KTD 10-Day Teachings/Machik Labdron and the Practice of Severance (Chod)

The picture of Machik Labdron, above, is from an absolutely beautiful thangka that was won in a fundraising raffle (for the benefit of KTD) by one of our Western lamas.

I came to these teachings, a continuation of a teaching that was begun last year, for three reasons—first, because I am fascinated by the Tibetan woman Machik Labdron and her system of practice, chod or the severance of self-fixation; second, because the only relief I have ever experienced from being stuck in this bag of bones and flesh has come while writing or working with the tarot cards, and I think there must be some other way to overcome being stuck on “I”; third and finally, because as a Buddhist I have vowed to try to help all sentient beings, and so eventually being able to practice Machik’s system of severance on self-fixation may enable me to do this.

I have learned from my teachers—and it does seems to me to be true—that fixating on my own wants and desires is the source of numerous, all-pervasive problems. Severance offers the opportunity to cut through self-fixation once and for all, in order to benefit both the individual practitioner and, by extension, all sentient beings.

So I arrived in Woodstock and at KTD with a keen interest in getting further instruction from Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche on the text titled Machik’s Complete Explanation.

What I did not realize (and this falls into the category of things about which I can only say, DUH!) was that the teaching encompassed not only the reading transmission of the severance practice text, but also the full instructions on the practice itself! Rinpoche let this cat out of the bag in response to a question during the first couple of days of the teaching. My first clue about this should have come from the title of the text and the teaching—Machik’s COMPLETE Explanation—but for some reason, the idea that I would be receiving transmission and practice instructions went right over my head, probably because I have received these kinds of teachings in a different order in the past.

Usually I have taken an empowerment as part of a group and received the reading transmission (if it wasn’t done as part of the empowerment) and practice instructions later. So I asked Rinpoche if we weren’t getting the information backwards this time, and he explained that no, this is how practice instructions were usually given in Tibet—reading transmission and instructions first, and empowerment later. He explained that it’s fine to do things in this order, “as long as you plan to take the empowerment at a later date.”

So right away, my mind was blown; it got really blown apart a day or two later (see next post).

Here, in no particular order, are some gems from the teachings, things that I believe it’s okay to share:

-You include your parents in the practice of severance because they gave you the gift of your body. Your mind comes from your previous karma.

-The liturgy of the “Charity of the Body” (lu jin in Tibetan) was written by Machik herself. Note from A Word Witch (AWW): So when we hear the liturgy, or chant her words, we are really hearing her.

-Machik’s system begins with love (or lovingkindness, the wish for all beings to be happy) because “Love is like a pipe; compassion is the water that runs through the pipe.” (Compassion = the wish for beings to be free from suffering.)

-We are born with self-fixation, life after life. We mistake the absence of a self as the existence of a self. The seventh consciousness, which is the afflicted consciousness, mistakes the eighth or all-basis consciousness as a self. Note from AWW: So we are, in a sense, born trapped. This idea does not help my claustrophobia. L

-The idea that beings spend 49 days in the bardo (the in-between state between death and rebirth) is “a gross generalization.” For some beings, the time is shorter; for others, longer; and some beings don’t go into the bardo at all, but rather go straight to a pure realm or a hell realm.

-A highlight of the 10-day experience was watching some of the lamas who have gone through KTD’s three-year retreat perform the chod ritual, complete with mesmerizing drum and trumpet sounds and melodious chanting. Rinpoche encouraged us to pray to Machik throughout the ritual: “Great Mother, please grant me your blessings.” Note from AWW: I did as Rinpoche suggested, and felt that I had already received her blessings just by being there!

-Powa, or the transference of consciousness done at the time of death, was performed on animals (as well as people) in Tibet.

-Less effective: “May we get rid of swine flu.” More effective: “May everyone’s swine flu dissolve into me.”

-What we call death is simply the separation of body and mind. Note from AWW: Body rots. Mind doesn’t.

-There is no “near” or “far” with regard to the guru’s blessing. Blessings can be received anywhere, regardless of locality. Whenever anyone thinks of Buddha, Buddha is there—and the same applies to His Holiness Karmapa, Guru Rinpoche, and all other enlightened beings. People who hear statues speak (as is the case in Tibet; there are many stories) are those who are certain of the Buddha’s blessing; these sounds are not hallucinations. “Pray to those whose compassion is beyond near and far.”

-Someone asked a question about the relationship between taking pain medications at the time of death and doing the Buddhist practices that are usually performed at that time—good idea, or bad? Rinpoche said that if the medications help you to concentrate, they are okay; if they make you woozy, no.

-The very first question I ever asked Rinpoche, back in 1991, was related to my curiosity about whether some places were more conducive to meditation practice than others—so I was interested in hearing him say, in relation to a similar but not identical question, that the place of practice does not really matter for us as long as we are confident that the Buddhas and bodhisattvas are present. It’s good to think that “All wisdom dakas and dakinis are gathered in this place”; then your practice will flourish, and obstacles will be dispelled. When teachers have told students to go to certain places to meditate, it’s because the teachers have seen “through their wisdom vision” that the students have connections to those places that will help to ripen their dharmic development.

-Positive meditation experiences are not necessarily good. Negative meditation experiences are not necessarily bad.

Now, about the vultures…(see next post).

Who Is Machik Labdron, and Why Do I Care About Her? (Part Three)

Fast forward about another 20 years to the publication of Machik’s Complete Explanation, translated by Sarah Harding—the most complete account of Machik’s life and teachings that is available, at least that I’m aware of—and to the summer of 2008, when my own refuge lama, Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, began a series of teachings on that text.

I had wanted to get teachings about Machik’s life and practice for many years, so to be able to attend these seminars with my very own dharma teacher is a precious opportunity indeed. Like many Machik fans, I yearn to do chod—the practice she developed and taught—but even more important, at least to me, is the opportunity to learn about her life and to hear her words of wisdom voiced by Khenpo Karthar Rinpoche.

The spiritual autobiography of a Tibetan Buddhist teacher is called a namthar. Reading or listening to namthars has always been one of my favorite things, because a namthar is really a teaching in itself as well as a source of tremendous inspiration, both creatively and with regard to putting the dharma into practice. And according to Rinpoche, Machik’s Complete Explanation is not only her authoritative biography, but also the earliest source of her own teachings.

Last summer’s 10-day teachings at KTD featured Rinpoche concluding a teaching about Gampopa’s instructions to the assembly (his disciples and students), and beginning the teaching on Machik’s Complete Explanation. To signify the end of one set of teachings and the beginning of another, Rinpoche wore a large butterfly pin on his robes the day he started teaching about Machik Labdron.

Attending the 10-day teachings is a unique experience that offers students the opportunity to immerse themselves completely in the dharma, from listening to the teachings to spending time in dharma practice, meeting other students from throughout the country, volunteering to do some of the many tasks required to keep the center running, enjoying a vegetarian diet, and browsing and shopping in what may well be the best Buddhist bookstore in North America, Namse Bangdzo. (Yes, I was born to shop—primarily for books—and Namse Bangdzo is a kind of heaven for me.)

Some highlights from my notes from last year’s teachings: Machik Labdron had to be born as a woman in order to tame Tibet; “A man couldn’t have done it,” Rinpoche said.

Machik was an expert in triple voice modulation; she could read several lines of text at once. “Maybe only one person today can do this.”

Machik and Milarepa were contemporaries. There are no stories about the two of them meeting, but Rinpoche said it would have been possible.

There is not just one form of chod, in which the practitioner imagines feeding his or her own body to surrounding demons; there are many. The essence of chod practice is the cutting through of selfishness.

Thanks to the American teacher and writer Pema Chodron, many people here in the West have learned about the practice of tonglen, sometimes called “sending and taking,” during which we work with our breath to transform negativity into positive energy.

“Tonglen is imaginary,” Rinpoche said at one point. “Chod is real.” In response to a question, Rinpoche said that for accomplished practitioners, this is actually true—the more harm that demons cause, the happier the chod practitioner becomes, because the ground for practice becomes more fertile.

The greatest demon or mara (obstruction to enlightenment) is fixation on the self. To cut through fixation—“That is the dharma system of this beggar woman,” Machik Labdron.

The longer I am around the dharma, the more it becomes obvious to me that in order to really practice for the benefit of sentient beings, the more one has to give up attachments to hopes, fears, and personal rewards—even to the point of giving up ideas about “I, Me, Mine,” as my favorite Beatle, George Harrison, sang all those years ago.

Giving up attachment to self, giving up hope and fear, giving up everything we have been taught to hold dear—giving it all up in a supreme act of generosity for the benefit of other sentient beings—that is what Machik Labdron and her teachings are all about; that is who she is, and why I care about her.