What keeps you from feeling and behaving like the bodhisattva (open-hearted one) that you want to be? Many of us have buried or hidden parts of our selves that need to be seen or acknowledged before we can fully open ourselves to others. In Dancing Through the Dark Door, Lama Alta Brown and David Soucy guide participants through a process of making friends with the demons within us. Break free from the wounds that limit you and embrace your compassion. Watch this short video to learn more about this creative healing process being offered at Drala Mountain Center March 31 – April 2, 2023.   Featured Photo by Ahmad Odeh on Unsplash

by Lama Alta Brown About 15 years ago, a therapist friend of mine introduced me to a therapy that uses sand images to capture the feel of a particularly upsetting state of mind. You could say that it captures the quality of client’s “demon.” It occurred to me, after we created a retreat that employed this device, that if the sand therapy was as powerful as we had experienced it to be, it might even be more powerful to experience the “demon” more directly. The sand images are, after all, an external expression of disturbing states of mind. What if clients could use a mask of their own face to become their demon? In this way, they could become more directly acquainted with whatever unconscious state was frightening or injuring them. The retreat that developed from this insight became Dancing Through the Dark Door. By this time, I had begun the practice of  the Surmang version of Chöd taught by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso. There is clearly a direct connection between Chöd and the logic of …