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Making the Old New Again and Again: Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition

Michelle Janet Sorensen

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Michelle Janet Sorensen </poem>

ABSTRACT

Making the Old New Again and Again:

Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition

Michelle Janet Sorensen

My dissertation offers a revisionary history of the early development of Chöd, a philosophy and practice that became integral to all Tibetan Buddhist schools. Recent scholars have interpreted Chöd ahistorically, considering it as a shamanic tradition consonant with indigenous Tibetan practices. In contrast, through a study of the inception, lineages, and praxis of Chöd, my dissertation argues that Chöd evolved through its responses to particular Buddhist ideas and developments during the “later spread” of Buddhism in Tibet. I examine the efforts of Machik Labdrön (1055-1153), the founder of Chöd and the first woman to develop a Buddhist tradition in Tibet, simultaneously to legitimate her teachings as authentically Buddhist and to differentiate them from those of male charismatic teachers. In contrast to the prevailing scholarly view which exoticizes central Chöd practices—such as the visualized offering of the body to demons—I examine them as a manifestation of key Buddhist tenets from the Prajñāpāramitā corpus and Vajrayāna traditions on the virtue of generosity, the problem of ego-clinging, and the ontology of emptiness. Finally, my translation and discussion of the texts of the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé (1284-1339), including the earliest extant commentary on a text of Machik Labdrön’s, focuses on new ways to appreciate the transmission and institutionalization of Chöd. I argue not only that Chöd praxis has been an ongoing project of innovation and renewal, but also that we can properly understand modern incarnations of Chöd only through a nuanced appreciation of its historical and philosophical developments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Tables and Illustrations iii

Introduction 1

1. Historical Contexts 26
a. The Period of the Later Spread
b. Dharma lineages in the Later Spread
c. Chöd in the Period of the Later Spread
2. Chöd Transmissions and Lineages 43
a. Chöd Precursors
b. Transmission Lineages
3. Philosophical Foundations of Chöd 103
a. Chöd as Tantra: Machig and Vajrayoginī
b. Chöd as Sūtra and Tantra
c. Anti-Legitimation and Innovation
4. Cutting Through the Body 140
a. Body
b. Dehadāna
5. Cutting through the Mind 191
a. Chöd and Universal Base Consciousness
b. Opening the Gate of Space
c. Internal Yoga
d. Düd (bdud)
ii

6. Texts 225
a. The Great Speech Chapter and Rangjung Dorjé’s Commentaries

b. The Supplementary Chapter, The Quintessential Chapter, and The Supplementary Sections Bibliography 288

Appendices 313

Appendix One: The Great Speech Chapter, the textual tradition of the oral instructions of the profound Chöd of Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa zab mo gcod kyi man ngag gi gzhung bka’ tshoms chen mo, or the Bka’ tshoms chen mo)

Appendix Two: The Supplementary Chapter of oral instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag yang tshoms zhus lan ma, or the Yang tshoms) Appendix Three: The Quintessential Chapter of the Chöd System of Negative Forces, The Instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag snying tshoms chos kyi rtsa ba, or the Snying tshoms)

Appendix Four: The Common Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong gi le lag brgyad) Appendix Five: The Uncommon Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong ma yin pa’i le’u lag brgyad pa)

Appendix Six: The Distinctive Eightfold Supplementary Section (Khyad par gyi le lag brgyad pa)

Appendix Seven: An Outline of the Great Speech Chapter of Chöd (Gcod bka’ tshoms chen mo’i sa bcad)

Appendix Eight: A Commentary on the Great Speech Chapter of Chöd (Gcod kyi TIKA, or the Bka’ tshom chen mo’i ‘grel pa) Appendix Nine: A reconstructed outline of the Bka’ tshoms TIKA

iii

LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS

Tables Page

Table One: Dualistic and Non-dualistic Consciousness 203

Table Two: The Transformation of Universal Base Consciousness 206

Table Three: Poisons, Negative Forces, and Primordial Wisdoms 238

Figure

Figure One: Thang ga from Spitok 139

INTRODUCTION

The Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhist praxis of Chöd (gcod; chedikā) incorporates a variety of techniques for the development of compassion, wisdom, and the spirit of enlightenment. “Chöd” is a Tibetan verb that can be translated into English as “to cut” or "to sever,” with a corresponding noun form of “cutting” or “severance.”1 Chöd uses meditative practices of “cutting” through one's instinctual attachment to ego as techniques for liberation from the existential suffering of cyclic existence (‘khor ba; saṃsāra). A traditional Buddhist view is that attachment to ego, or “self-grasping” (bdag ‘dzin; atmagraha), is the root of ignorance (ma rig pa; avidyā) causing mental afflictions (nyon mongs pa; kleśa), which in turn generate suffering and perpetuate one’s cyclic existence. This sense of one’s own self, or ego, is reinforced by quotidian activities premised in constructs of “self” and “other,” and habitual practices that produce, and are produced by, emotional reactions rather than mindful activities. The techniques prescribed by Chöd enable the practitioner to analyze and become aware of the nature of the “ego” that is to be cut, including the aspects of consciousness that support and construct the ego. According to Mahāyāna Buddhist teachings, one’s sense of an individual and independent ego arises from ignorance of the non-duality of subject and object. The praxis of Chöd includes theories and methods for cutting through the aspect of consciousness that is characterized by self-grasping and discriminative thinking in order to realize the matrix of consciousness free from subject/object discrimination.

Chöd practitioners use various techniques to achieve the aim of cutting the root of mind, including visualizations, meditations, recitations, physical movements and music. Chöd

• My field research for this dissertation has been supported by fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute.

1 The Tibetan word “gcod” is pronounced “chö” or “chöd,” depending on the Tibetan dialect.

methodology, in alignment with conventional Buddhist teachings, can be understood as two-fold. One aspect is akin to the Buddhist practice of calmly abiding through experiences of mental turmoil (zhi gnas; śamatha); the other aspect can be seen as parallel to the Buddhist practice of meditative analysis of the constructed nature of one’s experiences as dependent on one’s mental conditioning and functioning (lhag mthong; vipaśyanā). Using these two types of practice, the practitioner aims to deepen her understanding of the fundamentally empty nature of all phenomena. Buddhist Chöd texts emphasize that Chöd should be practiced in accordance with the ideal standpoint of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva, the ultimate aim being the liberation of all sentient beings from the realm of suffering. Thus, the perspective of the twofold bodhicitta—the relative consciousness of awakening which includes the aspiration and action toward enlightenment and the ultimate mind of awakening—is also central to Chöd.

Chöd texts frequently emphasize practicing in appropriate physical locations. Practitioners seek out sublime sites such as on mountain peaks, near rushing rivers, and in charnel grounds. Because the fear created by such situations generates attachment to one’s life and identity, these locations exacerbate the self-grasping that Chöd takes as its object. Generally speaking, such visualizations operate through the Buddhist logic of emptiness: by facing objects which cause fear and other obscurations and employing one’s knowledge of the Buddhist teachings on the true nature of reality as fundamentally empty of both subject and object, one builds one’s capacity to release oneself from illusory appearances of self and other. Indeed, one’s mind—with its habit of seeing reality in terms of subject and object, self and other—is itself the obstruction, the obstructor and the obstructed. Through Chöd practice, the unenlightened standpoint that translates all experience into binary relationships of subject and object is replaced by insight into the interconnected relationship of all phenomena.

One Chöd method of eradicating self-grasping is an offering of one’s body to other sentient beings. One visualizes discriminating—or cutting—one’s body into pieces. One then transforms these pieces into an abundance of offerings that will satisfy the needs and desires of all other sentient beings. This exemplary act of the perfection of generosity (dānapāramitā; sbyin pa'i pha rol tu phyin pa) is an enactment of the fundamental philosophy of Chöd: the cutting through attachment to the self to achieve liberation from suffering. At its most fundamental level, Chöd provides an interpretation of Buddhist teachings on the persistence of suffering within the realm of saṃsāra contrasted with the possibility for awakening oneself to the ultimate nature of reality and thus being capable of liberating oneself and others from this cycle of suffering. In line with mainstream Buddhist theory, Chöd teachings correlate the conditions of suffering with the causes of fundamental ignorance and the subsequent habits of perpetuating a belief in an independent subjective self amidst a world of objective others. Chöd was first fully articulated by the female Tibetan philosopher-adept Machik Labdrön (Ma gcig labs kyi sgron ma, ca. 1055-1149).2 The Chöd praxis of Machik, grounded in the Mahāyāna Buddhist Prajñāpāramitā teachings, is directed toward cutting through ego-clinging and erroneous patterns of thinking. It was adopted by various monastic and lay lineages of Tibetan Buddhism and it also has a Bon corollary. The life story of Machik has been recounted in several different Tibetan biographies (rnam thar), including two complementary versions in The Explanation of Casting Off the Psycho-Physical Aggregates: Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd, often referred to as The Great Explanation and attributed to Machik (Phung po gzan skyur gyi rnam bshad gcod kyi don gsal byed, or the Rnam bshad chen mo), a version in The Blue Annals (Deb ther sngon po) by Gö Lotsawa Zhonnupel (‘Gos lo tswa ba Gzhon nu dpal), and a 2 Alternate Tibetan spellings of her name include “Ma cig,” “Ma gcig labs gron,” and “Ma gcig kyi lab sgron ma.” Dates that have been given include: b. 1031, 1049 or 1055; d. 1126, 1129, 1143 or 1149.

version in Dharmasenggé’s Zhijé and Chöd Dharma History (Zhi byed dang gcod yul gyi chos 'byung rin po che'i phreng ba thar pa'i rgyan). According to these sources, Machik was born in a village called “Tshomer” (“Mtsho mer”) situated in lower Tamshö (Tam shod) in E Gangwa (E’i Gang ba) of the Labchi (Labs phyi) region.3 Her father, Chökyi Dawa (Chos kyi zla ba), was the chief of Tshomer village; her mother, Lungmo Bumcam (Klungs mo ‘Bum lcam), gave birth to two other children: a son, Lotsawa Kheugang Korlodrag (Lo tsa tswa ba Khe’u gang ‘Khor lo grags) and a daughter, Bumé (Bu med). Machik took an early interest in Buddhist teachings and became a student of Drapa Ngonshé (Grwa pa Mngon shes, 1012-1090). She would prove an able reader of the Prajñāpāramitāsūtra texts and would provide this service to lay persons on behalf of her teacher. Drapa Ngonshé eventually advised her to study with Kyotön Sonam Lama (Skyo ston Bsod nams Bla ma), from whom she received an initiation for the teaching named the “Cycle of Māyā” (“phyir ‘khor ba’i l lam du sgyu ‘phrul”). Following an encounter with a peripatetic Indian yogi known as Töpa Baré (Thod pa ‘Ba’ re), she became his partner and bore three sons—Nyingpo Drubpa (Snying po Grub pa), Drubchung (Grub chung) and Yangdrub (Yang grub)—and two daughters—Kongcham (Kong lcam) and Lacham (La lcam).4 Later in her adult life, Machik returned to dressing as a spiritual practitioner with a shaved head and travelling to receive teachings. She eventually settled in a cave at Zangri Khangmar (Zangs ri Khang dmar), where a community formed around her.

Machik’s principal male disciples included Gyalwa Dondrub (Rgyal ba Don grub, also known as Rgyal ba Grub che), who would become a principal lineage holder of her teachings. 3 Alternatively, Gye’i Labs and Khe’u Gang, in the eastern part of the Yar klungs valley. 4 Other sources, such as the Rnam bshad chen mo, suggest that she had only two sons, Grub pa and Kong po Khyab, and one daughter, Drub Chung ma.

His grandson was Tönyon Samdrub (Thod smyon Bsam grub), known as the “snowman (gangs pa) residing on Sham po gangs”; the tradition of black-hat-wearing Chöd practitioners known as “Gangs pa” originated with him. A second student, Khugom Chökyisenggé (Khu sgom Chos kyi seng ge), would also become renowned for his transmission of Chöd teachings. According to several traditional sources, at some point fairly early in her career Machik met and received teachings from the Indian yogi Padampa Sangyé (Pha Dam pa Sangs rgyas, d. 1117), the well-known teacher of Zhijé, a Buddhist tradition of teachings focused on the pacification of suffering. It has become standard to attribute the transmission of the Chöd lineage from Dampa to Machik, although there is little material evidence that such a transmission took place. Frequently invoked in support of this argument is a prose work by Āryadeva the Brahmin, Dampa’s maternal uncle, The Great Poem on the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa tshigs su bcad pa chen mo or the Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa man ngag), and considered to be a “root text” (gzhung rtsa) for several Chöd lineages that would develop later. Alternate versions of the Chöd transmission history suggest that the teachings were passed from Dampa to Machik’s teacher, Sönam Lama, and then to her. However, such claims are at odds with another traditional claim, namely that Machik’s system of Chöd was the only Buddhist teaching transmitted from Tibet to India, rather than from India to Tibet.

Extant texts that are traditionally directly associated with Machik include The Great Speech Chapter, the textual tradition of the oral instructions of the profound Chöd of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa zab mo gcod kyi man ngag gi gzhung bka’ tshoms chen mo, or the Bka’ tshoms chen mo), The Supplementary Chapter of Oral Instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag yang tshoms zhus lan ma, or the Yang tshoms), The Quintessential Chapter of the Chöd System of Negative Forces, The

Instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag [s]nying tshoms chos kyi rtsa ba, or the Snying tshoms), The Common Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong gi le lag brgyad), The Uncommon Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong ma yin pa’i le’u lag brgyad pa), and The Distinctive Eightfold Supplementary Section (Khyad par gyi le lag brgyad pa). Of these, The Great Speech Chapter is the only one that can presently be historically situated through the existence of an annotated outline and a commentary ascribed to the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorjé (Rang byung rdo rje). In Rangjung Dorjé’s Commentary on the Great Speech Chapter (Bka’ tshoms chen mo tikka), he mentions texts by Machik which may no longer be extant, including the Gnad thems, Khong rgol, Gsang ba’i brda’ chos, as well as a Nang ngo sprod. Rdza rong bla ma also mentions the Gnad thems, Gsang ba’i brda’ chos and Nang ngo sprod, adding the Gzhi lam slong in his study entitled Gcod yul nyon mongs zhi byed kyi bka’ gter bla ma brgyud pa’i ram thar byin rlabs gter mtsho.

‘Phreng bo gter ston Shes rab ‘od zer (1517-1584) classified Chöd as one of the “Eight Great Chariots, Lineages of Spiritual Accomplishment” (sgrub brgyud shing rta chen po brgyad), independent transmissions that have historically flourished in Tibet.5 This classification was later picked up by Jamgön Kongtrül (‘Jam mgon kong sprul lo gros mtha’ yas, 1813-1899) and provided a guiding principle for his Treasury of Instructions. Unlike several of the others, most notably the tenet systems (chos lugs) of Nyingma (Rnying ma), Kagyü (Bka’ brgyud), Sakya (Sa skya), and Kadam (Bka’ gdams), Chöd did not retain its independent status. It is often claimed that Chöd is found in all four of the dominant tenet systems, i.e. the Geluk, Sakya, 5 (1) Nyingma (sna 'gyur rnying ma); (2) Kadam (bka' gdams); (3) Kagyü (bka' brgyud); (4) Shangpa Kagyü (zhangs pa bka' brgyud); (5) Sakya (sa skya); (6) Chö and Zhijé (Chöd and zhi byed); (7) Kalachakra (dus 'khor or sbyor drug); and (8) Orgyen Nyendrub (o rgyan bsnyen sgrub). This taxonomy bears similarities to classifications by ‘Gos lo tsa ba and Dpa’ bo gtsug lag. Marc-Henri Deroche, a student of Matthew Kapstein, is working on a dissertation on Phreng bo gter ston and has not found a source earlier than Phreng bo gter ston (Kapstein, personal communication October 2007; see also Kapstein 1996, 277).

Nyingma and Kagyü; however, unless one wants to draw parallels between Sakya Ku sa li’i tshogs bsags practice and the Chöd offering of the aggregates, there is little evidence of Chöd praxis in the Sakya tradition.6 Chöd may not have survived as an independent tradition because it never developed an institutional apparatus; rather, it became assimilated into the prevailing tenet systems. One could argue that the development of an institutional apparatus is anathema to the internal logic of Chöd, which, like other yoga or practice traditions, does not lend itself to regimented organization. Yet Chöd does have a kind of independent status when one considers the existence of Chödpas—practitioners of Chöd—for whom Chöd is their principal practice.

SCHOLARSHIP ON CHÖD

Scholarship on Chöd in the West has ranged from early sensationalist descriptions that emphasize the “exotic” aspects of Chöd to contemporary interpretations that discuss the praxis of Chöd as a uniform tradition. Western scholarship in general has not been adequately attentive to the historical and cultural contexts of the emergence and development of Chöd. Recently, Chöd has been interpreted through the lenses of Bön and/or “shamanism,” precluding study of the explicit relationship between the teachings of Machik and traditional Buddhist teachings. My study aims to address the Buddhist foundations, transmissions and developments of Chöd that have been largely neglected in Chöd scholarship.

6 For example, Sarah Harding writes, “Chöd is practiced widely in one form or another in all sects of Tibetan Buddhism as well as in the Bon tradition” (Ma gcig lab sgron 2003, 47). Others make similar remarks; see Gyatso 1985, 337; Edou 1996, 53; Kapstein 1996, 279. Rossi-Filibeck, although remarking that “[t]he doctrine of Chöd was received, even if with adequate adaptations, by the other schools of Buddhism,” has a more nuanced perspective which does not substantiate the existence of Chöd in Sakya: “[t]he Chöd teaching (man ngags precepts and ñams len practice) was accepted by the bKa’ brgyud pa, by the Karma pa, a branch of the same school, by the Jo nang pa, by the Śaṅs pa and by some rÑyiṅ ma pa traditions not only, standing by the authority of the source, by the same dGe lugs pa” (1983, 47; 48). Erberto Lo Bue suggests that because there is no transmission of Gcod yul in the Sakya tradition, Gzhon nu dpal gives Ma gcig zha ma—also a student of Padampa Sangyé—less attention than Machik Labdrön in the Deb ther snon po (1994, 482).

Although the 18th and 19th centuries were a time of increased Tibetan interest in Chöd, with texts being recovered, authored and edited, Europeans and North Americans did not begin to write on Chöd until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Early sensational representations of Chöd as a morbid Tibetan Buddhist ritual were included in foreign ethnographic travel narratives of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; such representations continue to influence the way that Chöd is considered to the present day. Perhaps the earliest reference to Chöd in a Western source is in an 1863 text, Buddhism in Tibet, by Emil Schlaginweit (162-63). Lawrence Austine Waddell also briefly mentions Chöd in his The Buddhism in Tibet, or Lamaism, first published in 1895 (74). A lengthier first-hand description of a Chöd practice is provided by Alexandra David-Neel in her 1929 writing, Mystiques et magiciens du Tibet; however, like the previously mentioned Western authors, David-Neel represents Chöd as a sensational and

macabre “Mystery” performance (1993, 148-166).7 In the early 20th century, English-reading audiences were exposed to the details of one particular form of Chöd practice attributed to the Nyingma scholar, Longchenpa (Klong chen Rab ‘byams pa, 1308-1363). This teaching was recovered by Jigmé Lingpa (‘Jigs med gling pa, 1729/30-1798) and was translated and published in 1935 by Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup.8 Dawa-Samdup was a Sikkimese translator for the British government and a teacher of and translator for David-Neel. This was the first Chöd practice text that was widely available in the English language.9 The first Western author to characterize 7 David-Neel’s volume includes photographs of a body being cut up and of an unidentified Chöd practitioner, reminiscent of Harding’s inclusion of a photo of an unidentified Chöd practitioner (2003) and a more recent image of a Bon practitioner used for the cover of Alejandro Chaoul’s text (2009). The reader of her text is left with a crude impression of Chöd extracted from any meaningful context.

8 Ye shes mkha’ ‘gro ma, by Kun mkhyen ‘Jigs med gling pa, translated by Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup and included Evans-Wentz, 1958 (1935), 276-341. See also Hermann-Pfandt 1990, which contains a discussion of the Chöd Ye shes mkha’‘gro ma practice composed by Kun mkhyen ‘Jigs med gling pa and translated by Lama Kazi Dawa- Samdup in Evans-Wentz.

9 More recent translations of ritual texts and commentaries on Chöd practice include: Phabongkha bde chen snying9 Chöd as a form of “shamanism” was the comparative religion theorist, Mircea Eliade, in his book Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (1964). Unlike David-Neel, Eliade had not done ethnographic field study of Chöd; however, his description of Chöd as a shamanic practice has remained popular. Fokke Sierksma, in Tibet's Terrifying Deities: Sex and aggression in religious acculturation (1966), classifies Chöd as “shamanism” and “mysticism.” The influence of these early texts is felt in misinterpretations of practices central to the Chöd tradition. As I mentioned above, one genre of Chöd teachings employs the practitioner’s cherishing of her own body as the most fundamental source of subject/object perception and thus existential attachment. Various Chöd instructions in this genre feature a visualization method of offering one’s body to other sentient beings (lus sbyin). Unfortunately, it is common for secondary sources on Chöd to interpret these methods erroneously. For example, in Geoffrey Samuel’s translation of Giuseppe Tucci’s The Religions of Tibet: “If a fear-inspiring phantom arises, there is no point in avoiding it; one must look it boldly straight in the eye, and indeed look through the meditation on non-existence at both the object causing fear and also the subject experiencing fear, and the fear itself. The meditation is particularly strengthened by the offering of one’s own bo

dy as food or plunder to fear appearing or manifesting itself in demonic form” (1988, 90).

As with much Western commentary on Chöd, this interpretation mistakenly asserts that fear is the essential affliction to be confronted.10 According to the Chöd texts attributed to po, Chod: Cutting Off the Truly Existent “I,” trans. Lama Thupten Zopa Rinpoche (London: Wisdom, 1984); Anila Rinchen Palmo, Cutting Through Ego-Clinging (Montignac: Dzambala, 1987); trans. Sarah Harding; Throma Nagmo: A Practice Cycle for Realization of the Wrathful Black Dakini, A Treasure of Dudjom Lingpa (Junction City, California: Padma, 1990); Jamgön Kongtrül, The Garden of All Joy, trans. Lama Lodo Rinpoche (San Francisco: Kagyu Drodon Kunchab, 1994); Kalu Rinpoche, “Chod,” in Secret Buddhism: Vajrayana Practices, trans. Francois Jacquemart and Christiane Buchet (San Francisco: Clear Point, 1995), 141-164; and Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (which has a discussion of “Kusali Chöd”), trans. Padmakara Translation Group (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1994).

Machik, the practitioner confronts the obstructions, obscurations, and suffering produced by one’s own mind. Many texts also make the error of equating the obstacles to be confronted, usually called “Düd” (bdud) in Chöd texts, with “demons.” In the texts included in my study, I have translated “bdud” as “Negative Force” in order to remind the reader of Machik’s fundamental position that these forces are products of the practitioner’s own discriminative thinking. Although the practice of visualizing the offering of one’s body to illusory beings has become an oft-cited characteristic of Chöd (to the point of being identified with it in some cases), it is often overlooked that many versions of this offering feature a variety of recipients to whom one is beholden in positive or in negative relationships, from the three jewels to one’s karmic creditors. In chapters four and five, I provide an analysis of these practices that aims to correct such misinterpretations.

Western scholars’ interest in Chöd was revived in the late twentieth century. Janet Gyatso published an important study in 1985, “The Development of the gCod Tradition,” which describes various source texts and contributes a preliminary historicization of Chöd. Several other Western scholars have also recently provided access to important Chöd texts. For example, Giacomella Orofino has been engaged in the study of Chöd since the mid-eighties and has published several Italian translations of Chöd texts, including Contributo allo studio dell’insegnamento di Ma gcig lab sgron (1987) and Ma gcig: Canti Spirituali (1995), as well as an abridged English-language translation of The Great Speech Chapter (Bka’ tshoms chen mo) in “The Great Wisdom Mother and the Chöd Tradition” (2000). Michael Azzato wrote an extensive MA thesis on Buddhist Chöd in 1981, including a translation of a biography of Machik (Ma cig gi rnam thar mdzad pa lnga pa by Gshongs chen Ri khrod pa), as well as a translation of 10 More recently, there has been an interest in theorizing the psychology of Chöd with an emphasis on the role of fear by authors such as Michael R. Sheehy (2005), who has written on the “contemplative dynamics” of Chöd, Tsultrim Allione (2008), and in the teachings of Pema Chodron.

The Great Speech Chapter. Carol D. Savvas’ 1990 dissertation contains translations of several Chöd texts from the Geluk lineage. Elena de Rossi-Filibeck (1983) also considers Chöd in a Geluk context in her study of the Second Dalai Lama’s account of the transmission lineage. In Der Schmuck der Befreiung’: Die Geschichte der Zhi byed-und Gcod-Schule des tibetischen Buddhismus, Karénina Kollmar-Paulenz provides a German translation of the Tibetan language Zhijé and Chöd History (Zhi byed dang gcod chos byung) by the 19th century Nyingma scholar Dharmasengé; she supplements this translation with an annotated bibliography of Tibetan sources on both Zhijé and Chöd lineages.

While this scholarship has enriched the study of Chöd by making more primary sources available in western langages, many of these works revisit the same territory. There is still a vast quantity of indigenous materials available on Buddhist Chöd that has not been critically translated. Many of the works that have been made available in European languages have not been either adequately studied or critically examined. An example of the latter is the first complete English language translation of what is considered a central collection of teachings attributed to Machik, the Phung po gzan skyur gyi rnam bshad gcod kyi don gsal byed, commonly referred to as the Rnam bshad chen mo, or The Great Explanation, by Sarah Harding, entitled Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd: A Complete Explanation of Casting Out the Body as Food by (2003). Unfortunately, Harding’s presentation is not complemented by sufficient historical contextualization nor by critical examination of the philosophical and practical content and the literary genres that are represented in the ten chapters.11

11 For my review of this edition, see Sorensen 2006.

A weakness endemic to the majority of Chöd studies, both Tibetan and Western, is what might be considered hermeneutic anachronism: there is scant attention paid to the temporality of sources and their relation to one another in time and cultural context. A related weakness is the uncritical reliance on 19th-century texts such as Dharmasengé’s Zhijé and Chöd History and Jamgön Kongtrül’s volumes for the historical, cultural and philosophical accounting of 12th- century events and developments. Not only has the reliance on these texts perpetuated errors in the identification of key figures and timelines of important events and teachings, but the biases of these projects—leading to generalizations about figures, transmissions, and teachings—have not been critically considered.12

To counter this tendency to hermeneutic anachronism, my work aims to provide a muchneeded historicization of the Chöd tradition. The majority of texts discussing the praxis of Tibetan Buddhist Chöd, as well as Bön Chöd, have generalized over the problem of the transmission and evolution of Chöd in the Tibetan cultural sphere.13 Chöd is presently taught to groups of various sizes in Tibet, India, Europe, and the Americas. It is often the case that teachers are transmitting a teaching—usually based in a practice text—as they have received it; rarely have teachers or students engaged in the critical and comparative study of the variations of Chöd. In my experience, teachers and practitioners alike often resort to ahistorical

generalizations of Chöd and its transmission histories, thus neglecting issues of the sources of the 12 On a related note, Gene Smith suggests that Jamgön Kongtrül utilized the gzhan stong doctrine as “the mortar that held his eclectic structure together” (2001b, 237). In his discussion of the place of the Shes bya mdzod in the context of nonsectarian thought, Smith observes: “As the relationship between Mkhen brtse and Kong sprul matured, their conception of the implications of the nonsectarian movement for the various traditions of Tibetan religious life changed. They stretched the bounds of eclectic thinking, integrating both structured bodies of doctrine and fragile lineages of oral transmission. Their innovation called into question the extent to which the synthetic effort may efface the very traditions it seeks to preserve” (2001b, 237). 13 This is also the case with discussions of Bon Chöd, which are becoming more prevalent, but demonstrate problems of ahistoricity in their analyses, even though particular texts are used as authoritative sources. See, for example, Jones 1998 and Chaoul 2009.

discrete transmissions, their location in time, their development and the ways in which they reflect textual sources.14

Examples of this ahistoricism may be drawn from two recently published texts. The first is a 2006 publication of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche’s teachings on Chöd in the Ganden (dga’ ldan) tradition of the Gelukpa school. This text does distinguish the particular Chöd lineage that it follows, as well as its origination with Je Tsongkhapa (Rje Tsong kha pa Blo bzang Grags pa); however, other than a biography of Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, it provides little historical discussion of the tradition. David Molk, the editor of Zong Rinpoche’s text, writes that “[f]rom Khedrup Chöje (also known as Khedrub Chenpo Zhönu Drub), Je Tsongkhapa received the Chöd lineages that can be traced back through Machig Labdrön and Padampa Sangyé to Buddha Shakyamuni. Je Tsongkhapa also received teachings on Chöd directly from Manjushri. This visionary lineage is known as the Ganden Oral Lineage of Chöd. A ‘Dakini’ oral lineage is also practiced in Gelug. Je Tsongkhapa passed the Chöd [sic] to only one of his disciples, Togden Jampel Gyatso, who was the principal holder of his Tantric Mahamudra lineage as well” (2006, 28). This discussion of “the Chöd” suggests that the Ganden tradition is the preeminent, or even singular, transmission of Chöd.15 Unfortunately, such obscuration of Chöd’s history is common to many such practice texts.

14 These are often organized teachings that are fee-based and may or may not require any evidence of a student’s previous familiarity with Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism or Vajrayāna philosophy. I am not denying that Chöd also continues to be transmitted in much more intimate and delimited scenarios, such as within families, but from my field research, it appears to be the case that the atemporal and alocalization of even these type of transmissions is still a common situation. Of course, given the practice-oriented nature of many of these transmissions, it may be argued that such information would be more obfuscatory than enlightening.

15 Jeffrey Cupchik (2009) has recently completed a study of Ganden (Gelukpa) Chöd practices from a primarily ethnomusicological standpoint, positing that there is a correspondence between songs (mgur) and practice texts (sgrub thabs; sādhana), and between the musical performances and text-based visualizations. Based on his readings of formal ritual texts (and not the actual songs of Machik or other Chöd practitioners), Cupchik argues that earlier impressions of such songs as spontaneous are undermined by this connection with practice texts. An early ethnomusicological study of Chöd was published by Ringjing Dorjé and Ter Ellingson (1979).

A similar problem occurs in a Chöd practice text by the fourteenth Karmapa, Thegchok Dorjé (1798/9-1868/9), with a commentary by Jamgön Kongtrül, considered to belong to the Kagyü lineage (particularly the Karma Kagyü), and translated by Lama Lodö Rinpoche. This text contains an oral biography of Machik Labdrön by Lodö Rinpoche that appears to be an abbreviated version of the biographies contained in The Great Explanation. Lodö Rinpoche remarks that “[t]he especially well-known, profound practice of Chöd was brought from India to Tibet by the great mahasiddha Dampa Sangye. This teaching flourished through the great wisdom dakini Machik Labkyi Drönma by the depth of her realization and compassion.