Sublime

Her spiritual practice was called Chöd (pronounced “chuh”), which means “to cut through.” She developed this form of meditation, unusual even in her time in Tibet, and it generated such amazing results that it became very popular, spreading to all the schools of Tibetan Buddhism and beyond.

The method that I call feeding your demons — based on the principles of Chöd — is a simple five-step practice that doesn’t require any knowledge of Buddhism or of any Tibetan spiritual practices. In the first step we find where in the body we hold our “demon” most strongly. This demon might be addiction, self-hatred, perfectionism, anger, jealousy,

“small mind.” It can also be described as sem. In Tibetan there are several words for mind, but two that are particularly helpful to know are sem and rikpa. Sem is what we experience as discursive thoughts, a stream of chatter that’s always reinforcing an image of ourselves. Rikpa literally means “intelligence” or “brightness.” Behind all the plann