Carl Jung’s “Active Imagination” and Buddhist Chod Practice

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung

Recently I’ve been reading the works of Carl Jung. I’ve read other books of his in the past, and it had a profound impact on how I think of the self. But over recent years my views of the self have changed in large part to Buddhism but also in psychedelic use. In short, the conscious mind has just a tiny bit to tell us about ourselves. So much is going on deeper in the unconscious.

Jung believed deeply in the importance of the unconscious mind. He thought that much was happening in our dream life, communicating intuitions that we could only vaguely be aware of in our everyday consciousness. I think he’s right. But it is hard to know how right he. I don’t really remember my dreams for one. And the ones I do remember are indecipherable to me (perhaps I need to see a Jungian analyst in therapy).

But as I’ve read Jung more and more, I’ve discovered that dreams are not the only ways to approach the unconscious. My first introduction to making the unconscious conscious was through meditation practice, particularly a Tibetan Buddhist practice called…