Joy, Courage and the Tigress Jataka

“Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yea’ to it all.”— Joseph Campbell

How do you stay engaged with the creative potential of this time? How can you participate to bring something positive, necessary, unprecedented, into our constantly evolving world?

These questions are in the forefront of my mind. I’m intrigued by Campbell’s emphasis on joy, and the suggestion that joy is part of the “warrior’s approach.” But I wonder what being a “warrior” might look like and if it’s a useful image/role for me.

I brought these questions to a Buddhist teaching story called “The Tigress Jataka” and share the story and my reflections in this episode.

Thanks for listening and keep the mystery in your life alive…

Transcript of Joy, Courage, and the Tigress Jataka

Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.

2026. I’m so glad to be here with you, bringing stories and thoughts about the power of myth to our shared journey and the questions life presents. Questions like how do you stay engaged with the creative potential of this time and participate to bring something positive, necessary, unprecedented, into our constantly evolving world? 

This question emerged as a guide for our exploration last year. We talked about liminal spaces and collective initiation, leaving home, not knowing, transformation. This question is one that I’ll continue to hold and consider in light of our story inheritance and storied life.

 There’s plenty happening that could bring you down, if you’re paying attention and have a shred of empathy and a sense of history. Much of what is going on, at least much of what is going on that is reported in the public sphere, is not OK. It’s terrible. At the same time, so much courage and goodness are bubbling up and there is space as the old rules and systems break down. Space for new visions. Perhaps for a human society of the sort we’ve never seen before. 

 My vision, as I say at the end of every Myth Matters episode, is for a more beautiful, just, and sustainable world. In my heart, I know this begins with a deeper and more inclusive sense of community, one that includes our fellow creatures and brings us back into awareness of our interdependency. I imagine the unifying force in such a community to be a reverence for life.

 Sometimes this sounds pie in the sky even to me, and yet, when I hold this dream in mind, even knowing that I will likely be long gone before it is realized, something in me calms. Something in me gets quiet, determined, even excited by what might happen and all that is possible.

I share this with you because I think it’s important that you know where I’m coming from and what I hope an exploration of mythology will support. And if this resonates with you, there is an opportunity for us to connect. Although the community of Myth Matters listeners and myth lovers is loosely held, it does exist. You’re not alone and I hope that every episode and message that you receive from me strengthens your sense of purpose and the preciousness of you and what you have to offer.

So, how to stay engaged with the creative potential of this time and participate to bring something positive, necessary, even unprecedented, into our constantly evolving world? In The Hero With a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell writes “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. The warrior’s approach is to say ‘yes’ to life: ‘yea’ to it all.”

What Campbell suggests and what we’re facing today, presents some challenges. The challenge to stay engaged, for example. The challenge to accept the limits of our actions, to accept that there will be illness and death and loss in this world of mortal beings. The challenge to invite joy, to work through the doubt and guilt and anxiety that block the way and accept joy as a powerful gift of existence, an enduring truth in the world, and a radical form of resistance. “We need joy as we need air” writes Maya Angelou. Joy was the theme of last April’s poetry episode and I’ll include that link with this transcript. Give a listen if you need a boost.

Accepting the sorrows might feel like a cop-out, especially if your life is relatively safe and comfortable, but it’s not easy and Campbell says this is the “warrior’s way.” Here I meet some more challenges. Do I have the capacity to be a warrior, for example, and do I want to be one? What comes to mind when you contemplate this phrase? Do you imagine goose-stepping soldiers, cruelty, bloodshed, and hateful rhetoric about “the enemy”? Or does the word “warrior” bring to mind someone with great integrity and honor, someone who brings skill, courage, and discernment to every arena? 

The roots of the word “warrior” are connected to soldiers and combat and yet, the word is typically used to describe someone honorable and brave. Someone who takes orders from within, from the heart, not the general. The warrior is an image of the spiritual seeker and teacher, and of the healer, as well as a military term. In her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Pema Chödrön tells this story:

“Once there was a young warrior. Her teacher told her that she had to do battle with fear. She didn’t want to do that. It seemed too aggressive; it was scary; it seemed unfriendly. But the teacher said she had to do it and gave her the instructions for the battle. The day arrived. The student warrior stood on one side, and fear stood on the other. The warrior was feeling very small, and fear was looking big and wrathful. They both had their weapons. 

The young warrior roused herself and went toward fear, prostrated three times, and asked, “May I have permission to go into battle with you?” Fear said, “Thank you for showing me so much respect that you ask permission.” Then the young warrior said, “How can I defeat you?” Fear replied, “My weapons are that I talk fast, and I get very close to your face. Then you get completely unnerved, and you do whatever I say. If you don’t do what I tell you, I have no power. You can listen to me, and you can have respect for me. You can even be convinced by me. But if you don’t do what I say, I have no power.” In that way, the student warrior learned how to defeat fear. ”

If fear is the enemy, then we meet it in many life situations. I especially appreciate the insight that you don’t need to vanquish fear but rather learn not to listen to it and do what it says. To not listen to fear’s instruction and give it power.

About five years ago, I spent time with a Buddhist jataka, a teaching story about the incarnations and path of the Buddha, called “The Tigress Jataka.” In that episode, I was thinking about our common images and ideas about heroes and heroic action. I’ll share the link  if you’d like to listen from that angle. This story has come back to mind. I want to tell it to you today in the light of our question about staying creatively engaged with what’s possible, participating joyfully and the image of the spiritual warrior invoked by Campbell.

I invite you to relax, listen, and step into the world of the story. Note the details that call to you or the questions that arise. They are clues to your journey and the place this story occupies in your life right now.

The Tigress Jataka

A long, long time ago, before the Bodhisattva achieved perfect enlightenment and became the Buddha as we know him, he was born into a family of wealthy Brahmins. The Brahmin caste was a caste of wise people, wise men and teachers typically, so he grew up learning the wisdom and the rituals and the skills of his station. 

He was a very accomplished man, properly honored by others, respected by the kings and the nobles, as well as the warriors and the merchant class. He was a naturally gifted teacher, so when he became an adult, he decided to guide others along a path of selfless generosity. He left the city, went into the forest, and established a hermitage, a type of monastery for others who were seeking to live this higher life. 

One day, this teacher was out walking with one of his disciples. It had not rained for some weeks and the area was experiencing a very serious drought. The trees were bare, the stream beds were nearly dry. Very few animals and birds around. They heard a series of strange, coughing roars and stopped to listen. 

The student said, “Master, those are the roars of a hungry tiger. I think we better head back right away.” The teacher said, “No, wait, let’s listen a little more closely.” After a moment,  he said, “You’re right, those are the roars of a very hungry tiger. But more than that, I think those are the roars of a starving tiger. Let’s go on a little bit further and see if there’s anything that we might be able to do to help.”

The student reluctantly agreed and they continued walking. In a short time, they came to the edge of a cliff. When they looked down, they saw a starving tigress, roaring miserably. She had two little cubs with her. Two weak little cubs who were trying to nurse and she kept batting them away. Her ribs were showing, her eyes were glazed over. The teacher realized that in her desperation, this mother tiger was contemplating eating her own children as food.

“Quick, quick,” the teacher said to the student, “Run back and see if you can find some food for this starving animal. She is going to be driven to eat her own cubs if she doesn’t have food soon and the karma that will arise from that will be terrible. Run back, bring some food and I will wait here and do whatever I can to stop her from harming her cubs until you return.” 

The student ran off. The teacher watched him go. He turned his attention back to the tiger family below. “This is pitiful,” he thought. The tigress tried to stand up. She was so weak that her hind quarters were dragging on the ground.

Finally, she managed to get up, and growling and sick looking, she took a couple tottering steps toward her two tiny cubs. “My disciple is not going to make it back with food, in time” thought the teacher, “and I can’t just stand idly by and let this happen. Mind is vast and empty and cannot be found. This body is so much matter. This body is merely the manifestation of my own past thoughts back into the endless past. My deepest wish is the liberation of all sentient beings. The liberation of all sentient beings. If I do not act, I’ll regret it.”

He removed his robe and hung it on the branch of a tree. Then he turned to the cliff and like a man preparing to dive into a lake, he put his hands together and leapt off the edge. The tigress was startled by the crashing sound behind her and crouched down in fear. Then she saw the bloodied body of the man stretched out on the rocks at the base of the cliff. With her last remaining strength, she lunged forward and began to eat him. 

Shortly after, the student returned, full of apologies and empty handed. He saw the teacher’s robe hanging on the tree at the cliff’s edge. He called out his name. Fearing what he might see, he looked over the edge of the cliff and he saw the tigress feeding. The student knelt down on the ground and began to weep. Awe filled him, and he dried his eyes and carried the robe as a sacred relic back to the hermitage. 

There he told the other students what had happened. He led them back to the spot. They festooned the tree with flowers, and when the tigress and her cubs had departed, they climbed down and gathered up the Bodhisattvas bones and built a jeweled stupa in which to house them.

They say that the gods themselves were stunned by what they had witnessed. They came down to earth in the place where the Bodhisattva’s body had been devoured, and covered the ground with precious incense made of fine sandalwood powder. So even now, the Bodhisattva’s selfless deed is remembered by the gods and by every human who knows this tale. It will never be forgotten as long as there are those who understand the value of that deep compassion that motivates an act of such selfless generosity and compassion.

That kind of compassion is the Buddhist definition of wisdom, and selfless generosity is one of the key virtues that one cultivates along the path to this kind of wisdom. Now, there may be some elements of the Buddhist paradigm and practice, and this story, that don’t resonate with you. The idea that the teacher is concerned about the karma of the tiger, for example, or the reliance on the notion of reincarnation. And what about the self-sacrifice!

According to the stories of myth, history, art, and memory, some people find the capacity for this type of action in themselves. It’s not limited to the folks far along the conscious path to enlightenment. Someone, maybe a trained professional, a parent, or even a passerby runs into the burning house, dives into the river, tackles the gunman. 

Still, who wishes to be presented with such a challenge? And I don’t share the story because I’m advocating that you jump off a cliff or look for ways to put yourself in danger. Not at all. I don’t know what you’re here to do.

Still, this story aids my reflection in response to our question in several ways. For one thing, I wonder what it is that I feel I must protect and what do I believe that I have to lose? The teacher’s action in the story required a good amount of courage and yet, he believed that the body and life that he was sacrificing were one incarnation among many. He would die eventually. 

Does this hold truth for me? And what would make such a sacrifice worthwhile to me? Am I harboring a notion that I’ll be safe if I have x,y,or z, or if I follow particular rules or stay hidden away? And is there truth and meaning in those notions? Or fear that I’ve yet to examine and confront?

I also wonder who, or what, is the “tigress” in my life? In the story, the tigress is an animal whose choices and karma are of concern to the teacher. He sees himself as a partner in her fate. They are moving through the cycles of reincarnation together. His vision of liberation includes her. Where is my fate linked to that of another? or is there a tigress inside? Where do I need to meet fear like the student warrior in Chödrön’s story? 

There is a connection between what I imagine and fear that I might be called to do for others and what I want for myself, who I aspire to be, what I’d like to understand, and what I value. These are good and useful things to think about because they must be lived. Acted upon. These reflections are empowering when the cultural clamor invites fear and threatens any sense of personal agency.

As I say this, I realize a connection between the question of creative participation and the decision in the Tigress Jataka, a connection that also appears in a novel that I just finished reading. If you’ve read Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, maybe you feel it too. I recommend the book, a love story that revolves around astronauts and the wonder of the cosmos. It could be another source of a guiding image, something to hold in the heart and mind’s eye that provides direction, orientation. A guiding image and company, the knowledge that the challenges you face are part of life and have been lived, are being lived now, by others.

I offer this story of “The Tigress Jataka” to you because I believe that there might be a guiding image in there that is of value, not because I think the story offers some absolute answer or literal prescription for action. I  attended a great workshop about poetry this past weekend, facilitated by Audrey T. Williams at Lampcove, a group I’ll say more about in a minute. Williams shared a quote from Robert Frost that’s stuck with me and feels applicable to story as well–“ We need poetry not for answers, but for a way through.” 

I think Frost is talking about the truth, beauty, feeling, meaning, and companionship that a poem can provide. I think that our human need for these things is much greater than our need for answers, and I think a good story can also provide them.

I have a little bit more reflection on “The Tigress Jataka” to share but first,  a big welcome to new email subscribers:  Bernabé, Jeanette, Donna, Ann, Leslie, Wendolyn, Lisa, Rene, Janel, Jaya, Oda, Kim, Alexis, Kathe, Gail, Alice, Caroline, Electra, V, Melissa, Dimitri, and Renee. Welcome to Myth Matters!

If you would like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox, head over to the Mythic Mojo website and join the email list. Folks on the email list also receive my monthly newsletter which is a source of information about my other offerings and things I find inspiring. 

I want to tell you about a couple of opportunities to gather with fellow myth lovers and cultural creatives. First, the International Society for Mythology is holding their annual Mythologium online from March 13-15th. The theme is “mythic imagination.” Special guest panels, scholars, artists, and mythology enthusiasts from around the world will create the momentum you need to dream your own mythic imaginations forward in 2026.

I’ve dropped the info and registration link in the transcript of this episode. Explore how mythic imagination illuminates paths of renewal in our contemporary world and guides us during times of personal and collective challenges.

Another place to meet and share ideas and resources with myth lovers is Lampcove, an online community created to support  re-storyers, visionaries, healers, and creatives who boldly change reality by dreaming together. Lampcove was created by my colleague Dr. Craig Chalquist. There are many opportunities to step into a conversation of interest. I’m grateful to Craig and his collaborator, poet Audrey T. Williams, for holding this space and vision. The link to Lampcove is included in this transcript.

Big shout out to Paula  and Jo who recently joined me on patreon-– thank you so much Paula and Jo! The financial support that I receive from my amazing Patreon patrons and supporters on Bandcamp is crucial and means so much. If you’re finding something of value in this podcast and can afford to send a few dollars a month my way, I hope you will consider doing that. 

You can also help Myth Matters reach others by posting a positive review online. And always, feel free to email me or comment on the Mythic Mojo website. I love to hear from you and learn so much for our exchanges. Thank you so much for your support of Myth Matters in whatever form makes sense for you. 

One final thought for now on this moment and “The Tigress Jataka.” The power of commitment. The teacher leaps into the empty air. goes over the cliff– a beautiful metaphor for going all in. What is possible, what can be done, when the commitment is absolute? When the impulse to doubt or question or second guess is set aside? What is possible and how much energy is freed up and available when the focus is on the vision rather than the obstacles? 

I have the sense that as he fell, the teacher was filled with joy and aliveness, a union of principle and action, courage and love. I’m going to lean into this guiding image.

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you for joining me for this opening episode for 2026. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.

Joy and Poetry for National Poetry month episode

Two Jatakas: a thought experiment in heroes and bodhisattvas episode

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