MY PHILOSOPHY
AWAKENING DRAGON
AWAKENING DRAGON
Here you will find a loving supportive presence in your life that you can rely on to tell you the truth, your truth. You will find a mentor, a guide who can help you navigate through turbulent times. Someone who can help shine a light into the dark places of your life that you have been a little scared to look directly at until now perhaps. If there are areas that you would like to shift, to make progress in, to transform, we might be a good fit to work together for a while and help you move forward.
Awakening Dragon
The human journey takes place across three planes - the outer world, the inner world, and the secret world.
The outer world is the world of material stuff out there - the jobs, the cars, the houses, the travel, the physical struggles, talking with wives, partners, employees and so on.
The inner world is the world of our emotions and our ways of being, our roles - father, wife, husband, boss, honest, mean, spiteful, manipulative, leader, kind, and many more.
The secret world is not secret because we need to hide it, it is secret because deep knowledge of it is hidden to most, except those of us that choose into the deep inward journey to uncover it. It is the deepest level of drive for us to discover, and the journey involves shifting from a fear-based drive to a love-based drive.
The thing to realize is:
IT IS ALL YOUR MIND
This work is not about the outer world, although the outer world is massively impacted by this work, since everything flows from inward to outward. The outer world is a manifestation of our inner world, and our inner world is a manifestation of our secret world.
You might have mastered much of your outer world, or you may be feeling entirely stuck and unable to cope with the outer world. Either way, if you feel the stuckness, restlessness, emptiness, and struggle, then you are being called to do the inner and secret work. This work is about developing mastery of your inner world, and ultimately engaging with the deepest journey, towards mastery of the secret world. And from there, your outer world will inevitably shift into flow and joy.
Five Stages
A human journey will be in five stages. At each we must do the work to move to the next. We will perhaps come around to each of these stages again and again. And we will be at different stages in different areas of our lives. This is not a sign of falling back - it is because we are moving forward in a spiral, not going around a circle. We must have the humility to recognize where we are, the courage to step into the work, and the relentlessness to keep coming back to it.
Stage 1: drowning. We are not ok on the inside, and not ok on the outside. Perhaps our marriage is failing because we can’t seem to communicate with our wife. We are in the struggle.
Stage 2: treading water. We are not ok on the inside, but things look ok on the outside. We are powering through. We keep going, maybe we’re doing fine at work but inside we are depressed, anxious, scared, we know something is wrong.
Stage 3: swimming. We are ok on the inside and ok on the outside. But we feel constrained, or stuck, or groundless. We don’t know what we’re supposed to be doing next. We’ve woken up somewhere we don’t recognize. We start to look up and search for what it is we are supposed to be.
Stage 4: flying. We break the surface and take to the sky. Now we know who we are and what we are doing, and we are fully engaged in the work. We soar toward the stars, energized by clarity, purpose, and vision.
Stage 5: radiating. We embody our pure being, bright and free. We no longer move for ourselves alone — we return to help others on their journey. From this seat of truly being fully ourselves, we can go anywhere, bringing wisdom, compassion, and strength wherever it is needed.
Shifting our secret world, from being fear based to love based changes absolutely everything about our experience - our emotions, our thoughts, and our experiences in the physical world.
This work is deeply powerful, and the great wisdom traditions contain an enormous body of work telling us how to do it. We “simply” have to relentlessly choose into walking the wisdom path. In the Awakening Dragon work we will dive into the practices and translations of this ancient wisdom.
Four Paths
Tiger
The fundamental quality developed by the path of Tiger is - Contentment and Ease. Tiger walks through the jungle completely aware of his own power, his own right to be exactly how he is. He steps with confidence - nothing to hide, nothing to prove. There is no wondering how he is seen as, should he do this or that, just complete presence here in the physical world, stepping through the Earth. There is no need for aggression, Tiger embodies power without the need to use it. He sleeps well, he eats well, he takes care of himself well. Walks one paw in front of the other without struggle. Is physically powerful, fit, and moves with ease and agility through the world.
Snow Lion
The fundamental quality developed in the path of Snow Lion is - Joy. Snow Lion is a joyful mythical beast that has a big shaggy mane, and he leaps from snowy mountain top to mountain top. Still on the earth, but he can leap far into the air, and land softly back where he needs to be. And this Joy is developed is through Discipline. But not the generally understood meaning we have of that word. Usually Discipline means “Do this…. or else…”. And the “or else” is “or else you are a loser. You are weak. You are lazy.” If you do not get up and do all the things, I will leave you for somebody stronger. You are not a real man if you don’t do all these things. The subtext is linked to loss, to rejection, to failure. And so of course we struggle with this version of discipline. The Discipline of Snow Lion is joyful. It is the sun and rain that we invite into our lives to help us grow stronger and thrive. Like wheat growing upward it needs - it deserves - structure and support and sun and food. And so too us humans need structure and support and exercise and purpose. Discipline is the quality that we choose into to help us, to support us. Choosing into Discipline helps us grow tall and strong, helps us thrive, and the natural outcome of this is Joy - pure, easy, deep joy.
Garuda
The Garuda is half-man half-bird. He is the King of the birds. He is born in the sky and never touches the Earth. He flies farther and farther. His quality is Fearlessness. Not the absence of Fear, but the quality to fly straight into Fear and touch the space beyond Fear, the open space of loving-kindness, of the divine birthright that is all of ours. To fly through all that we fear, this is where we begin to touch and alter our secret world. The underlying fabric of reality. We journey into this space, we transcend the aggression that we have relied on - the aggression towards others and towards ourselves - and engage instead with the path of fearlessness, the path of Gentleness, which is greater than fear. This is where Buddhas are born.
Dragon
Our Dragon is Wisdom. Wisdom in direct action. Dragon is mastery, is magical. Watching a Dragon at work we cannot understand how it can do what it can do, it just does it. This is wisdom in action, this is mastery. It can whip its tail and thunder and rain wash away structures that hold people back. It can appear and disappear at will. It returns from the far reaches to the Earth - it can be underground in one moment, and flying through the sky in the next. Dragon’s purpose is secret, in the sense that it is hard to explain, beyond the words that so many wisdom traditions speak - to manifest love and kindness through strength and mastery. Now we are in our secret world and our true purpose is what Dragon manifests.
Walking the Paths
Each of the Four Paths is a complete training in itself — and together, they form the full arc of mastery, and a map to navigate our journey as a man through the inner and secret worlds. They are both sequential and simultaneous: Tiger grounds Dragon, Snow Lion fuels joy, Garuda breaks open vision, and Dragon revels in being wisdom in action.
Without Tiger, Dragon cannot fly — its body has no ground to rise from. Without Snow Lion, we grind in struggle instead of thriving in joy. Without Garuda, we remain contained and smaller than our true destiny. And without Dragon, we never taste our full wisdom, magic, and purpose.
The Four Dignities are present (or absent) in every area of life:
Health & Body – Do you carry Tiger’s ease in your strength, or are you still at war with yourself?
Career & Purpose – Are you fueled by Snow Lion’s joyful discipline, or only by fear of failure?
Adventure & Exploration – Do you step into Garuda’s vastness, or stay safely contained?
Community & Brotherhood – Do you bring Tiger’s confidence and Snow Lion’s joy to your tribe?
Intimacy & Love – Can you meet your partner with Dragon’s wisdom and Garuda’s fearless heart?
Spiritual Path – Do you face the darkness of the secret world with Garuda’s courage, or avoid what you most fear?
Creativity & Expression – Do you let Dragon’s magic pour through you, or keep yourself hidden, without Garuda’s courage?
These Four Dignities are the streetlights of the inner world. They show you where you are already walking the path — and where you are being called to step further in.
The Calling
Every human will feel themself strongest in some paths, and weakest in others. Perhaps you will know yourself as Dragon at work and a long way from being Tiger in your relationship. That is not failure — that is the calling. The invitation to relentlessly walk the wisdom path, to summon your Tiger, leap with your Snow Lion, fly with your Garuda, and finally awaken your Dragon.
These Four Dignities live in us together. They are not just an idea without practical use, they are our spirit calling us to walk the path of man.
To walk the inner world is to enter the magic realms, and to see with new eyes how your outer world is a reflection of your inner and secret worlds. Mastery means allowing the outer to be reshaped by your inner work, rather than being ruled by what you see outside.
This is the wisdom path of a human awakening in the world as Dragon.
The Practices
The journey involves transformation along a set of axes. Key practices in how to transform cut across all four paths. Walking the path involves learning these, trying them, practicing them, and eventually developing mastery in them as our inner and secret worlds change.
Tiger Path
Moving from Drowning towards Treading Water
In Tiger Path we engage with all of our daily habits. Brush and floss our teeth, exercise and build our body strong, eat well with food that nourishes us, listen to our body and what it wants and needs. Stop fighting ourself and instead take care of ourself. Our right to exist in the world completely and utterly as we are.
We shift from information-seeking, to the path of direct experience and practice. We shift our allegiance to ourselves instead wherever it has been - perhaps our boss, our culture, the news stories, so many outside distractions that we choose to pay attention to.
The sharp strong path of Tiger is to radically shift our allegiance to ourselves. We learn that the greatest gift we can give the world is the gift of our own well-being. We put all our focus on being OK, being good, being completely content in our world, at home with ourselves.
Key Transformational Axis:
From Information-Seeking to Practice. The journey is to shift our allegiance from knowledge and information-seeking to our direct experience and practice. From seeking external input to internal discovery, and to choosing into what we find.
Key Practices:
All our daily habits - exercise, health, direct communication, etc.
Self-Trust Cultivation
Shamatha meditation
Friendliness
Snow Lion Path
Moving from Treading Water to Swimming
Snow Lion is the playful discipline of joy. He bounds from peak to peak, mane flowing, laughing as he leaps. His joy is not naïve — it is the natural fruit of discipline. But not the discipline of punishment, shame, or “do this or you’re weak.” Snow Lion’s discipline is nourishment — the structure that allows wheat to grow tall, or a man to thrive.
Here we move from the heavy chains of shame to the deep recognition of our own Basic Goodness. We stop believing the inner critic and learn to taste joy at a cellular level. Discipline becomes our ally, not our jailer.
Key Transformational Axis:
From Shame to Joy From ignorance of our own Basic Goodness, to complete knowing at a cellular level that all beings - very much including us - are fundamentally Good.
Key Practices:
What Do You Want
Reality Creation Loop
Metta meditation
Discipline
Garuda Path
Moving from Swimming to Flying
The Garuda is Fearless - relentless and endless. Going beyond our limits by turning torwards them and transcending them. Garuda is born in the sky, never touching the earth. He is relentless, vast, and fearless. Garuda’s way is to fly directly into fear — to meet it and pass through it until it dissolves into space. Where Tiger grounds and Snow Lion leaps, Garuda soars beyond all boundaries.
On this path, we confront the monsters we’ve been avoiding. We turn to the shadows, the stories we’ve been running from, and the fears that hold us back. Garuda’s fearlessness is not the absence of fear — it is the refusal to let fear dictate our life. It is engagement over escape, truth over avoidance, power over victimhood.
Key Transformational Axis:
From Escaping to Engagement. Shifting from victim/bully dynamic to power. From past-present orientation to future-present orientation. From unconscious creation to conscious creation. From being time-bound to attention-directing.
Key Practices:
Three layer model - Into the Land of Monsters
Shadow work
Fearlessness Practice
Radical accountability
Dragon Path
Moving from Flying to Radiating our true nature
Dragon does not follow. Dragon charts his own course. He is unpredictable, creative, magical — and utterly free. Dragon is not driven by competition or lack. He creates because he is aligned with abundance, with wisdom, with love.
Where Tiger grounds, Snow Lion uplifts, and Garuda soars, Dragon integrates. He embodies all of them at once — strength without aggression, discipline without shame, fearlessness without recklessness. Dragon’s wisdom is seamless action: he does not need to “try” to be wise, his very being is wisdom in motion.
This is the path of mastery, where we embody wisdom in action. Dragon’s thunder clears away obstacles, his flight defies boundaries. Dragon energy is generative, not reactive. He builds, shapes, and manifests with effortless creativity.
Key Transformational Axis:
From Competition to Creativity. Shifting from grasping to renunciation. From lack to desire. From need to want.
Key Practices:
Abundance practice of active appreciation
Creative expression
Leadership through love, not fear
Other transformations that emerge on this path:
From Witnessing to Engagement
From Time-Bound to Timeless Presence
From Separation to Interbeing
At the heart of Dragon, in the secret world, is the most fundamental shift - from the path of Aggression to the Path of Gentleness. Not the weakness that we tend to think is gentleness. But the powerful, directed force of love, that is the background energy of everything. To align with this is to awaken as Dragon.