- Big Picture
- Path of Tiger
Before we fly, or teleport, we learn to walk. Tiger is the first way through the inner world — for the days when everything is too much and one paw down is all there is. Let's learn to walk.
- When You're Overwhelmed - Part 1: Walking The Path of Tiger
Here's the lived account behind Tiger — flattened in bed, waiting for the next episode to auto-play. Come all the way into it, and feel how one paw down, and then a swim in a lake, shifts everything for a while.
- Tiger: Energy of Contentedness
Touch down into the power and resilience flowing through you, however faint it feels today. This practice has carried me through so many difficult times — let it carry you one step.
- Path of Snow Lion
Once the steps come a little easier and you start to notice the sunlight and the birds, the question changes — from how do I survive to how do I bring joy back. That's Snow Lion. Let's leap.
- When You're Overwhelmed - Part 2: Dancing the Path of Snow Lion
Once Tiger has you on your feet, Snow Lion asks you to dance. Here's the fuller telling — discipline invited like sun and rain, and five steps through the fog of overwhelm to joy.
- Snow Lion: Joy and Cheerfulness
Discipline invited like sun and rain on a field — come feel it in your body. Below whatever stories are running, there's an innate cheerfulness, a delight to be alive. Let's find your Snow Lion.
- Path of Garuda
You've already felt something like it in the ocean: turn toward the big wave and dive right into it — and you may begin to feel a little fearless. Garuda flies straight at what you've been avoiding — not to destroy it, to meet it. Let's fly.
- The Garuda: Fearlessness
Garuda has no chains and no cage. Come practice the flight — not pretending there's no fear, but choosing to go beyond it, beyond all your reasons to stay smaller, farther into space.
- Coming Out and Coming Alive: From Terror to Joy on Grafton Street
Coming out is one of Garuda's outrageous acts. Here it is in my own life: years under 'WHAT IF THEY FIND OUT', a terrified tram ride to the Castro, and then, within three weeks, telling everyone. Come skip down Grafton Street with me, arms full of flowers.
- Tonight I am man
Coming out on Grafton Street loosened the noose of 'WHAT IF THEY FIND OUT.' More than twenty years on, that same fear roared up in a steam room, as strong as ever — and this time I could thank it and let it pass through me. Come see what it's like when shame no longer has a home in you.
- Path of Dragon
That night I knew myself a full-grown dragon — fear flowing through me, not living in me. Let's take it up a notch and see what Dragon is: the warrior who doesn't fight darkness, but radiates light, and the darkness recedes.
- Dragon
Dragon isn't something you figure out — it's the wisdom you are. Come feel it writhing in your body and moving with the seasons — summer lightning, winter sleep, spring rebirth — with nothing to hide and nothing to prove.
- Five Stages of Awakening
Dragon isn't a final destination — the path continues endlessly. Step back and see the whole map: drowning, treading water, swimming, flying, radiating, with Tiger, Snow Lion, Garuda and Dragon meeting you along the way. You can be flying in one part of your life and drowning in another — find where you are, and the practice that meets you there.
Big Picture
To shift what our thoughts and beliefs are made of, from fear to loving-kindness, we journey through the inner world along specific trails and by different modes of travel. Outer struggles that look different, like loneliness or weight, share one inner root, not knowing we are basically good, and this work is how to consciously create new identities closer to the truth.
- We need to dive into our minds, the architecture of them, in order to journey through the layers, in order to shift what thoughts and beliefs are made of - from fear to loving-kindness.
- How we travel along this journey involves
- The specific areas of the path we’re traveling now
- How we travel: walk, run, fly, teleportation (magic!)
- These pathways that you take (or don’t..) in the inner world of your mind will affect everything. For example - perhaps you are struggling with not having love in your life, or else you are struggling with your weight. Looks different out there (no partner or you’re not lean and fit). But, in the inner world they are the same. Not knowing that you are basically good underlies both of these.
- This is why it is so important to do this work - it will help you massively in your inner experience (experiencing more joy, love etc.) as well as your outer experience (healthy relationships, friends, money, career etc.)
- As you dissolve identities made from fear (difficult circumstances force us into the attempt at this) - what are you going to do now. Are you going to more deeply hide who you fear you are, or are you going to actively create new identities that are closer to the real truth rather than being closer to your fear monsters. Structured, conscious identity / personality creation. This work is how to do this.
The various ways that we can learn to travel through our inner world are the four dignities (these will be covered another day).
- Tiger: Learning to walk
- Snow Lion: Learning to run & jump
- Garuda: Learning to fly
- Dragon: Learning to teleport
In the following pages I cover four of the primary trails that most all of us must learn to find and to have the courage to walk and eventually run and fly along.
To learn more, follow these links to related content:
Deeper
Trail 1: From knowledge to experienceHere's the first trail almost everyone has to find: from information-seeking to actually practicing. Ready to see what it looks like, what blocks it, and what opens when you walk it?
Trail 2: From Shame to JoyDifferent struggles out there — no love in your life, struggling with your weight — share one root in here: not knowing you are basically good. Let's go into the trail that walks you from shame all the way to joy.
Trail 3: From competition to consciousness (self-awareness)From grasping to generosity, from 'I'll show them' to intimacy. Here's the trail out of competition — and the vulnerability that opens it.
Trail 4: From Escaping Reality to Creating RealityStop escaping what is, and start creating what you want. This trail is where you take your power back — let's walk it.
Four PathsWalking, running, flying, teleporting — these are the four ways you can travel the inner world. Let's meet them: Tiger, Snow Lion, Garuda, Dragon.