The Practice Environment
Chod is practiced widely in one form or another in all sects of Tibetan Bud¬dhism as well as in the Bon tradition. The vagrant lifestyle enjoined upon Chod yogins probably contributed to the fact that a network of monastic institutions of its own was never established. Indeed, one class of Chod-re- lated practice is named “the • mendicant’s practice” (kusali or kusulu), and the homeless and unconventional (even outrageous) lifestyle is an integral aspect of Chod.
In the West it is most famous as a “charnel ground practice,” and people who don’t know the name Chod will recognize it by that appellation. In gen¬eral, the life of a mendicant is part of a larger picture of Buddhist lifestyles tracing back to yogic and forest traditions that are often seen in contrast to the established monastic forms/* This lifestyle is obviously conducive to the Buddhist ideal
of nonattachment to the usual worldly concerns and possessions. In addition, within Vajrayana Buddhism, it falls into a category of prescribed behaviors for the enhancement (bogs don) of meditation experience, which depend on the type of tantra in question. In the case of Chod, Kongtrul mentions specifically “vanquishing conduct [to train] awareness” (rigpa brtulzhugs). According to another great author, Dakpo Tashi Namgyal (1513-1587), this conduct is associated with the “essential practice” (grub snying) of Saraha, an Indian mahasiddha
also considered to be a source of Chod teachings. According to this system, the yogin purposefully seeks out intense situations, , often creating them through uninhibited behavior and the (now famous or infamous) “crazy wisdom.” Dakpo Tashi Namgyal specifically refers to Chod as part of mahamudra and the superiority of practicing in rough, haunted places rather than monasteries. He states:
Therefore, it is explained that one should do the kusali’s offering and charity [with the body] and then cut off ordinary speech and enter into [[[mahamudra practice]]] on scary, frightening mountain peaks or mountain retreats, in haunted places where nonhuman apparitions occur, in cemeteries where corpses and skeletons and such will petrify you, at the foot of lone trees that have been claimed by ndgas and tsen spirits and so forth, and in ghost towns and crossroads where hungry ghosts and demons and such cluster'65
For the Chod practice, it is the charnel grounds or cemeteries (dur khrod) and “haunted places” {gnyan sa or gnyan khrod) that are particularly conducive. I use “haunted” to convey the sense of eerie power places that induce fear and anxiety, either naturally or because of the presence of spirits. Places of death fit this description quite well. In India, charnel grounds were full of corpses in
various stages of putrefaction, and thus were particularly good places for yogins to confront impermanence and their own attachment:. These places were also the ancient abode of the original dakinis, who were considered primarily demonesses “delighting in the taste of human flesh and blood and dancing with ornaments fashioned from the bones of decaying corpses.” As these images became incorporated into the Buddhism of Tibet, the dakinis’ native ability to thrive in these circumstances and the charnel ground image itself came to symbolize the transformative power of Vajrayana, which seeks out the matrices of neurosis as fuel for realization.
The provocative nature of the charnel ground and the original association with the dakinl make it the ideal place for Chod. Practitioners were encouraged to stay there or in other such frightening places with nothing more than their tents and their ritual instruments (the
human thighbone, skull-cup drum, and so on). This was recommended in order to enhance realization through vanquishing conduct. In Tibet, disposal of the dead often takes place in what is known as a sky burial, wherein the corpse is taken to a high mountain location, chopped up, and fed to the vultures while onlookers perform ritual prayers. It has been suggested that this practice may have originated through the influence of the Chod tradition.67 In any case, the similarities are hard to miss.
Using charnel grounds and places of terror to quickly advance spiritual realization is certainly a major component of Chod. There has been some concern, however, that cemeteries may no longer function in the same way for the modern practitioner. In the West, cemeteries and even corpses . are thoroughly sanitized, and our projections onto them considerably diminished. This is not to mention the possible legal consequences of trying to inhabit a charnel ground today. When asked about this dilemma, Kalu Rinpoche replied:
If you feel like going to a cemetery, fine, but this is not necessary. A cemetery is a place where corpses and frightening and repulsive things are found. Milarepa said that we permanently have a corpse at our disposal, it is our body! There is even another cemetery, the greatest of all cemeteries, it is the place where all our thoughts and emotions come to die.68
Meditation
Though Chod did not develop into an established sect of its own, innumerable commentaries and practice texts were written by masters of all lineages. They vary somewhat in their details, but all share common elements. The description of the practice translated in chapter 5 is consistent with the sadhanas in the Kagyu tradition with which I am familiar. It follows a general format common to all Vajrayana practices.
Vajrayana practices begin with the two excellent preliminaries: refuge and bodhicitta. One goes for refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and other enlightened beings and then sets the intention for the practice: to reach enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.
Changing the usual order, the Chod liturgy and Machik’s commentary begin with bodhicitta, emphasizing the fact that Chod is essentially a method for training the mind (lojong) in compassion. Then the “guests,” the objects of our compassion and generosity, are summoned. At this stage, these are classified into eight principal kinds:
antagonizing enemies, harmful ’ obstructors, disruptive conditions, karmic bad spirits, body bad spirits, bad spirits of the haunted places, and one’s own mother and father of this life. The inclusion of one’s parents not only recalls their kindness to us in this life but serves as a reminder that all of the guests, no matter how malicious they seem now, have also been our parents in innumerable previous lives and are thus deserving of our love and personal sacrifice.
Next is refuge, followed by the cultivation of the four immeasurable states (love, compassion, joy, and equanimity) and the all-important accumulation of merit. In Chod, merit is accumulated by invoking and supplicating the manifestations of the awakened state (buddhas, and
so on), and making profuse offerings to them, including that of one’s body. Purification practice through the recitation of the prajnaparamita mantra of the Great Mother (Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha) is included here, revealing the ever-present influence of this source material.
The main part of the practice is the cultivation of wisdom. This occurs during the separation of body and mind, or powa, usually translated as transference or ejection of the consciousness. Jamgon Kongtrul summarizes the sequence of practice so far: In the exceptional preliminary practice, gathering the accumulations inter¬nally through the body, the devotional supplications incur the
crucial bless¬ings. In the main practice, by focusing exclusively on awareness (rigpa rkyang ’ded), one searches for the faults within the mind. When this is straightened up, the methods of settling are presented. Based on “Opening the Door to the Sky,” the meaning of the Mother is introduced: the guidance on meaning reveals it, the guidance on words establishes the meditation, and the guidance on experience cultivates the meditation.^
It is clear from this and other statements by Kongtrul that he considers powa to be the heart of Chod, rather than the more sensational bequest of the body to spirits, which is considered an enhancement (bogs ’don) of the essential realization. The particular form of powa
associated with Chod is called “Opening the Door to the Sky” (nam mkha ’ sgo ’byed), a transmission that Machik received from Sonam Lama. Kongtrul calls it “the main practice of the Mother’s enlightened intention, and the ultimate meaning of Severance of Evil Object consistent with the uncommon Vajrayana.”70 And Kalu Rinpoche reports that “it is said to be one hundred times superior to ordinary powa.’^1
Several kinds of powa are described, geared toward the different capacities of practitioners. They are classified as being with or without a support. Transference without a support, for the superior type of person, is simply resting in the true nature of the awakened mind.
Machik states:
Mind—free of arising, ceasing, or abiding—is great emptiness. Like the center of space or the inherent lack of real existence, it is free of all limitations. Once you have mastered emptiness, you understand that the body is a reflection of emptiness, that it is without true existence. You realize it is untrue. Then the mind is not attached to the body and the body is not attached to the mind. “Was not
attached, will not be attached, and is without attachment” means that there is freedom from attachment to anything at all, such as body, mind, and so on. In that way, being free of concepts of both attachment and non attachment to all phenomena, such as both body and mind, and so on, is called “the emptiness of great concept lessness.” It is without something to be transferred and without a transferer. That is “separating body and mind without a support.” (chapter 5)
Transference with support employs a visualization technique whereby consciousness is identified as a vital-essence drop or sphere [[[thig le]], Skt. bindu) inside the central channel of the subtle body. It is then ejected, either instantaneously or by stages that often include purifying the energy centers (cakra), imagined to be the abodes of the six realms of beings, as the consciousness-drop ascends.7 It flies
out through a hole in the crown of the head, separating from the body, which is now imagined as an inanimate heap. Consciousness then blends with space, and one is instructed to simply “settle in the equipoise of the great pervasiveness where awareness and emptiness are inseparable” (chapter 5). This can be sustained or done repeatedly until experience arises.
Kongtrul describes everything after this as postmeditation activity: “Everything from the body mandala on down are branches of the activity of subsequent attainment (rjes thob) and enhancement in keeping with the man- tra[[[yana]] practices] such as the vanquishing conduct [to train] awareness.”7’
After the powa practice, the separated consciousness is visualized as a dakini, sometimes Machik herself, and in other practices either the Wrathful Black Mother (Troma Nagmo) or Vajrayogini. The practitioner, as the dakini, then prepares the abandoned body as a vast and beautiful mandala of the whole
universe for offering to the honored guests: the lama, Three Jewels, yidam deities, heroes, dakinis, and dharma protectors. It is very similar to the mandala offering practice found in the Vajrayana preliminary practices, except that it uses human body parts to construct the visualized mandala. After this there are more prayers and supplication specifically for bringing down their blessings. Finally, there is the part that has become so famous.
