“Demons are not bloodthirsty ghouls waiting for us in dark places; they are within us...” ~ Tsultrim Allione

Roshi Jishu Holmes introduced me to demon work. It’s been an important part of my practice, but I didn’t see the connection with the hungry ghosts that Roshi Bernie Glassman was always talking about. Bernie was using a Buddhist image, beings with needle-narrow necks, starving because they could not swallow the food they craved. Bernie looked outward, vowing to feed all the hungry ghosts. His vow manifested in the Greyston mandala which brought jobs and housing, childcare and health care to some of the most disadvantaged people of Yonkers. His example fueled my peacemaking work with people living with mental illnesses and eventually building a network of charter schools which integrated students living with emotional challenges – those typically isolated from their “normal” peers – in college prep programs.

Although Jishu was deeply engaged in the Greyston work, her work with her demons was central. When she talked about demons, she looked inward. She pointed me toward a Zen way of “going deeper.” Bernie and Jishu, looking outward and looking inward, were pointing me to two aspects of the same thing, two sides of my life. When Bernie talked about “healing ourselves and others,” he was naming the two sides of the same practice, of the one life.

I am reminded of his words whenever someone, responding to the call of peacemaking, overwhelmed by the immensity of the suffering in the world, asks where to begin. “Begin with your own demons,” I suggest. “Work with the outward manifestations of your own pain and you will heal yourself and others.”

I’m thinking I should stop calling them “demons.” I want to stop demonizing the unwanted aspects of myself and others. And when I talk about my demons, encourage others to work with their demons, some people are offended by the word. Maybe I’ll call them “ghosts,” the energy of past events or experiences which linger, the “jagged karma,” the traces of suffering I’ve inherited from my parents and ancestors. But when I picture what scares me, I still see my demons.