Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition

Making the Old New Again and Again: Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition Michelle Janet Sorensen Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Michelle Janet Sorensen All rights reserved ABSTRACT Making the Old New Again and Again: Legitimation and Innovation in the Tibetan Buddhist Chöd Tradition Michelle Janet Sorensen My dissertation offers a revisionary history of the early development of Chöd, a philosophy and practice that became integral to all Tibetan Buddhist schools. Recent scholars have interpreted Chöd ahistorically, considering it as a shamanic tradition consonant with indigenous Tibetan practices. In contrast, through a study of the inception, lineages, and praxis of Chöd, my dissertation argues that Chöd evolved through its responses to particular Buddhist ideas and developments during the “later spread” of Buddhism in Tibet. I examine the efforts of Machik Labdrön (1055-1153), the founder of Chöd and the first woman to develop a Buddhist tradition in Tibet, simultaneously to legitimate her teachings as authentically Buddhist and to differentiate them from those of male charismatic teachers. In contrast to the prevailing scholarly view which exoticizes central Chöd practices—such as the visualized offering of the body to demons—I examine them as a manifestation of key Buddhist tenets from the Prajñāpāramitā corpus and Vajrayāna traditions on the virtue of generosity, the problem of ego-clinging, and the ontology of emptiness. Finally, my translation and discussion of the texts of the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé (1284-1339), including the earliest extant commentary on a text of Machik Labdrön’s, focuses on new ways to appreciate the transmission and institutionalization of Chöd. I argue not only that Chöd praxis has been an ongoing project of innovation and renewal, but also that we can properly understand modern incarnations of Chöd only through a nuanced appreciation of its historical and philosophical developments. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page List of Tables and Illustrations iii Introduction 1 1. Historical Contexts 26 a. The Period of the Later Spread b. Dharma lineages in the Later Spread c. Chöd in the Period of the Later Spread 2. Chöd Transmissions and Lineages 43 a. Chöd Precursors b. Transmission Lineages 3. Philosophical Foundations of Chöd 103 a. Chöd as Tantra: Machig and Vajrayoginī b. Chöd as Sūtra and Tantra c. Anti-Legitimation and Innovation 4. Cutting Through the Body 140 a. Body b. Dehadāna 5. Cutting through the Mind 191 a. Chöd and Universal Base Consciousness b. Opening the Gate of Space c. Internal Yoga d. Düd (bdud) i Page 6. Texts 225 a. The Great Speech Chapter and Rangjung Dorjé’s Commentaries b. The Supplementary Chapter, The Quintessential Chapter, and The Supplementary Sections Bibliography 288 Appendices 313 Appendix One: The Great Speech Chapter, the textual tradition of the oral instructions of the profound Chöd of Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa zab mo gcod kyi man ngag gi gzhung bka’ tshoms chen mo, or the Bka’ tshoms chen mo) Appendix Two: The Supplementary Chapter of oral instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag yang tshoms zhus lan ma, or the Yang tshoms) Appendix Three: The Quintessential Chapter of the Chöd System of Negative Forces, The Instructions of the Prajñāpāramitā (Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa’i man ngag snying tshoms chos kyi rtsa ba, or the Snying tshoms) Appendix Four: The Common Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong gi le lag brgyad) Appendix Five: The Uncommon Eightfold Supplementary Section (Thun mong ma yin pa’i le’u lag brgyad pa) Appendix Six: The Distinctive Eightfold Supplementary Section (Khyad par gyi le lag brgyad pa) Appendix Seven: An Outline of the Great Speech Chapter of Chöd (Gcod bka’ tshoms chen mo’i sa bcad) Appendix Eight: A Commentary on the Great Speech Chapter of Chöd (Gcod kyi TIKA, or the Bka’ tshom chen mo’i ‘grel pa) Appendix Nine: A reconstructed outline of the Bka’ tshoms TIKA ii LIST OF TABLES AND ILLUSTRATIONS Tables Page Table One: Dualistic and Non-dualistic Consciousness 203 Table Two: The Transformation of Universal Base Consciousness 206 Table Three: Poisons, Negative Forces, and Primordial Wisdoms 238 Figure Figure One: Thang ga from Spitok 139 iii 1 INTRODUCTION The Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhist praxis of Chöd (gcod; chedikā) incorporates a variety of techniques for the development of compassion, wisdom, and the spirit of enlightenment. “Chöd” is a Tibetan verb that can be translated into English as “to cut” or "to sever,” with a corresponding noun form of “cutting” or “severance.”1 Chöd uses meditative practices of “cutting” through one's instinctual attachment to ego as techniques for liberation from the existential suffering of cyclic existence (‘khor ba; saṃsāra). A traditional Buddhist view is that attachment to ego, or “self-grasping” (bdag ‘dzin; atmagraha), is the root of ignorance (ma rig pa; avidyā) causing mental afflictions (nyon mongs pa; kleśa), which in turn generate suffering and perpetuate one’s cyclic existence. This sense of one’s own self, or ego, is reinforced by quotidian activities premised in constructs of “self” and “other,” and habitual practices that produce, and are produced by, emotional reactions rather than mindful activities. The techniques prescribed by Chöd enable the practitioner to analyze and become aware of the nature of the “ego” that is to be cut, including the aspects of consciousness that support and construct the ego. According to Mahāyāna Buddhist teachings, one’s sense of an individual and independent ego arises from ignorance of the non-duality of subject and object. The praxis of Chöd includes theories and methods for cutting through the aspect of consciousness that is characterized by self-grasping and discriminative thinking in order to realize the matrix of consciousness free from subject/object discrimination. Chöd practitioners use various techniques to achieve the aim of cutting the root of mind, including visualizations, meditations, recitations, physical movements and music. Chöd *My field research for this dissertation has been supported by fellowships from the American Institute of Indian Studies and Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute. 1 The Tibetan word “gcod” is pronounced “chö” or “chöd,” depending on the Tibetan dialect. 2 methodology, in alignment with conventional Buddhist teachings, can be understood as two-fold. One aspect is akin to the Buddhist practice of calmly abiding through experiences of mental turmoil (zhi gnas; śamatha); the other aspect can be seen as parallel to the Buddhist practice of meditative analysis of the constructed nature of one’s experiences as dependent on one’s mental conditioning and functioning (lhag mthong; vipaśyanā). Using these two types of practice, the practitioner aims to deepen her understanding of the fundamentally empty nature of all phenomena. Buddhist Chöd texts emphasize that Chöd should be practiced in accordance with the ideal standpoint of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva, the ultimate aim being the liberation of all sentient beings from the realm of suffering. Thus, the perspective of the twofold bodhicitta—the relative consciousness of awakening which includes the aspiration and action toward enlightenment and the ultimate mind of awakening—is also central to Chöd. Chöd texts frequently emphasize practicing in appropriate physical locations. Practitioners seek out sublime sites such as on mountain peaks, near rushing rivers, and in charnel grounds. Because the fear created by such situations generates attachment to one’s life and identity, these locations exacerbate the self-grasping that Chöd takes as its object. Generally speaking, such visualizations operate through the Buddhist logic of emptiness: by facing objects which cause fear and other obscurations and employing one’s knowledge of the Buddhist teachings on the true nature of reality as fundamentally empty of both subject and object, one builds one’s capacity to release oneself from illusory appearances of self and other. Indeed, one’s mind—with its habit of seeing reality in terms of subject and object, self and other—is itself the obstruction, the obstructor and the obstructed. Through Chöd practice, the unenlightened standpoint that translates all experience into binary relationships of subject and object is replaced by insight into the interconnected relationship of all phenomena. 3 One Chöd method of eradicating self-grasping is an offering of one’s body to other sentient beings. One visualizes discriminating—or cutting—one’s body into pieces. One then transforms these pieces into an abundance of offerings that will satisfy the needs and desires of all other sentient beings. This exemplary act of the perfection of generosity (dānapāramitā; sbyin pa'i pha rol tu phyin pa) is an enactment of the fundamental philosophy of Chöd: the cutting through attachment to the self to achieve liberation from suffering. At its most fundamental level, Chöd provides an interpretation of Buddhist teachings on the persistence of suffering within the realm of saṃsāra contrasted with the possibility for awakening oneself to the ultimate nature of reality and thus being capable of liberating oneself and others from this cycle of suffering. In line with mainstream Buddhist theory, Chöd teachings correlate the conditions of suffering with the causes of fundamental ignorance

Load more