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by Alejandro Chaoul, foreword by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

The practice of Chöd, an ancient approach that uses our fears as a catapult toward enlightenment, appears across a wide spectrum of Tibetan methodology. This excerpt is adapted from Chod Practice in the Bon Tradition by Alejandro Chaoul.

Chöd is a meditative practice that is not performed while sitting quietly and comfortably on a cushion inside a shrine room, but instead is purposely practiced in frightening places, such as cemeteries and charnel grounds. This brings a feeling of fear that is then used by the chöpa (gcod pa, chod practitioner) to cut his or her own ego.

Singing, dancing, and playing special bone instruments, the chod practitioner visualizes the dismemberment, cooking, and finally the offering of his own body as part of a banquet for an assembly of enlightened and unenlightened beings, such as protectors and all kinds of sentient beings. Even demons and spirits are invited and fed! In this energetic and physically active practice, the chopa's attire and implements add to the way the practice is internalized by the practitioner. Traditionally, the chopa is dressed in animal skins and uses real bone instruments, animal and human, such as the thighbone trumpet (rkang gling).

Once the chopa is well trained in a peaceful site, he is ready to perform the practice in a terrifying environment. The "mystic drama, performed by a single human actor, assisted by numerous spiritual beings, visualized, or imagined, as being present in response to his magic invocation," then begins. Blowing the thighbone trumpet, he calls all the spirits to invite them to the feast, and with the aid of the drum and bell, the chöpa abides in the state of the nonduality of emptiness and appearance. In this meditative state, he expels his consciousness from his body, the consciousness becoming a deity, usually a female one (Tib. mkha' 'gro, Skt. dakini) and the body a corpse from which the guests will feast. The deity severs the cranium and then chops the corpse in pieces, placing the flesh, blood, and bones inside the cranium, which becomes a cauldron. With a low fire, the flesh, blood, and bones become nectar which satisfies all the desires of the enlightened and nonenlightened guests.

Thangka of the Secret Mother Tantra

These offerings are endless in that they suffice no matter how many guests come or how big their appetite is, and are infinite in that they transform into whatever the guests desire. At the end, the chöpa feels that all the desires of every guest have been thoroughly satisfied, in both quantity and quality, and that everything one has to offer has been given: "psychic liberation is fused with ethical indebtedness." In other words, the chöpa seeks not just self-liberation, but to liberate all sentient beings (i.e., the altruistic bodhichitta intent).

This highly sensorial practice is based on religious texts that are found mostly in the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Bön traditions of Tibet, yet Western scholars have largely overlooked this practice. Interestingly, even among Tibetans its status is ambiguous. On one hand, many chöpas can be seen along the market streets or pilgrimage roads performing this ritual to get some money, and yet on the other hand, it is not a widely taught or "mainstream" practice. Ngakpas (and some monks too, but fewer) also perform chöd when on pilgrimage, both as a way to dispel obstacles along their journey and earn some money. Tibetans, attracted by the melody and knowing about the ritual, will give a few coins to the chöpas, in much the same way as passersby donate money to artistic street-performers in Euro-American countries. Many times the ritual is performed to cure illnesses, stop hailstorms, and so forth, in the belief that, as Snellgrove writes, "enemies, adverse influences and hindrances are released as the circle of offerings" becomes purified. The famous Blue Annals has accounts of chöpas who cured lepers, created or stopped storms, and healed their own illnesses such as tuberculosis, and it even reports that "many who were blind and deaf were cured on the spot."

Alejandro Chaoul