From Śavāsana to the Slaughterhouse: Yoga, Animals, Food, and Ethical Tensions in Contemporary Contemplative Practice

With escalating ecological crises and their profound impacts on human and non-human lives, there is growing dialogue about whether our complex relationship with the more-than-human world must be addressed through the ways that we view, treat, and perhaps eat non-human animals. Putting Critical Animal Studies and Food Studies into dialogue with Contemplative Studies and Yoga Studies allows yoga and contemplative practices to move laterally across disciplines to develop inquiry into the mental states and afflictions that prevent humanity from being at peace with each other, other forms of life, and ecosystems. This paper ethnographically examines how contemporary yoga spaces engage with animal and environmental ethics using ethnographic methods. As an engaged public scholar, I explore how yoga communities enact ahiṃsā, ecological responsibility, and care for more-than-human life, and how contemplative concepts and practices can inspire deeper awareness of how we treat animals and ecosystems through awakening compassion for all beings.