Yoga Culture and the Biomedical Centric Narrative

Having just completed this long response to a Facebook thread about yoga, the use of pharmaceuticals by yoga teachers, alternative medicine, and the problematic nature of "New Agey" responses to health and wellness issues, I decided it was worthy of a blog post. The original post by a yoga teacher who was shocked to learn of two long time yoga teachers that used meds to treat their depression was, after an apparent fluffy of negative responses, taken down. It was replaced by this apology, while the original piece was responded to by several yoga bloggers, including Matthew Remski and Charlotte Bell. While I appreciate many of the points both Matthew and Charlotte offer, I was struck by what I'd label a biomedical centric quality to their responses. Something that I also found in the discussion that ensued on Matthew's FB page, and which I feel needs to be unpacked in detail to avoid falling into an all too easy "good and evil" binary. Below is my attempt to do a bit of that unpacking.

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I've been following this discussion for a few days now, trying to figure out if I should say anything or not. I didn't get to read the original post, so I don't know what kind of claims the author made about pharmaceutical medications or Western bio-medicine in general. One thing I do find curious is - in this depression saturated continent of ours, where medications is a commonplace solution - how the author was "shocked" or even "surprised" that some yoga teachers are using pharmaceuticals to address depression or similar challenges. I honestly don't get the wow factor there.

One tendency I have noticed whenever these discussions about medicine come up is that the power and demands of the biomedical point of view are not often made explicit. For example, there's rarely any direct dialogue about the societal position of biomedicine as orthodox and state sanctioned. And how that positioning allows proponents to dismiss anything else at will without any damage to their credibility or standing. Taking a stand in favor of pharmaceutical intervention has little of the social risk that taking a stand in favor of an energy medicine approach to anxiety or depression does, for example. Or that the same positioning means that the terms of engagement will default to biomedicine's unless deliberate effort is made to question and open space for differing worldviews.

Here, I see many appeals to "experts" and a need for "expertise" and "evidence," without naming the fact that behind this is a demand for whatever is being considered medicine to give deference to biomedicine's criteria for determining validity. That the definition of depression, for example, needs to fall in line with how biomedicine sees it, and/or that any treatments being offered must be backed by scientific "proof," or be explainable using the language and structures of biomedicine. And that anyone who offers some potential treatment option needs to demonstrate a certain level of "competency" - as biomedicine defines competency - or else they'll be lopped off as New Age flakes or charlatans.

Again, I didn't get to read the original post before the author took it down, so I don't know if she made a lot of universalized claims against drug therapies in particular, or solely in favor of alternative approaches. Personally, while I'm not a fan of pharmaceuticals, I think all options should be available for people to choose from. And I wouldn't offer anything with a blanket statement that "THIS IS IT." So, if the author of the original post was operating from that attitude, then I totally get why so many folks reacted so strongly against her post.

At the same time, what I have witnessed over and over again in these kinds of conversations is a tendency for everything to slide under the control of a biomedical narrative. That those who question biomedical interventions are suspect until they prove otherwise. And that "alternative" medical modalities are only valid if at least some of what they offer can be explained or demonstratable under the biomedicine framework.

Along these lines, I actually would argue that the plethora of ill informed yoga folks who knee jerk reject all forms of biomedicine and biomedical approaches, and offer yogic soundbytes and superficial elements of other medicine systems in response to issues like depression are actually a product of this same narrative of inquiry. It takes a lot of effort, strength and persistence to nurture and offer a medicine worldview that isn't biomedicine in this society. Far easier is the path of least resistance, where you know you don't resonate with the dominant model, but make little or no effort to learn and then practice a different one.

Finally, I'm guessing that to some degree or another, the hostility towards folks like the yoga teacher who wrote the original blog isn't really about medicine at all. But about expressed entitlement. Namely, that because person X was at some point anointed a teacher via teaching certificate or some other flimsy method of approval, that they feel "empowered" to "help others" with any problem or issue that arises. That said "yoga teacher" thinks they understand enough to do so, solely or mostly because they've finished some basic course of study, or read a book or whatever. To me, this sense of specialness - that being a yoga teacher means that you have some great level of wisdom and knowledge to "share" - is really the crux of many of the so called controversies in "yoga culture" today.

The spring breeze is our every breath

The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.

Zen Master Ikkyu, 1394-1481

Many years, we here in Minnesota are still being swallowed up by winter clouds. This year, not so much. All around, the trees are budding. The lingering snow and ice is melting. And the air is filling with the songs of returning birds.

The same might be said of how people experience awakening, enlightenment. Most of the time, it seems to be some thing distant, buried under the snow of our sufferings and attachments. However, it need not be that way. Even in the worst winter storm, there is a spring breeze waiting to be discovered.

Ikkyu stands exactly where he is in this poem. There's not much desire for something to be radically different, just description and acceptance of what is. And also weariness. A weariness that isn't what it seems to be.

The spring breeze that isn't in the relative moment is fully alive in Ikkyu's heart/mind. In the poem, it breathes a love into everything that is, just as it is. And in doing so, he moves beyond being owned by that relative reality.

That weariness isn't of a man who's been beaten down by the world. As I see it, it's of a man who has grown tired of riding the emotional tides of life's endless changes.

Whatever comes, he's ready to embrace it.

I must remember that the budding trees will someday be rotting logs. I also must remember that the rotting logs contain budding trees.

The spring breeze is our every breath.