Let your demons eat you

The path to real change

“Devils out! Fortunes in!”

On Sunday it was Setsubun in Japan. The final day of winter in the old calendar where demons are driven out of homes and temples by people throwing roasted soy beans at them.

Daishi Practicing the Tantra, with Demon and Wolf, by Hokusai

I don’t know if it was ever real demons. These days it’s people wearing Oni masks who are chased away.

On Sunday, when I realised it was Setsubun, I couldn’t help but think of one of the stories of Milarepa, the famous Tibetan Buddhist yogi.

Milarepa lived sometime around the 10^th, 11^th or 12^th century. Famously, he learnt sorcery and used it to kill many people before he converted to Buddhism. The story I am thinking of is not the murderous one (although I think stories with murder get a lot of page-views), but one about demons.

Once, on a long meditation retreat in mountains, Milarepa returned to his cave to discover it was full of demons.

He didn’t have any roasted soy beans, but he did shout at them and tell them to go away. It didn’t work.

Anyone who has ever shouted at their own internal demons and told them to go away knows it comes with limited success. That kind of attitude can squash a compulsive behaviour or destructive thought in the moment, but they tend to come back later, and usually even stronger than before.

As an IFS therapist, I think of this as one part of you talking to another part of you. Here’s the demon, and here’s the one critical of the demon. Sometimes one will win, sometimes the other, but there’s no real resolution.

“What now?” Milarepa wondered.

“Ah” he thought, “I know what these demons need. I’ll teach them some Buddhism.”

So he did.

That didn’t work either.

Had the demons asked for a teaching? No. Did they want to learn something? Not right then. Did they trust Milarepa? I don’t think so.

He was teaching them because he needed them to change.

Some people – like these demons – are especially good at spotting when we are sneakily trying to change them. What usually happens in those situations? The other person digs their heels in.

I can think of times when I’ve been the one trying to change someone, and times when I’m the one someone else has been trying to change. Ask Satya for more details ;)

The same thing happens with our internal demons as well. When we are desperate for them to change, they pick up on that desperation and become especially stubborn.

In the language of IFS (Internal Family Systems) this is still one part of us speaking to another. It can sometimes feel like we are coming from a good place, but it is not the ­best place.

IFS teaches us that our demons are most likely to change when we can approach them without needing anything from them. When we are able to meet ourselves with genuine curiosity and compassion, the demons begin to relax and share what’s been driving their behaviour. They let us know what they are afraid of and then we can help with that fear.

When we are in that place of no agenda, compassion and interest, we are in what IFS calls ‘self-energy’. It’s not a part at all. It’s what’s left when all the parts step back. In Buddhism we call it Buddha-nature.

When teaching the demons didn’t work, something shifted in Milarepa. He became curious about them. And as he settled down to listen to each of them, they disappeared.

One demon remained.

The biggest one.

Milarepa asked it to open its mouth, and then he leant forward and put his head right into the demons mouth, between the sharp teeth.

In that moment - when Milarpa demonstrated his trust - the final demon disappeared.

This past year has been a stressful one for me. Satya and I were stuck in a tortuous house-buying process. There was delay after delay. We were promised time after time that we were just one week away from completion. A week ago the whole chain collapsed and we are back at square one.

The stress produced lots of different reactions in me. Some more demonic than others.

Sometimes I pretended that I wasn’t affected. Sometimes I told myself that I shouldn’t be affected. That I shouldn’t be reacting. Sometimes I tried to soothe my reactions with too much food, or lots of sleep.

None of these things really worked (the sleep helped).

What really worked was giving myself the kind of attention that Milarepa gave those demons. The same kind of attention that I give to my therapy clients, and that I help them give to themselves.

To see myself, without needing myself to change. To feel genuine compassion for the parts of me that were reacting.

That’s when the stress started to leave me. In the light of that self-acceptance.

The original ending to this piece was something like: if you don’t have any soy-beans to hand, try listening to your demons, you never know what might happen.

And that’s true. But it sounded a little glib.

We don’t know how long Milarepa sat in that cave before he was able to find self-compassion. In the story it seems to take minutes. In real life it can take a lot longer.

The principle is the same, but there can be layers and layers of self-protection that we have to work though.

We approach each layer with kindness and it begins to relax. Then it’s on to the next layer.

Sometimes recovery is hard. But I trust that it’s when we head in the direction of self-acceptance that real change is possible.

Kaspa Thompson is a Buddhist minister and an IFS therapist and supervisor. If you are interested therapy sessions check out their website, or drop them a line.

With Satya Robyn they co wrote the book Just As You Are: Buddhism for Foolish Beings.