Tsultrim Allione - Feeding Your Demons: Ancient Wisdom for Resolving Inner Conflict

Copyright 2008 by Tsultrim Allione

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First eBook Edition: October 2008

This book is intended to supplement, not replace, the advice of a trained mental or physical health professional. If you know or suspect that you have a mental health problem, you should consult a health professional. If you have a physical health problem, we also recommend that you continue your treatment and follow the advice of your doctor. The author and publisher specifically disclaim any liability, loss, or risk, personal or otherwise, which is incurred as a consequence, directly or indirectly, of the use and application of any of the contents of this book.

Jrme Edou, Machigs Last Instructions from Machig Labdrn and the Foundations of Chd. Copyright 1995. Reprinted with the permission of Snow Lion Publications, www.snowlionpub.com.

ISBN: 978-0-316-05395-2

Contents

ALSO BY TSULTRIM ALLIONE

Women of Wisdom

For my precious mother, Ruth, who has been a radiant example of compassion and unconditional love throughout my life, and for the Great Mother, Prajnaparamita, the skylike mind, our true nature

THERE ARE statues of fierce demons standing guard at the gates of most Buddhist temples. To enter the sacred space of the temple you must pass directly between them. This is because all humans, each of us, must come to terms with the demons of fear, aggression, temptation, ignorance, and their cohorts if we are to live a free and sacred life. They cannot be neglected.

In Feeding Your Demons Tsultrim Allione has performed a remarkable feat of cultural translation and offered the Western world a new treasure. She has taken a great and relatively unknown ancient lineage of practice and rendered it into accessible modern form without compromising its essence or losing its power. In this she brings to bear the depth of her forty years of Buddhist training, her skills as an accomplished lama and a visionary, her sophisticated understanding of the Western psyche, and her fearless consciousness, steeped in the two worlds of classical Tibet and modern life.

The need for transformation of our demons is universal. We all suffer at times from our personal demons, whether those of confusion, anger, self-hatred, trauma, longing, or loss. Collectively the force of these same demons creates enormous suffering on earth, including continuing war, racism, environmental devastation, and widespread yet unnecessary hunger and illness. To alleviate these forms of suffering, we humans will have to face the demons of greed, hatred, and delusion at their root. No amount of political or scientific change will end these sufferings unless we also learn to work with our demons, individually and collectively. Here, in the straightforward teaching offered by Tsultrim Allione, is a powerful method to do so. With exquisite detail and accuracy she shows us how we can transform the energy of addiction, shame, illness, anxiety, fear, and anger into the energy of liberation.

This transformation is at the very heart of Buddhist realization, the discovery that liberation can be found exactly where we are not by avoiding the sufferings of life, but by turning toward them with a great heart of compassion. And by releasing our personal grasping of them, we can learn to transform their energy and find freedom in their midst.

Buddhist history tells us that after many years of teaching, the Buddha invited his most awakened followers to carry the lamp of the teachings of liberation and compassion across the world. He instructed them to translate these teachings into the vernacular of each new land so that they could bring benefit to all.

In Feeding Your Demons Tsultrim Allione has done so, beautifully. May the blessings and liberation offered by these practices of transforming the demons free your own heart, benefit all beings, and lead to the repair and awakening of the world. May it be so.

JACK CORNFIELD

Spirit Rock Meditation Center

FEEDING OUR DEMONS rather than fighting them might seem to contradict the conventional Western approach to what assails us, but it turns out to be a remarkably effective path to inner peace and liberation. Demons are our obsessions and fears, chronic illnesses, or common problems like depression, anxiety, and addiction. They are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark places; they are within us, the forces that we fight inside ourselves. They are inner enemies that undermine our best intentions. The approach of giving form to these inner forces, and feeding rather than struggling against them, was originally articulated by an eleventh-century female Buddhist teacher, Machig Labdrn (10551145). Her exact dates are debatable and vary according to the source, but most scholars agree she was born in 1055 and lived well into her nineties. Her spiritual practice was called Chd (pronounced chuh), which means to cut through. She developed this form of meditation, unusual even in her time in Tibet, and it generated such amazing results that it became very popular, spreading to all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism and beyond.

In todays world we suffer from record levels of inner and outer struggle, and find ourselves ever more polarized politically and spiritually. We need a new paradigm, a fresh approach to conflict. Machigs strategy of nurturing rather than battling our inner and outer enemies offers a revolutionary path to resolve conflict that leads to psychological integration and inner peace.

In 1967, at age nineteen, I had the good fortune to travel to India and Nepal and meet the Tibetans who had settled there as refugees after being forced into exile during Communist Chinas invasion of Tibet. I fell in love with the Tibetans and returned to India in 1969 after spending six months at the first Tibetan monastery in Scotland, founded by Chgyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In 1970 I was ordained as a Buddhist nun in the Tibetan tradition by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa, in Bodhgaya, India, and for the next few years I had the immeasurable blessing of receiving teachings at the feet of many great Buddhist masters trained in Tibet. As I describe in the following pages, after several years I made the decision to return my monastic vows. It was at this time of great transition and uncertainty that I was first introduced to Chd. I subsequently returned to America, became a mother, and sought to integrate Tibetan wisdom into my life as a layperson. I was eventually guided to discover Machig Labdrns biography (written in Tibetan), and her teachings became pivotal for me.

Because I myself was able to find such enormous relevance in Machigs teachings, I was motivated to find a way to make her approach accessible in a Western context. When I began to teach the Chd practice in the West, I developed an exercise of visualizing, dialoguing with, and feeding demons that yielded tangible results. Gradually from this exercise the five-step process described here evolved into a method I call feeding your demons, which began to be used independently of the Tibetan Chd practice by my students. For the past twenty-five years most recently at our Colorado retreat center, Tara Mandala, in Chd and in Kapala Training retreats I have taught this way of feeding your demons to make friends with that which we would most like to avoid.

Those who have used the method report that chronic emotional and physical issues such as anxiety, compulsive eating, panic attacks, and illness were resolved or significantly benefited from this approach. The five-step process has also proved helpful in dealing with short-term upheavals such as the breakup of a relationship, the stress of losing a job, the death of a loved one, and interpersonal problems at work and at home. Sometimes the results have been instantaneous and seemed nothing short of miraculous, while other effects have been more gradual and subtle.