Chod Practice in the Bon Tradition

This book is the first to trace the history of Chod practice in Tibet's indigenous Bon tradition. Chod (cutting through) is a meditative practice in which the practitioner imagines offering his or her body in sacrifice through elaborate contemplative visualization. Although a meditative practice, Chod is not done sitting comfortably on a cushion in a shrine room, but instead is often practiced in terrifying places like cemeteries or charnal grounds. The feelings of fear that result are used by the Chod practitioner to cut through his or her own ego. Chod contains elements of early shamanism, of sutric and tantric teachings also found in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, and of the Tibetan highest school of Dzogchen.