The shadow, according to Carl Jung, grows as we learn to suppress into the unconscious what is not acceptable in ourselves. He recognised that the degree to which we try to be “good” so that we are acceptable determines the depth of the shadow. How do we reconcile this psychological reality in the process of trying to become “good” Buddhists where we are taught to abandon what is unwholesome and cultivate what is wholesome?

Rob Preece has been a practicing Tibetan Buddhist for the past 40 years. He was a founding member of Manjushri Institute in the UK and lived there until 1980 when he went into retreat above Dharamsala on the guidance of Lama Yeshe and Lama Zopa Rinpoche.
Returning to the west in 1985 he began to train as a Psychotherapist at the Centre for Transpersonal Psychology in London, a Jungian based psychotherapy. Since that time he has had a busy psychotherapy practice and has taught many workshops on comparative Jungian and Buddhist Psychology. More recently his work has shifted from psychotherapy to spiritual mentoring.