The structure of knowledge in the human realm is based on a sort of etiquette of discrimination, which constitutes conceptual mind. This conceptual mind gives rise to the belief in self and other as real. That belief emerges with us at birth. Through this etiquette of discrimination one idea of one perceived object is distinguished from another. There is a boundary which separates different ideas and the identification of different things. For instance, a body is identified as an individual object because it is separate from everything around it. The idea of our body is distinguished from other ideas because it is separate from ideas not related to it, ideas such as a table or chair. There is also a structure within which the object and ideas articulate. The structure is constructed on the basis of three principle overriding strictures that govern the architecture of the structure. They are time, space and solidity. Our body is located in a matrix that is constructed on the basis of time and space. It is experienced as solid. These three (time, space and solidity) are also the foundation of conceptual thought.

Beyond this architecture is what Jigme Lingpa calls the wild space of nowness of nonconceptuality. He often calls this wild space the void. This phrase evokes the memory of the first day of vacation and the clear lemon morning sky that promises a radiance of unknown possibilities. This characterization of emptiness awakens the most visceral response of any explanation of what is experienced beyond the strictures of the conceptual. Jigme Lingpa says:

There are four mistaken views of the void. It is a mistake to imagine that the Void is merely empty without seeing the wild space of nowness. It is a mistake to seek the Buddha Nature (Dharmakaya) in external sources without realizing that nowness knows no path or goal. It is a mistake to try to introduce some remedy for thought without realizing that thoughts are by nature void and that one can free oneself like a snake unwinding. It is also a mistake to hold a nihilistic view that there is nothing but the void, no cause and effect of karma and no meditator nor meditation, failing to experience the void which is beyond conceptions. [The Innermost Essence p.25]

Chod means cut. What is being cut is precisely the confused limitations that provide the foundations of the structure of conceptuality.

As was mentioned earlier in the book, the six realms can be pictured as a multiplex with six movies being shown to our consciousness at the same time. As members of the human realm, human beings have a ticket to the movie that is produced by conceptual mind. From the point of view of philosophical systems like Yogachara, the structure can be understood as created by habitual patterns (bijas) that produce the conceptual system. Chod enables meditators to transcend that system and to go to the other movies in the multiplex.

One of the ways this transcendence is experienced is the ability to connect to the beings in other realms, to go to some of the other movies. For instance, it becomes possible to transcend the boundary that makes it seem impossible, in principal, to join the mind of people who have died or to join the mind of animals. Initially, the experience of the demons that Chod practitioners call to the feasts are actually the meditators own kleshas. As members of the human realm, it is what is presented in our immediate consciousness that we encounter directly as the demons. The deep seated belief in the idea of solidity prevents us from extending our minds beyond that attachment. Chod cuts that belief and at the same time, the attachment to the reality of the ideas of time and space.

Another effect of this transcendence is the ability to guide dying beings to pure realms. As Buddhist practitioners, meditators have already started to connect to Buddha fields from the time they began to practice tonglen. Practicing tonglen, meditators first breathe in the pain of other beings and then breathe out the transformation of that pain from deep in their awareness of ultimate bodhicitta, the content of their central channel. Breathing out fills the space around them with what is basically enlightened mind. This is actually training to emanate Buddha fields. Francesca Freemantle describes Buddha fields, or pure lands, in the following fashion:

From the ultimate point of view, a pure land is our own pure vision but in the relative sense, it is a realm created by the aspirations of the buddhas. [Luminous Emptiness p.236]

She says further that:

Just as the six realms of samsara are produced from the mind, so too are the pure lands. Because of the human tendency to label and categorize in order to understand, we differentiate that infinite all-pervading field into the pure lands of the different buddhas. We too can perceive them with sacred vision and create them through enlightened activities. [Luminous Emptiness p.261]

This process of creation eventually becomes the discovery that we are surrounded by Buddha Fields around us and everywhere. In this way, our emanation of Buddha Fields becomes the discovery of the radiance of enlightenment that is the natural character of our own mind. Practicing tonglen, meditators radiate through their intention, on the medium of their breath, the power and efficacy of pure vision. This manifests a field of enlightened awareness around them. Unless the meditators are very advanced, the field of awareness they emanate will still manifest realization at a relative level, but this practice is nonetheless training in what will eventually emerge as Buddhahood. All of this is not surprising, since from the point of view of Buddha Nature theory, all beings are actually imbued with Buddha Nature. However:

...since we do not recognize ourselves and other living beings as deities, we donot recognize the pure lands around us. [Luminous Emptiness p.261]

As a methodology, Chod provides a particularly efficient means through which certain Buddha fields, or pure lands, can be accessed. Offering the idea of one's body is actually offering the five skandhas and the five elements, which at the ultimate level, are the five Buddha family energies. Offering the body during the Chod feasts connects practitioners with the Buddha fields of the five families of enlightened manifestation. Freemantle explains that in the bardo of dharmata:

Brilliant rays of light shine out from their hearts, which are identified as the lights of the five pure skandhas. [Luminous Emptiness p.95]

They are not just attributes the Buddhas possess; they are the fundamental nature of Buddhas. They shine forth as light of the five colors: white, yellow, red, green, and blue. We had already seen that the five skandhas and five elements are in their pure essence, the five male and female buddhas. [Luminous Emptiness p.113]

What this logic means is that by offering the idea of one's body, meditators not only radiate the realization of this level of enlightenment to the beings that they call to the feasts, but that the practitioners themselves may directly experience the Buddha fields of the members of the five families.

According to the various teachers who have described Buddha fields, or pure lands, all Buddhas radiate Buddha fields. They are the world they create around them. At the highest level of realization all beings actually emanate Buddha fields because, again, at the ultimate level we are all Buddhas. However, the Buddha fields created by the five Buddhas just being discussed, are the primary, the first emanation of the dharmakaya into form. Chod practitioners offer the idea of their bodies which are their own skandhas and elements. However, their own skandhas and elements seen from the point of view of pure vision are actually the five energies manifested from the five primordial Buddhas. In the chapter entitled The Realm of Purified Appearances Phakchok Rinpoche explained that:

A person with a very basic understanding of this concept sees his physical body as the five aggregates. A more advanced practitioner is able to see the five aggregates as illusion or, if he is practicing the development stage, as the five Buddha families. The Dzogchen practitioner sees the five aggregates as the five qualities of wisdom. [The Great Terton p.51]

Because, by the magic of realization at the ultimate level, the gift of the body is transformed into what it has been all along, enlightened mind, practitioners offer the possibility of pointing out instructions to everyone they call to the feasts. Whether or not the gift is understood in that way depends upon what each being is able to receive.

Another surprise, at the level of direct experience, that has earned Chod the reputation for creating strange and disruptive states of mind can be explicitly explained as the evidence of the efficacy of the practice. Aryadeva explains that:

When you are thus meditating on nondual paramita,
The local gods and demons can't stand it and in despair
Cause magical interferences of all kind
Real, imaginary or in dreams. [Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chöd p.72]

The meditation Aryadeva is referring to is the “chod samadhi uniting emptiness and compassion.” This “splendor of the yogi's meditative absorption in the essence of reality” is unbearble to the gods and demons. [Luminous Emptiness p.72]

The result manifests in physical and mental discomfort, and this discomfort is the first indication of realization in the context of Chod practice.

If the yogi perseveres in meditation practice, these minor discomforts and disturbances gradually transform into visions, hallucinations, mirages, or dreams produced by beings attempting to interfere with any realization. [Luminous Emptiness p.73]

This explanation is organized in the conceptual environment of Tibetan spiritual thought. A more Western account of the same phenomena might be organized within the conceptual mapping system of psychology. It would go something like this: the Chod samadhi threatens the defensive mechanisms that protect the practitioner's habitual idea of themselves as a self. As a response to this threat, the defensive mechanisms increase in strength and intensity. In Western terms, this results in the increase in the emergence of the negativities that protect the idea of the self which the practitioner cherishes. These can include pride, anger, passionate attachment, competitive aggression and jealousy, in other words, the kleshas. In simpler terms, the Self is threatened by the meditative experience of egolessness and fights back.

According to Machig herself:

...all of these magical manifestations of gods and demons derive from mind itself, and that the means to eliminate them for those of excellent meditative capacity, is “to liberate them in their own place,” according to the higher view of Mahamudra. [Luminous Emptiness p.73]

A related explanation accounts for the uprising of kleshas in a definitively Tibetan fashion. According to this account, in deep sleep the meditator experiences all of the dissolutions that result in the experience of the four empties, the white, red and black dissolutions which reveal the fourth, luminosity. The awakening to luminosity includes the awareness at the deepest level of the energies that the samsaric mind interprets as negativities. This provides the conditions for whatever has been “stored” in the storehouse of consciousness, the Alaya Vishnana, to emerge, to be released. The connection to Chod is the consistent practice of the powas, which the practice includes. These powas open up the awareness of the experience of the four empties. The fourth of the four empties reveals the foundational experience of enlightened mind, luminosity. For the meditator, the radiance and purity of that experience marks the transition into what becomes the open door to what is experienced in the six yogas, though the techniques of those practices consist of a specific set of methods, distinct from the Chod methodology. As was explained earlier, even the tummo like experiences produced by the practice of powa in Chod are distinguished from the practices in the six yogas methodology, specifically on the basis of methodology. This is another surprise discovered only through consistent practice.

Still another surprise is related to the instruction to “rest in mahamudra” which appears at the end of the Red Feast, the Leftover Offering, and the final dissolution. It is the experience Trungpa Rinpoche refers to as falling in space without a parachute. It can be terrifying. It involves the realization that there is “no there, there.” There is no solidity underneath the appearances, that the appearances are not supported by some kind of solid foundation. In other words, it is the realization that as beings in the human realm, we create what we think of as solid reality. A personal resolution of the fear that attends this understanding is the realization that though we may, in fact, be falling in space without any support, everything continues as before, except that the minds of those who experience in this way have changed.

This kind of experience is not a unique product of Chod practice. It is a version of what is called, in many different spiritual contexts, emptiness. What may be directly attributable to Chod is the vivid and enduring quality of that experience.

A final surprise is the strength and power of the uprising of kleshas which a Chod practitioner experiences. As was explained earlier in this chapter, the radiance of the practice provokes the demons, that is it calls up the intense appearance of klesha activity. It can certainly seem that this is leading to a conventional assessment of mental breakdown. However, what is actually occurring is that Chod provides the occasion, the condition, for what has been stored in the Alaya Vijnana to manifest. In deep sleep, at the secret level, all of the dissolutions of mind and body are automatically experienced. It is as if the meditator has died, has experienced the logic of death. This experience, then, must include the fourth empty, luminosity. As was explained by Khenpo Jigme, beings experience the four empties in deep sleep, but unless they are trained to recognize these states of mind, the experiences flash by as if they had not happened at all. However, if a meditator has had the opportunity to experience the four empties while awake, in the context of practice, especially practice associated with the powas, they can then recognize the progression of the dissolutions in deep sleep. The kleshas that have been lying dormant can then be recognized and subsequently appear in the waking state.

An aspect of this dynamic is the recognition of the habits of mind, the bijas, that are associated with prior lifetimes. Khenpo Tsultrim Rinpoche has discussed two levels of habits of mind. They are the bijas that in this life are awakened by experiences directly associated with this life, and the habits of mind that are responsible for birth in this particular realm, the bijas that have created the world they inhabit. The practice of Chod, by revealing the habits of mind and experience that have been hidden become the cause for the elaborate structure of the created world to falter and change and sometimes dissolve. As was discussed earlier in this chapter, Chod means cut, it cuts the logic of the conceptual structure that supports our created worlds. This is actually what Buddhist practice promises, to cut ego and its connections. However, when that actually happens, not all meditators find such a result helpful or even tolerable.

The related result is the emergence of whatever traumatic event or emotional anguish that has been pushed down below awareness. Nothing will remain simply suppressed. Everything will eventually come to the surface. While many practices are delightful and lovely such as Chenrezig, Chod practice is brutally effective and efficient. As Dzigar Kongtrul has told his students, “Yes, you can practice Chod, but you call the demons and they come, be sure that is what you want.”

On the other hand, the bliss is genuinely radiant and the levels of realization are profound.

The Innermost Essence
  Nying Thig
  publisher
  date

Luminous Emptiness
  Understanding the Tibetan Book of the Dead
  Francesca Fremantle
  Shambhala
  Boston & London 2001

The Great Terton
  author
  publisher
  date

Machig Labdron and the Foundations of Chöd
  Jerome Edou
  Snow Lion
  Boston & London 1995