no harm" adds a few dimensions. Suddenly, how I walk on the earth matters. Not disturbing flora and fauna becomes a priority. Not eating meat. In this case, ahimsa means taking all measures I can to love and care for our planet and all living things.
to speak no evil
While this one mostly just sounded cool, I do believe our words can be violent or cause violence. Here, I consider how I talk to others and myself. Even how I think about others and myself. Practicing ahimsa means dismantling my inherent biases, rewriting old thought patterns and generally taking a good look in the mirror.
in the name of self-defense
I don't believe non-violence means never-violent. War may be necessary at times and self-defense at others. In these cases, I believe ahimsa calls for just war theory. Any "violence" used should be with the purpose of neutralizing threats, preventing worse evils, and creating peace. And then, only the smallest amount of violence necessary should be used.
so
Ahimsa is more than just not starting wars (which I have almost no control over) or not killing others (which I have not and never plan to do). It's how we interact with all living things, including our earth, its critters, other people, and ourselves. Violence is possible physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. For this reason, ahimsa encompasses our thoughts, words, and actions.
what is ahimsa in the day to day?
being brave
Understanding how to practice ahimsa in our day to day means understanding the root causes of our violence. Adele, the author of Yamas and Niyamas argues that much of the violence we channel toward others is born from our own fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the unfamiliar, fear of loss, fear of change. In that case, one of the best ways to practice non-violence is to be courageous and brave.
Michelle Johnson, the author of Skill in Action asks us what we can do to interrupt or disrupt injustices. I believe this also requires courage, and the ability to overcome our fear of whatever repercussions we face in that situation.
being compassionate
Practicing compassion also addresses one of the root causes of violence. It's much easier to be violent toward someone or something we haven't bothered to empathize with. But Adele adds a rich piece of context: compassion toward ourselves. She posits that we can only treat others as well as we treat ourselves. For example, your taskmaster ways will inevitably leak into your expectations of others.
Adele also warns against using compassion as a bypass for your own dissatisfaction. I found this idea that it's especially easy to solve other people's problems when we're refusing to face our own interesting. While "fixing" someone else's life can give us a sense of accomplishment and momentarily assuage our own feeling of lack, it takes away their opportunity to learn and grow. Similarly, Adele names worrying as a signal that we do not trust the other person to figure something out themselves.
True compassion moves beyond sympathy (seeing what someone is feeling) and past empathy (feeling what someone is feeling) toward a connected and action-oriented space. Compassion makes us want to reach out and support ourselves and others. And in situations where we've caused harm, being compassionate helps us create conditions to repair and respond in an undefended way.
my personal practice of ahimsa
My non-violence practice focuses mostly on the compassion element. I'm pescatarian, I recycle, and I tread as lightly as I can on this earth (physically and metaphorically). I buy second-hand and try to avoid businesses whose practices cause harm to the environment or our communities. I don't often speak or act unkindly toward others, and next time I do I will try to remember to come back to this. But the compassion element, particularly self-compassion is an ongoing journey for me.
Adele says to: act as though you are complete, and while I love the idea of that, I could be better with it. I apologize too much and am quite hard on myself. While I usually think I deserve it, when I consider that leaks into how I treat others I suddenly do want to change. Funny how that works.
The idea of bypassing self-compassion by focusing on solving other people's problems also hit very close to home. As I watch people go through addiction, I have to remember that even if I could solve their problems for them, I shouldn't. This is something I've had to get better with, but being able to name it will hopefully help me carry it forward.
to conclude Ahimsa, or non-violence, isn't really about violence at all. It's about compassion. How we can treat this world and everything in it with more kindness and understanding. How we can create spaces and conditions for bravery and connected and action-oriented care. I will continue my practice of ahimsa by watching what I eat, what I wear, and anything else I consume. I will also work on improving my self-compassion, knowing that translates into how compassionate I can really be with others.
readings Yamas and Niyamas