Bjarne Timonen

A typical western thing is fighting against our selves, against our fears. If we only look at all the heroic stories in our myths and fairy tales, it’s always about killing the enemy, conquering evil, slaying the dragon. The difference with Eastern philosophy is beautifully portrayed in the story of Milarepa, one of the greatest early teachers in Tibetan Buddhism. He lived in a cave and meditated for years continuously. One night he returned to his cave after gathering some firewood when he was that the cave was filled with demons. they were sleeping in his bed, cooking his food and reading his books. Although he knew from his Buddhist practice that these demons were just a projection of his own mind and represented all the unwanted parts of himself, he did not know how to get rid of them. So at first, he started teaching them dharma, the Buddhist teachings. He taught about compassion, emptiness and how poison can be medicine. This, however, didn’t do anything; the demons didn’t go away. He then lost his patience, got very angry and ran at them. But they just laughed at him. Finally, out of desperation he gave up, sat down on the floor and said; I am not going away, and seemingly you are not either, so let’s just live here together. After he said that, all of them left, except one. Milarepa recognized him as being the most vicious (representing his biggest fear). He didn’t know what to do, so he surrendered himself even further. He walked towards the demon and put his head into it’s mouth and said, “Just eat me, if you want to”. At that point, also this demon left. (source: -“Start Where You Are” by Pema Chodron Shambala Publications). Of course this is a pretty spartan way of dealing with your demons, but this story does teach us that as long as we keep fighting against our demons, our achilles heel, we will never lose it. We have to get to know our fears, our dark sides, our most unwanted sides. This does not mean we have to act upon them or get carried away in them, not at all, we become aware of them, in a gentle way. We get to know their textures, their smell, their composition. Not only does this lead us to become more aware of when and how they affect our lives, also we gain more insight in how we ever created them. By accepting all the aspects of ourselves, both good and bad, we can become fully human. And that is, as also Pema Chodron points out, the seed of compassion and the basis of happiness.