Machik’s Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod (Expanded Edition)

Fear, anger, and negativity are states that each of us have to contend with. Machik’s Complete Explanation, the most famous book of the teachings of Machik Lapdr n, the great female saint and yogini of eleventh- to twelfth-century Tibet, addresses these issues in a practical, direct way.

Machik developed a system, the Mahamudra Ch d, that takes the Buddha’s teachings as a basis and applies them to the immediate experiences of negative mind states and malignant forces. Her unique feminine approach is to invoke and nurture the very demons that we fear and hate, transforming those reactive emotions into love. It is the tantric version of developing compassion and fearlessness, a radical method of cutting through ego-fixation. This expanded edition includes Machik Lapdr n’s earliest known teaching, the original source text for the tradition, The Great Bundle of Precepts on Severance (Ch d). This pithy set of instructions reveals that the teachings of the perfection of wisdom are the true inspiration for Ch d. It is beautifully clarified in a short commentary by Rangjung Dorje, the Third Karmapa.