Chöd

[2] Also known as "cutting through the ego,"[3] the practices are based on the Prajñāpāramitā or "Perfection of Wisdom" sutras, which expound the "emptiness" concept of Buddhist philosophy.

The chod practitioner seeks to tap the power of fear through activities such as rituals set in graveyards, and visualisation of offering their bodies in a tantric feast in order to put their understanding of emptiness to the ultimate test.

Examples of demons are ignorance, anger and, in particular, the dualism of perceiving the self as inherently meaningful, contrary to the Buddhist doctrine of anatta (non-self).

"[5] According to Jamgön Kongtrül, chöd involves "accepting willingly what is undesirable, throwing oneself defiantly into unpleasant circumstances, realising that gods and demons are one’s own mind, and ruthlessly severing self-centered arrogance through an understanding of the sameness of self and others.

According to Machig Labdrön, the main goal of chöd is cutting through ego clinging:What we call devils are not materially existing individuals .

Here, the chöd ritual essentialises elements of phowa, gaṇacakra, pāramitā, lojong,[8] pure illusory body, mandala, brahmavihāra, luminous mind, and tonglen.

In saṃbhogakāya attained through visualization, the sādhaka offers a gaṇachakra of their own physical body to the "four" guests: the Three Jewels, dakinis, dharmapalas and beings of the bhavachakra, the ever-present lokapala and the pretas.

They are described in an evocation sung to Nyama Paldabum by Milarepa: External chod is to wander in fearful places where there are deities and demons.

[12] Sarat Chandra Das, writing at the turn of the 20th century, equated the chöd practitioner (Tibetan: གཅོད་པ, Wylie: gcod pa) with the Indian avadhūta, or "mad saint".

[13] Avadhūtas, called nyönpa in Tibetan Buddhism, are renowned for expressing their spiritual understanding through "crazy wisdom" inexplicable to ordinary people.

Chöd practitioners are a particularly respected type of mad saint, feared and/or held in awe due to their roles as denizens of the charnel ground.

The Chö[d]pa's very lifestyle on the fringe of society - dwelling in the solitude of burial grounds and haunted places, added to the mad behavior and contact with the world of darkness and mystery - was enough for credulous people to view the chödpa in a role usually attributed to shamans and other exorcists, an assimilation which also happened to medieval European shepherds.

Only someone who has visited one of Tibet's charnel fields and witnessed the offering of a corpse to the vultures may be able to understand the full impact of what the chöd tradition refers to as places that inspire terror.

In a version of the chöd sādhanā of Jigme Lingpa from the Longchen Nyingthig, five ritual knives are employed to demarcate the maṇḍala of the offering and to affix the five wisdoms.

[20] One namtar (spiritual biography) asserts that shortly after Kamalaśīla won his famous debate with Moheyan as to whether Tibet should adopt the "sudden" route to enlightenment or his "gradual" route, Kamalaśīla used the technique of phowa to transfer his mindstream to animate a corpse polluted with contagion in order to safely move the hazard it presented.

Hence they were also known as kusulu or kusulupa, that is, studying texts rarely whilst focusing on meditation and praxis: "The nonconventional attitude of living on the fringe of society kept the chödpas aloof from the wealthy monastic institutions and printing houses.

As a result, the original chöd texts and commentaries, often copied by hand, never enjoyed any wide circulation, and many have been lost forever.

"[22] Rangjung Dorje, 3rd Karmapa Lama, (1284–1339) was an important systematizer of chöd teachings and significantly assisted in their promulgation within the literary and practice lineages of the Kagyu, Nyingma, and particularly Dzogchen.

[23]Historicically, chöd was mostly practised outside the Tibetan monastery system by chödpas, who were yogis, yogiṇīs and ngagpas rather than bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs.

Anila Rinchen Palmo translated several essays about chöd in the 1987 collection Cutting Through Ego-Clinging: Commentary on the Practice of Tchod.