Feeding Your Demons, with Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton
Channel: The Alembic
Date: 05/04/2023

Inspired by the ancient practice of Chöd, Feeding Your Demons (FYD) is a five-step process created by Lama Tsultrim Allione that allows one to offer nurturing and understanding to one’s own inner demons, our disowned shadow parts, rather than engaging them in battle and struggle. We all have our demons. Paradoxically offering compassion to the parts of ourselves we wish would go away, develops the potential for transformation from demon to ally. This allows the psyche to move from polarization to integration, and the energy that has been trapped in the demon becomes accessible as the ally. FYD is of great benefit when working with a wide variety of both personal and collective issues, including depression, anxiety, addictions, physical issues, fear, anger, relationship challenges, and other dilemmas of modern life.

Class will include a brief introduction to the five steps of FYD, a guided experience (about 40 min), and time to journal and discuss afterwards. Feel free to bring your own journal and writing implements if you like. FYD journal forms will be provided.

Dorje Lopön Chandra Easton is a teacher, writer, and translator of Tibetan Buddhism. She has taught Buddhism and Yoga around the world since 2001 and co-translated Sublime Dharma: A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection, published in 2012.

In 2015, she was given the title of senior lead teacher, Dorje Lopön (Varjāchārya), by Lama Tsultrim Allione and Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche. She is on the Tara Mandala Board of Directors, Executive Council, and the Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Council, which addresses the under-representation of people from different cultural, racial, sexual orientation, and social backgrounds in the Dharma and at Tara Mandala.

She is currently writing a book on the twenty-one Taras in Buddhist Tantra. She is collaborating with musicians, Nina Rao and Genevieve Walker, on their joint project, the 21 Taras Collective, which aims to bring the 21 Taras alive through mantra, music, and meditation. She lives in Berkeley, CA.