Myth Work As A Tantric Path
Something interesting dawned on me the other day on my way to work.
While on the train, reading Journey Without Goal by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, I realized that there was a resonance between his tantric teachings and my principles of myth work . Because they both share remarkably similar symbolic themes, this then had me questioning whether the myth of Inanna’s descent could be used as a tantric text.
These parallels between them discussed below suggest not cultural transmission, but a shared archetypal framework that can continue to be used to expand awareness and facilitate profound inner transformation through symbolic engagement with dissolution, rebirth, and the integration of the self. Both understand that transformation is not passive. It’s a deliberate engagement with meaning through embodied practice.
Here are some examples of the ways in which both resonate:
Descent into the Shadow / Inner Realms
Inanna: Voluntarily descends into the Underworld, leaving the world of power and status behind.
Tantra: Encourages conscious descent into the self—into the shadow, unconscious, or repressed aspects through various meditative practices.
Shared Archetype: Transformation begins by going inward and downward, not up and away. This descent is seen as essential to true spiritual realization.
Stripping Away the Ego / Layers of Identity
Inanna: Passes through seven gates, removing royal garments, symbols of status, and power at each gate.
Tantra: Often uses the metaphor of chakras or energetic layers that are purified or transcended; the practitioner sheds egoic attachments to reach the core self.
Shared Archetype: True transformation requires surrender—symbolic death of the constructed self. Liberation lies on the other side of shedding.
Death and Emptiness as Initiation
Inanna: Is judged, killed, and hung on a hook. She experiences death.
Tantra: Teaches that ego-death, void states, or experiences of emptiness (śūnyatā) are central initiations. Especially in left-hand path practices, practitioners confront fear, death, and decay.
Shared Archetype: Emptiness is not the end, but a gateway. Initiation happens in the confrontation with death—whether literal, symbolic, or psychological.
Witnessing and Empathic Presence
Inanna: Is ultimately released through empathic witnessing—her companion Ninshubur pleads, and the mourners show Ereshkigal compassion.
Tantra: Emphasizes presence, non-dual awareness, and the transformative power of compassionate witnessing—especially in Vajrayāna and goddess-centered traditions.
Shared Archetype: Healing often happens not through fixing or saving, but through being seen and held in suffering.
Sacred Union / Integration of Opposites
Inanna: Faces Ereshkigal, her dark double or underworld sister—a mirror of her own hidden self. Later, balance is restored through substitution and exchange (Dumuzi takes her place).
Tantra: Centers on the union of opposites—Śiva (consciousness) and Śakti (energy), masculine and feminine, light and dark.
Shared Archetype: Integration is the key. The split self is made whole not by denial, but by embracing and uniting the fragmented aspects.
Cyclical Time and Regeneration
Inanna: Returns to the world transformed. Her journey mirrors seasonal cycles, death-rebirth processes, and lunar rhythms.
Tantra: Is inherently cyclical—honoring cosmic rhythms, lunar cycles, and energetic tides. Practice reflects death and renewal not as one-time events but as continuous spirals.
Shared Archetype: Spiritual growth is not linear. It’s cyclical, embodied, and rhythmic—just like the myth, just like life.
Ritual and Embodiment as Vehicles of Transformation
Inanna: Prepares for her descent with intention and ritual. Every action—her attire, her descent, her silence—is charged with symbolic meaning.
Tantra: Relies on ritual technologies—mudrā, mantra, mandala, breath, visualization, and sacred rites involving the body and senses.
Shared Archetype: Transformation is not theoretical. It happens through embodied, symbolic action—ritual becomes the container for the sacred.
The above shows that both share a psychic architecture. Both paths map the journey of descent, dissolution, confrontation, compassion, and ultimate integration. They offer us not just stories or teachings, but experiential blueprints for how humans heal, awaken, and return to wholeness.
How Trungpa Rinpoche’s Teachings Support Myth Work
Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s work, especially his core teachings on crazy wisdom, ego dismantling, and spiritual warriorship, offers profound support for myth work.
Here’s how:
Ego Death as Necessary for Transformation
Inanna: Stripped at the seven gates. Her ego and persona dismantled.
Trungpa: Emphasizes the importance of cutting through spiritual materialism—the tendency to cling to ego even on the spiritual path. In Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, he teaches that true awakening requires surrendering our roles, identities, and masks and warns that the ego can convert anything to its own use, even spirituality.
Support for Myth Work: Trungpa’s fierce insistence on ego death aligns directly with the initiatory stripping in Inanna’s descent. His work validates that spiritual transformation begins where identity is undone.
Crazy Wisdom and Embracing Paradox
Inanna: Embodies both eroticism and rage, love and war, life and death. Her story is nonlinear, paradoxical, and deeply felt.
Trungpa: Speaks of crazy wisdom—wisdom that transcends conventional dualities and cuts through illusion. In Crazy Wisdom, he aligns with Tantric principles that see the sacred in the chaotic, the dark, and the unexpected.
Support for Myth Work: Trungpa’s teachings on dwelling in contradiction help us hold the ambivalence and nonlinearity of descent work. His embrace of paradox mirrors the wild wholeness Inanna ultimately represents.
Spiritual Warriorship and the Open Heart
Inanna: Chooses to descend knowing the risk. She enters the underworld with intention and courage.
Trungpa: Teaches the Shambhala warrior path rooted in fearlessness, gentleness, and compassion. The warrior opens to their pain rather than defending against it.
Support for Myth Work: Trungpa’s vision of the warrior perfectly aligns with the descent myth as a call to courageous vulnerability. Like Inanna, we become warriors when we enter our own underworlds with openness.
Sacred World and the Body as Vessel
Inanna: A goddess deeply tied to fertility, the body, and sacred ritual.
Trungpa: Teaches the principle of sacred outlook—the world and the body within it is inherently sacred when seen clearly. Vajrayana tantra does not reject the senses but uses them as gateways to wakefulness.
Support for Myth Work: According to Trungpa, descent doesn’t take us away from the sacred; it leads us closer to it. Like Inanna, we discover divinity not by transcending life but by inhabiting it more fully.
Direct Experience Over Concept
Inanna: Her transformation is visceral, emotional, and embodied—not conceptual.
Trungpa: Critiques the reliance on intellectual understanding and insists on direct experience. His path is one of deep presence and raw honesty.
Support for Myth Work: Myth work, like Tantra, is experiential. Trungpa’s teachings ground the journey of descent in felt life—not theory, but lived truth.
Chögyam Trungpa’s work and the spirit of his teachings—radical honesty, surrender, paradox, presence—deeply align with the symbolic journey Inanna undertakes. His vision of awakening supports a mythic, seasonal, and embodied spiritual path that values darkness as initiation, ego death as doorway, and sacredness as ever-present.
I first came across Trungpa's teachings while studying Buddhism. I remember then the feeling of being at home in his teachings. Many years later, as I began shaping my own practice rooted in myth and symbolic work, I assumed I was walking a path that was unlike any other out in the open.
But I see now that I was wrong. The principles I’ve been working with— surrender, ego dissolution, transformation through paradox—aren’t new. They echo the same truths I once encountered in Trungpa’s Tantric teachings, just through a different symbolic lens.