PRINCIPLE OF INHERENT GOODNESS
By: Kali Basman
Clinical psychology is based fundamentally on a medical model of disease: People come with an ailment or handicap and we seek to cure it.
But from a Yoga perspective, on the path of awakening, we bring a different view: The Principle of inherent, essential goodness.
This is a reminder that we are essentially perfect. Sometimes we just need to be reminded. When we recall our innate ‘buddha-nature’, there is a quality of respect and attention that we bring to each moment. There is a heightened capacity to shift away from our identity as a small sense of self, a separate self, the body of fear, the body of clinging. In fact, the more separate we feel, the more we have to defend ourselves. It becomes rather easy within this identification to also identify with traumas, our upsets, we are quite loyal to our suffering! Yes, we carry it in our bodies- we have trauma, but we can shift to step beyond that in knowing that’s not who we really are.
This is the mysterious and beautiful capacity of mindfulness- deliberate attention- it allows for a shift of identity from small damaged frightened sense to space of awareness itself, which can know experience but isn’t reactive or lost in it.
All photos captured in Sedona after the Advanced Yin Yoga Teacher Training in September 2019 by Kate Michelle Photography (ig: @katemichelleyosemite)
View upcoming Yin & Mindfulness Trainings with Kali Basman here.
International yoga teacher Kali Basman enriches the paradigm of Yin Yoga to integrate distinct aspects of Self into an innate wisdom practice to awaken a rich inner life and radiate with ritual. Her offering honors Yin Yoga as a tool to surrender to our intrinsic wholeness.
On the textured path of mindful healing, Kali is celebrated for her integration of the 5 Elements and Chinese Meridian Theory with self-inquiry, embodied Anatomy, Buddhist Philosophy of Equanimity, and sharp intellect.