Riding the Dragon
Riding the Dragon is an alchemical process.
A way of transforming the very forces that create suffering into the fuel for healing, growth, and transformation.
Many wisdom traditions have diagnosed the same fundamental disease.
The East calls it Avidyā—fundamental ignorance.The mistaken belief that we are separate individuals, isolated in a hostile and threatening world where we must compete, achieve, and struggle in order to survive and succeed. Indigenous traditions describe a similar condition through the concept of Wetiko—a cannibalistic mindset that endlessly consumes life in search of fulfillment.
Different names.
Same pattern.
The belief that what we need lies somewhere outside ourselves. More success. More money. More status. More approval. More certainty. More control.
Unbeknownst to us, this belief conditions us to experience reality, life, the present moment, each other, and even ourselves as either enemies to conquer, obstacles to overcome, or means to an end. We spend our lives trying to figure out the right thing to say, do, or be in order to get what we want and avoid what we don't want.
Isn't that just common sense? Aren't we here to pursue what we want and avoid what we don't?
No. According to the Buddha, that is the root cause of unnecessary suffering.
No matter how much we acquire, the hunger remains.
Because the problem is not that we lack something.
The problem is that we have forgotten something
The Sat Guru
But fear not, brave soul.
The traditions that diagnosed the disease also preserved the cure.
The East calls it the Sat Guru.
The inner teacher.
Your internal guidance system.
Western mystical traditions speak of the Kingdom of Heaven within.
Psychology calls it the witness.
Today we might simply call it being in the flow.
Different names.
Same experience.
The quiet knowing beneath the noise.
The part of you that already knows when you are telling the truth.
The part of you that knows when fear is making the decision.
The part of you that knows the next step.
Before the world told you who to be, you knew this place well.
You followed your curiosity.
Trusted your intuition.
Listened to your imagination.
Moved toward what felt alive.
Then something happened.
You learned to doubt yourself.
You learned to seek approval.
You learned to trust external authorities more than your own experience.
Parents.
Teachers.
Bosses.
Experts.
Politicians.
Influencers.
The culture taught us that fulfillment lives somewhere outside ourselves.
That if we could only figure out the right thing to say, do, or be, we would finally feel safe, worthy, loved, and enough.
Yet for many of us, the promise never arrives.
No achievement is enough.
No amount of success is enough.
No amount of approval is enough.
The hunger remains.
Today this mindset appears not only in our economies and institutions, but also in our self-improvement culture.
We are constantly encouraged to optimize, improve, achieve, consume, and become someone else.
Yet what if the problem is not that you are lacking something?
What if the problem is that you have forgotten something?
What if the freedom you seek is not waiting somewhere in the future?
What if it is already here, beneath the noise?
Riding the Dragon begins with learning to trust the Sat Guru more than the frightened protector.
More than the voice of fear.
More than the stories you inherited.
More than the endless hunger of Wetiko.
Because the dragon is not asking you to become someone else.
The dragon is teaching you how to remember who you are. It's daring you to break free of normal.
The Trouble with Normal
The power of normal was beautifully articulated by David Foster Wallace in a parable about fish.
Two young fish encounter an older fish at an aquatic crossing.
The elder greets them and says:
"Morning boys. How's the water?"
The younger fish reply, "Great," and continue swimming.
A little later one turns to the other and asks:
"What the hell is water?"
Normal is to us what water is to fish.
So close.
So pervasive.
So all-encompassing.
That it becomes almost impossible to see.
Yet the water we swim in shapes everything and has life and death consequences.
It influences our values, beliefs, dreams, fears, and aspirations.
It teaches us what success looks like.
What love looks like.
What it means to be enough.
It shapes our inner world and our outer world simultaneously, creating a powerful feedback loop that makes normal feel inevitable.
We assume:
"This is just the way life is."
Yet it has not always been this way.
And it does not have to remain this way.
The power of normal was also revealed by Morpheus in The Matrix.
Not as a film about the future.
But as a metaphor for the present.
"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us.
You can see it when you look through your phone screen.
You can see it when you go to work.
You can feel it in the institutions that shape our lives.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth."
"What truth?" asks Neo.
"That you are a slave, Neo.
Like everyone else, you were born into bondage.
A prison for your mind."
Whether or not you agree with Morpheus, the question remains:
What assumptions are so normal that you no longer see them?
What beliefs have you inherited without ever consciously choosing them?
What stories are quietly shaping your life?
That is why we are here.
Not to tell you what to believe.
But to make the water visible.
To reveal the assumptions we call normal.
To question the stories that have been running in the background.
To discover that many of the limitations we experience are not reality itself, but interpretations of reality.
And perhaps most importantly:
To develop the capacity to choose.
To create a space between stimulus and response.
A space where you can hear something deeper than conditioning.
A space where you can trust the Sat Guru more than the frightened protector.
Because freedom is not getting everything you want.
Freedom is reclaiming your capacity to choose how you respond. As Marcus Aurelios, stoic philosopher shared, "you have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
And from that place of strength, something remarkable becomes possible.
You stop living someone else's story. You stop being the effect of the outer world and become the cause in your life.
Because in the end, you are not looking for the hack.
You are the hack
Becoming the Hack
Our Responsibility
The challenge is that we did not create the conditions that shaped us.
We did not choose our parents. Our culture. Our schools. Our traumas. Our economic system.
The water was already there before we arrived.
It shaped our nervous systems, our beliefs, our fears, and our understanding of what is possible.
As Gabor Maté reminds us, our minds are shaped by the world we inhabit.
Yet while we may not be responsible for the conditioning we received, we are responsible for how we respond to it.
This is our response-ability. The ability to become conscious of the stories, patterns, and protective strategies that have shaped our lives. The ability to pause. To create space between stimulus and response. To choose a different path.
The Great Turning is asking something extraordinary of us.
The spiritual path, once reserved for sages, monks, mystics, and renunciates, has become the responsibility of ordinary people. Not because everyone must become enlightened. But because the challenges of our time require a new level of consciousness.
The world has shaped us.
Now we are being invited to participate in shaping the world.
As above, so below.
As within, so without.
The Invitation
Don't believe me.
Test it.
For twenty-one days.
Show up for yourself before the world asks anything of you.
Sit.
Breathe.
Listen.
Create a little space between stimulus and response.
Learn to trust the Sat Guru more than the frightened protector.
Then ask yourself:
Has anything changed?
Do you feel more grounded?
More clear?
More alive?
More able to meet life with courage, curiosity, and compassion?
If so, continue.
If not, discard everything I've said.
Because the goal is not to believe a story.
The goal is to discover your own.
Join the 21-Day Challenge