Machik's Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod

by Machik Labdron

This book is the most famous book of teachings of Machik Labdron, the great female saint and yogini of 11 and 12th century Tibet, now finally translated in its entirely into English.

Genres: Buddhism, Philosophy, Spirituality

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 9, 2003

Reviews

[TL · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Machik answered, "Alas, good people, men and women, listen! The times of the corruption of state law will also be the occasion for the deterioration in religious law. At one point the religious ethics will shine even more than now [because of] one monk who will keep the Buddha's doctrine properly. But the doctrine's fall into obscurity will not be stayed for long, [but it will be] like a rainbow fading in the sky. Then nothing will have the power to do anything for the doctrine until its demise. The cultivation of Dharma will become mere debate over dry words that have been overheard. It will become the basis of conflict. It will be a time of fixation on mere signs."'

'"[This] is how some teachers will act[:] Sublime speech like flawless chimes will ring from their mouths, but in their minds a bonfire of lust and craving blazes, while all along they wear the uniform of the discipline (vinaya) on their bodies. Sometimes they will become lay generals. Sometimes they will be monk generals. Sometimes they will make up the legions of lay officers. Sometimes they will be spiritual masters. Sometimes they will be the masters of ceremonies of a monastery. Sometimes they will be the executors of paternal heritage. Sometimes they will be guides of the dead. Sometimes they will do ceremonies for the sick. Sometimes they will be defendants of a lawsuit. Sometimes they will be spirit chasers in village rituals. Sometimes they will be supervisors of field workers. Sometimes they will be in charge of merchants' goods. Sometimes they will be master thieves. Sometimes they will boast of their fraudulent dharma of miracles. Sometimes they will appear to be accomplished by quoting scripture. Sometimes the highest great vehicle of Mantra will be sold to lay men and women for food and wealth. They will want to donate food and wealth since they desire gain. Making some small attempt to recite mantras and make tormas, they will kill enemies with big magic. Thinking of defeating demonic spirits, they will be bloated with pride. These are signs of the declining religious laws, noble ones!

At that time, the behavior of monastics will be like this: They will promise before their abbot-masters to uphold the vows of discipline, such as those concerning attire and so on, and thus become ordained. And indeed they will bear the evidence of their renunciant status. If you check their bodies, they will have the form of renunciant (rab byung). But if you check their minds, they are like madmen. If you check their behavior, then they are ordinary laypeople. If you check their deeds, they are just like bandits. Some of these imitations of yellow-robed monks will not be very monkish in their body, speech, and mind, even killing and so on, because of indulging in the intoxication of alcohol, the root of [all other] faults. Religious behavior of a virtuous nature will be abandoned, and they will vie for recognition and respect.

They will exert themselves in worldly pursuits of hoarding wealth and livestock, taking on the work of plowing the fields and so on, or marketing, loan-sharking, and money-changing. They will wear scarves and beautiful jewelry, sing and dance, and pursue all kinds of fun. They will fling the Three Jewels far behind their backs. Their hidden agenda will be their attachment to the commodities of food and wealth. They'll use deceitful methods to cheat people. Their spiritual masters and friends will be left far behind.

They won't remain in the monastery for the prescribed retreat period but slink around local towns like stray dogs. They will adore the householders about whom they harbor great expectations, and hasten to help the hordes of relatives. Rejecting their dharma friends who strove for virtue, they will feel that the solution is the connection with householders. Abandoning the care of their old parents, they will devote themselves to slaving away for their girlfriends. They'll wear armor over their yellow robes, carry sharp weapons, and run with the army...Feeling immortal, they'll fling themselves into mundane pursuits without regard for life or limb, and they won't recall for even a moment that this life will end...They will wear householders' clothes on their bodies. They'll talk dirty when they see a woman. They'll sidestep when they see a learned cleric. They'll be happy when they see vows transgressed. They'll get irritated when they see a mother or sister. They'll smile and flirt when they see another beautiful woman."'

'"Alas! In that age and at that time, the Buddha's teaching will fade like the rays of the setting sun. The devil of perverse behavior will rise up like the mist in summer. Pure discipline will be as rare as flowers in the dead of winter. Depraved discipline will be more plentiful than insects in spring. Saints who sincerely practice the holy Dharma will be even more rate than stars in the daytime. People who sell the holy Dharma and cultivate commodities will be more numerous than stars on a clear night. Holy bodhisattvas that can truly give out [their own happiness] and take on [others' suffering] will be as rare as wish-fulfilling jewels in the borderlands. People who think of helping others in order to benefit themselves will be more plentiful than the pebbles of Gung Thang in Mang Yul."'


'"Now I will explain how it is with our own dharma tradition, so pay attention. My dharma system does not even have one-hundredth of a hair's worth of self-serving concern—it is not stained by any such idea. And though it does not have the concern to serve others, it does not have even one-hundredth of a hair's worth of partiality. Nevertheless, powerful, hostile (gdug pa can), frightening, savage spirits, both embodied and unembodied, can cause harm at some point to many sentient beings. [Not only that], the hostile spirits themselves have a very difficult time escaping the reaches of cyclic existence. I cannot bear to see their suffering. So I have made the powerful hostile spirits my particular focus. Sending out the messengers of love, compassion, and bodhicitta, I draw in those powerful spirits. Then I give the spirits and their retinues my own body, life, wealth, and whatever is in my domain, so that they are completely satisfied, and I lead them to the stages and paths of enlightenment. That is the dharma system of this beggar woman...

This current dharma tradition will get all mixed up in the future with the behavior of the degenerate times. The separate, independent traditions of sūtra and mantra in union with sūtra parāmitā will become corrupted and mixed with each other. The meaning of the esoteric instruction will be discarded and you won't find anything there to practice, any more than in dog vomit. Idiotic Chöd practitioners will be even dumber than people feeling around in the darkness for something lost. This current dharma tradition will be perverted into its opposite, and the achievements of boundless nonvirtue will occur. My customs will all change into their opposites.

The threefold life force of my dharma tradition is love, compassion, and the awakening mind. The opposite of that will be to constantly be accompanied by ill will and hatred. The primary focus of my altruism is nonhuman, hostile beings. The opposite of my cherishing and taming of them will be to target them for exorcism and oppression.

Now in my system, we abandon human busyness and stay in a palatial power place where nonhumans gather in empty valleys or charnel grounds as sacred places that enhance the practice of virtue. The opposite of that will be to stay among the nomad camps and crowded villages where there is great human commotion, or in places of epidemic and disease, in order to harm others. Now we give up self-fixation and give away our body and life without attachment. The opposite of that will be bondage to self-fixation and a fixation with cherishing and adorning one's body and life. Now we wear cotton and felt coats and felt boots. The opposite of that will be to wear predator skins, and especially dog-skin coats, leather shoes, and black yak-hair. Now we carry begging bowls of quintessential cow's horn and unimpaired thighbones from instruments. The opposite of that will be begging bowls of human heads and thighbones made of black yak horn to blow. Hurting others with all kinds of paraphernalia along with their body, speech, and mind, some will believe themselves to be Chöd practitioners. Not only will they lack a whiff of my dharma system, their ears won't ever have even heard the teaching of Mahāyāna.'"

'"Again, those so-called Chöd practitioners who will destroy my teaching will gather in the end and create these styles, arising in manifold ways: They will have human bodies with minds of death lords. They will live in cemetery corpse parks eating the flesh of dogs, horses, and humans and even drinking their blood. They will wrap themselves in human and dog skins and wear the head skins of savage predators on their heads to frighten others. They will exhibit a terrifying spectacle by wearing hairy human scalps on their feet. They will hang pieces of human feet and heads on their bodies and wear garlands made of human hearts around their necks. With horse hides erected above them as tents, they'll sit upon seats of various corpse clothes, rejecting the food and clothing of worldly people, and living always on the outskirts of no-one's land. When they see monastics and other kinds of people, they'll shrink away and stay in the shadows. When they see carnivorous birds and other charnel ground animals, they'll be delighted and play with them. In their attire they will look like the messengers of death, with human bodies and cannibal minds. Like carnivorous jackals, they will constantly have malicious intent, hoping for the death of humans, horses, and dogs. They'll love eating flesh, drinking blood, and wearing skins. They'll engender the powers of death's executioners. They'll be surrounded by an entourage of smell-eating death lords...

Once in a while they will run to the country, and all the people will gather to see the sight. Dogs will gather and clamor around while women and cats will panic in terror. Then they'll talk on about the great renunciation of cutting through craving for worldly, human food and wealth and suppressing the eight worldly concerns. They will say that their apparel is the sign of an adept. They will claim to be great Chöd practitioners who are definitely my followers and practitioners of the sacred Mahāyāna Dharma. Disciples, those are the kinds of Chöd practitioners who will come in the final days of my doctrine.

Alas! There is no time to explain in this way and go on about the behaviors and styles of those future Chöd practitioners in my dharma system. If I say any more you'll get depressed or have a heart attack. Those Chöd practitioners who create unimaginably limitless bad karma and manifest dharma perversely practice the exact opposite of my dharma system. Desiring to obtain the little materialistic things of this life, they will become deranged with anger and muster all their strength and ferocity...Those mighty Chöd practitioners aren't fit to be included as insiders (Buddhists). They are outsiders, heretics. They are a class of Bön shamans, or just ordinary lay people...Among Buddhists, Chöd practitioners such as these are like shang shang birds among humans or bats among birds. These three are similar because they are cut off from their own species but are not of any other. Again, because these three have sinister bodies, they can afflict whoever encounters them with problems and defects. If you think about the karma of those kinds of Chöd practitioners, even if they became horrible, pitiless death lords, tears of blood will gush from your eyes...Alas, disciples, I have described here the Chöd practitioners that are to come.'"

'Machik said, "Listen, disciples. In the end, when those people pervert our dharma system, it will be as frightening as encountering charnel ground cannibals. At the very same time that my teaching is coming to a close, there will be just one person who clarifies the doctrine. He won't be able to do more than a flash of lightning does in the dark, but he will be able to hinder those who pervert the teaching. Especially, there will be those who possess the capability [to practice] excellent Chöd. Those people will [uphold] dharma practices of the unerring dharma system that equals our current system. They will thoroughly differentiate between the customs of pure and perverted dharma systems. Rejecting the perverted system, they will enter into the customs of the pure Dharma, reveal the Dharma of the treasures, and teach secretly.

An individual who can practice my dharma system as it is practiced now will bear the name Senge. That person will not be my incarnation, but he will be the great meditator Chökyi Senge who has received my blessing. Also, in the degenerate age, at the ultimate perversion of my dharma system, when the most extreme perversion is about to increase, this Chökyi Senge will turn his attention to my doctrine. He will come and reveal the mysteries of my dharma system.

The practices of my dharma system will have become mixed up, and individual practices will be combined and difficult to separate, like a concoction of milk and blood. Once the pollutants are separated out of the perverted dharma system, the perversion will be terminated, and the genuine dharma systems will be individually introduced. For example, with the dawn of the first light in the sky, the darkness gradually recedes until the full light of day when the sun rises. Likewise, in the degenerate age, Chökyi Senge will introduce the pure practices, and even the sound of perverse dharma will not be heard for fifty years. My dharma system as it is now will rise like the sun and moon in the pure sky and remain for 577 human years. You should know this and keep it in your minds, all you disciples."'

'Machik said: "Listen, girls. This dharma system of mine is not essentially different from others. There is nothing from the sūtras and tantras of the Buddha's own precepts, or the pure treatises and esoteric instructions of the learned, that I do not understand. So there is no dharma that is inconsistent with me, on an outer or inner level of meaning. But there are special words that are different than in my dharma system. Thus, since I did not rely on the words of any historical dharma of precepts and treatises, and because there is also no preaching of source texts, whatever I explain in my dharma system is uncorrupted...

The dharma system that I have actually taught does not contain even one actual word of classical precepts and treatises. Yet there is not even one-hundredth of one hair's worth of it that is inconsistent with the pure meaning of precept and treatise. Therefore, the system that I have actually taught is not a meditation on scripture. That is how to understand the special distinction of my dharma system from others, boys and girls."'

'Om svasti
This complete explanation of how to offer and give the body
And the liberation story of Machik Lapkyi Drönma,
The Great Mother in person, the dharmakāya, perfection of wisdom,
Was formed with pure and noble intention.
By this virtue may the doctrine of Chöd spread in all directions
Like the sun arising in the sky,
And may every single being who comes into contact with me
Quickly attain the citadel of the Great Mother, Machik.

Sarwa mangalam
Virtue!'


'The root devilry is one's own mind.
The devil lays hold through clinging and attachment
in the cognition of whatever objects appear.
Grasping mind as an object is corruption.'
[^ c.f. Heidegger's 'forgetting of Being']

'Not meditating on emptiness mentally
is definite liberation from the devil of nihilism.
The appearance of form cannot be stopped,
but without definite grasping it is lucid self-appearance.
Sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation,
mentation, and so forth are similarly released.'

'From the realm of phenomena's great expanse of clarity
any thoughts and memories whatsoever may arise.
For example, like the arising of waves and so on
from the unmoving ocean.
Thus a person with realization
rests on their own ground without altering it.
Help and harm do not occur, liberated in space.
Self-arising from the space of phenomena's nature,
jealous acts and acceptance and rejection do not apply
in self-occurring mind unengaged with acceptance or rejection.'

'Whatever qualities occur, whatever arises,
an attitude of nondual object and mind
does not grasp at those qualities [as the self].
As with objects in dreams,
engage without attachment to their nature.
Like the beauty produced by a lovely face,
self-occurrence adorns itself—
there is no cause for arrogance.'

'Samsara is liberated on its own ground;
do not seek nirvana apart from that.
Do not meditate purposefully on nonthought
apart from the arising of thought's own forms.'

'Everything is self-occurring mind,
so a meditator does not meditate.
Whatever self-arising sensations occur,
rest serene, clear, radiant.
Serene since the meaning is unchanging,
clear because of definite realization, and
radiant since liberation is on its own ground.
For example, it is like putting butter into butter.
The meditative stability of not meditating—
that is the supreme meditation.

One's conduct is spontaneously self-liberated.'

'The method of resting, the abiding nature of meditation,
is like a statue inside the shrine room:
it has good posture and smiles,
but no thought, and no manner of thinking.
So set one's body however is comfortable,
and with no thought, do no thinking.
No object of thought: that's exactly it!
Therefore, rest in the state of no-thought.
Don't cut off sensations and thought after the fact.
As lightning bolts revert to the sky,
when conceptual thought occurs, rest just so.
Like the depths of a great ocean,
rest within an unmoving state.
Circumstantial thoughts, like waves,
naturally become the realm of phenomena's nature.

Not to contrive or adulterate is the Victor's Word.'

'Don't you consider the enemy in a dream
as coming from yourself?
Even the spiritual powers of yidam deities
arise to the mind from the meditating mind...
there is no connection with others' objects, so they cannot harm.'

'Wander in haunted places and mountain retreats.
Don't be distracted by text; the words of texts
won't convey blessings, [but] carry word-brutes.
Better to practice in haunted places.'

[Stirling Davenport · Rating 5 out of 5]

This will take awhile - and I'll read it again and again.

[Thubten Palmo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly don't know how to review this because I think I'd need to know a lot more about the art of translation to have something insightful to say. Having said that, I get the sense that Sarah Harding puts an enormous amount of care into the decisions she makes in bringing these texts to English speakers. Reading this definitely enriched my chöd practice and filled in many details. I'm now beginning another of Harding's translated works, Creation and Completion