TERMA
I THINK IT’S GENERALLY GOOD POLICY to believe in some fantastical stuff that can’t possibly be true.
Stuff like ESP, Tarot cards, throwing the I Ching, and quantum physics.
The fantastical, the paradoxical, the unbelievable – that’s where all the fun is.
The best thing about having my own company is that I get to decide everything. I decide what to do, who to do it with, when to work, when to take a nap. And really, the Friday afternoon nap is not to be underestimated in the grand scheme of living a happy and fulfilled life.
In case you were wondering, the worst thing about having my own company is that my boss is still an asshole…
So one thing I keep deciding and re-deciding is what to call my company. I started out as “Brian Newman Executive Coaching” which is less a name and more a description of what I do. There’s something to be said for that though – think “Dollar Shave Club.” Removes a lot of ambiguity about what one actually does.
Then I had a brief moment of rebranding where I was calling my company “Be-Ex,” which seemed kind of cool and was fun to interpret in different ways depending on my mood. Be Excellent. Be Executive. Be Exceptional. And so forth.
Oh and the ACTUAL name of my company, the one that I registered with the Hong Kong government, is Dream Merchants. Which I think is appropriate, because if you aren’t selling dreams, then what you are selling isn’t that interesting.
I’m launching my new website today with my new new new company name TERMA. This one will stick. Maybe.
Terma is a Tibetan word that means “hidden treasure” or as I prefer to think of it, a “secret teaching.”
As you know, all good teachings have an Outer Teaching, an Inner Teaching, and a Secret Teaching.
There are two types of terma, earth terma and mind terma.
Earth terma are hidden in the landscape, the ground, a flower, perhaps the sky, to be rediscovered generations later when the teaching is ready to be revealed. (Right, this is the fantastical part that I mentioned earlier.)
Mind terma are the ones that really get me going. A mind terma is accessed by an adept through meditation or a vision or by coming across some sort of sacred symbol, at which time the adept takes a full download of the teaching right into his mindstream.
As unbelievable as this sounds, there is a long history of mind terma discovery in Tibet, including the well-known Tibetan Book of the Dead which is said to have been composed in the 8th century and revealed as a terma in the 14th century.
I think it’s good policy to believe in some stuff that can’t possibly be true.
What’s life without a bit of magic?
