07/01/2026
1. Although Buddhism and Yoga adress the same existential problem (suffering) and share many practices, they are different ontological systems and therefore, the solution to the problem is rendered differently in each tradition. At first glance they may look the same but there are important distinctions
2. More likely the opposite. At the time Patanjali composed the Yoga Sutras, Buddhism had been around for 800 years. The Yoga Sutras seem to borrow extensively from Buddhist Abhidharma teachings, which Patanjali must have been familiar with. This is weell known among scholars but less known in the Yoga community
3. This is what I thought as I started practicing yoga. However, early Buddhism and Yoga are both concerned with meditative practices and don´t pay much attention to the body. Later, from around the 8th century, both Buddhist and Brahmanical schools engaged in physical practices of Hatha Yoga. Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism developed elaborate physical practices of channels and winds. However, those require initiation and were kept secret until the recent time
4. In fact Yogic practices have through time been used within a wide variety of traditions: Brahmanical, Buddhist, Jain and Moslem. As I see it, modern physical yoga develops discipline and awareness of the subtle body, which is a prerequisite for meditation and the deeper transformative practices that Buddhism offers. But Ashtangis tend to get caught up in the sublime kinetic experience of the practice, while many meditators lack an embodied practices. As a spiritual path requires both embodied practices as well as contemplative ones, it would be optimal to practice them both together!
But what is really at stake here- at this moment in time - is to acknowledges our deeply shared humanity, on an embodied and cognitive level. This means to bring compassion and wisdom onto our yogic path, for which Buddhism offers very practical and sublime methods!