How About Feeding Your Demons?

Have you fed your demons recently?

A demon in this usage is anything that stands in the way of your liberation from needless suffering. It could be greed, anger, self-pity, or anything else that has you stuck. A prominent Western Buddhist teacher, Lama Tsultrim Allione, created the book and program Feeding Your Demons. It modernizes ancient Chöd practices for today's world. In simple terms, one brings one's demons close and treats them with tenderness.

Like mindfulness—another Buddhist idea—therapists and counselors in the West are now using Feeding Your Demons. There were no Ph.D.s conducting randomized controlled trials in the 12th century, when the nun Machig Labdron spread Chöd in Tibet. But a recent study of patients with anxiety and depression found these results after one month of FYD treatment.

• Significant decreases in:

  • ↓ depression symptoms, 34%

  • ↓ stress symptoms, 14%

  • ↓ intolerance for uncertainty, 10%

  • ↓ suppression of emotion expression, 15%

  • ↓ pre-to-post each meditation session, 53%

• Significant increases in:

  • ↑ satisfaction with life, 28%

  • ↑ self-compassion, 29%

  • ↑ self-regulation to increase calm, 15%

Emaho!

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Mel’s book, The New Middle Way: A Buddhist Path Between Secular and Ossified - Enlightenment for Regular Folks, is available from Amazon and Audible.

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