Havnevik, Hanna.

"Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by

Ani Lochen Rinpoche." Meditation and Culture: The Interplay of Practice and Context. Ed. Halvor
Eifring. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. 175–185. Bloomsbury Collections. Web. 9 Apr.
2019. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9781474220088.0021>.

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 11

Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by

Ani Lochen Rinpoche
Hanna Havnevik

On the Tibetan plateau, in the Himalayas and in Mongolia, the chöd (gcod) or
“cutting” teaching is practiced. Chöd is performed primarily by lay yogins and yoginīs,
but also by monastics. The chödpas (practitioners of chöd) are known to disregard
conventional behavior, and in Tibet they often look like beggars. In contemporary
Mongolia, chöd (Mong. luijin) recitation can give practitioners substantial income and
has become somewhat of a fashion in the spiritual community.1 The chöd practitioners
perform rituals for the dying and the dead, since one of their ritual specialties is
“the transference [of consciousness]” (’pho ba) performed to guide the deceased’s
consciousness to a better rebirth. The chödpas meditate at haunted sites, as well as at
charnel grounds where corpses are dismembered. The practitioners are believed to be
able to heal illnesses and turn back epidemics and to be immune from diseases.
Chöd was codified and made popular in Tibet in the eleventh century by a woman,
Machig Labdron (Ma cig lab sgron), and to this day women in the Tibetan Buddhist
tradition are active in the tradition, emulating her example. One of them was Ani
Lochen (A ne Lo chen 1865–1951), a yoginī and later an ordained nun, who promoted
this meditation practice throughout the Himalayas and Tibet.2

Chöd and its philosophical background

Tibetan Buddhism, being an amalgamation of late Indic Mahāyāna and indigenous
Tibetan religious elements, developed a strong scholastic tradition thriving in
monasteries, but one that coexisted with non-monastic meditational practices
performed by non-celibate yogins and yoginīs; the tradition of chöd was one of these.
Chöd belongs to the zhiche (zhi byed) “pacification” cycle taught in Tibet by the Indian
yogin Padampa Sangye (Pha dam pa Sangs rgyas, eleventh century).3 Chöd never
formed a separate school, but was assimilated into the main Buddhist traditions and
the Bon religion, while remaining at the margins of Gelugpa (dGe lugs pa) institutions.4
The chöd teachings are based on the Prajñāpāramitā scriptures containing the
essentials of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. Chöd has many similarities with the

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 176 Meditation and Culture

higher tantric practices of the Anuttarayogatantras, and Sorensen (2010) argues that
chöd borrowed several elements from Buddhist tantric practice and can be fully
explained within the context of Mahāyāna Buddhism.5 While some scholars emphasize
similarities between chöd and shamanistic techniques—for example the use of
a drum, ritual music, and dance, the communication with spirits and demons, the
dismemberment of the body, the transference of consciousness, and healing6—others
warn against the tendency to confuse meditation techniques in Buddhism and Bon
with New Age healing and shamanism.7

The meditation practice

Chöd (gcod), which means “to cut” or “to sever,” aims at cutting through ego-clinging to
abolish dualistic thinking at its roots. The chöd meditation involves visualizations (Skt.
sādhana, Tib. sgrub thabs)8 where four classes of guests (mgon po bzhi),9 that is deities
and demons, are invited to a feast during which the chödpa offers his or her body as
food to be devoured. The deities are said to be symbolic images of the practitioner’s
desires and wishes, while the evil spirits (’dre) are projections of the mind.
The visualization involves two stages, first an invocation of fearful deities and
spirits, and then a counter-action of the fear and horror brought about by these spirits
by understanding that they are a product of the practitioner’s mind. The offering of the
body is envisaged as consisting of successive types of offerings or feasts.10 By donating
the body ritually to the demons, the chödpa transcends fear; she or he becomes
absorbed in absolute reality, where the Buddhist teachings are offered to the visualized
gods and demons and to all sentient beings. The goal is, as stated above, to abolish
(gcod “cut”) ignorance and attachment, personified as demons, in order to attain a pure
state of consciousness and a true understanding of reality.

Transmissions of chöd
The origin of chöd is connected with two eleventh-century adepts, the South Indian
yogin Padampa Sangye, who stayed a number of years in Tibet, and Machig Labdron
from E in southeastern Central Tibet.11 Hagiographies of Machig Labdron emphasize
different transmission lineages of chöd, some stating that Padampa Sangye transmitted
the teaching to Machig Labdron—others that Machig received chöd directly from a
transhuman sphere, from Tārā or Yeshe Tsogyal (Ye shes mtsho rgyal). Machig Labdron
is also believed to be an emanation of the latter.12 Chöd is divided into the Father
Lineage (pha brgyud), the Mother Lineage (ma brgyud), and the Son’s Lineage (sras
brgyud), and Machig Labdron is said to be the transmitter of the Mother Lineage. In
spite of the different origins of chöd traced in the sources, Machig Labdron is credited
with its codification and as the one who made the practice popular in Tibet. In her
hagiographies, Padampa Sangye figures as one of her teachers.

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 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche 177

Chöd texts and deities

Since chöd became integrated into the Tibetan Buddhist traditions and in the Bon
religion, there are many chöd texts in circulation, while not all the root texts of chöd
have been identified.13 Tibetan adepts sought transmissions of teachings from many
teachers, and each practitioner was therefore likely to have received chöd from several
lineages but emphasized the lineage transmitted by their root teachers.14
The deities visualized in chöd meditation are commonly Vajravārāhī or one of her
forms, for example Vajrayoginī, or her wrathful aspect Khroma Nagmo (Khros ma
nag mo), but also Yeshe Tsogyal and Machig Labdron. In Mongolia, Vajrayoginī is the
main deity visualized, and her iconographic images and statues are found in temples
belonging to the so-called Red Tradition (i.e., non-Gelugpa), as well as in the homes of
individual practitioners. In Mongolia, this non-monastic ritual practice was one that
survived the communist purges and has been revived in recent years.15

Outward appearance and ritual objects

The chödpas were inspired by Indian tantrics, the fierce-looking kāpālīkas and
mad saints with matted hair, ragged clothes, and ash-smeared bodies who traveled
in groups, practiced in cemeteries, performed offering feasts, ate disgusting food,
and engaged in sexual yoga.16 Also Tibetan yogins (rnal ’ byor pa) kept their hair
in matted coils on top of their head and dressed in the outfit of the yogin. The
appearances of Tibetan yogins vary, but some wore white cotton skirts, yellow shirts,
meditation belts (sgom thag) across their chest, and a white-and-red shawl around
their shoulder; some even wore bone earrings.17 We have much less information
about female Tibetan tantric adepts, but during secluded esoteric practices, their
clothing resembled that of male yogins. In daily life yoginīs dressed like Tibetan
laywomen, but in the religious maroon color, indicating their non-monastic status.
While a few kept their hair in a knot on the top of their head, others let their hair
hang loosely.

The ritual paraphernalia of the chödpa

The ritual paraphernalia of the chödpa includes a small hand drum (d̩amaru), a
ritual bell (dril bu), and a thighbone trumpet (rkang gling). Dzatrul Ngawang Tenzin
Norbu (rDza sprul Ngag dbang bsTan ’dzin Nor bu 1867–1940), the abbot of Dza
Rongphu (rDza Rong phu), a Nyingmapa monastery at the foot of Mount Everest, has
written a ten-folio text on the symbolism of the ritual objects and the clothing of the
yogin.18 His explanation again is based on an exposition of an unnamed yogin at Dza
Rongphu. Since the yogins were often also chödpas, their ritual objects and clothing
were the same.

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 178 Meditation and Culture

Figure 11.1 A monk practicing chöd at the gate of Tashilhunpo Monastery.

(Photo: Havnevik 2010).

The drum
According to the text, the small hand drum, the d̩amaru, is a symbol of sam̩sāra,
the empty inner part symbolizing emptiness, and the skin on the drum the union of
sam̩sāra and nirvān̩a.19 When the practitioner beats the drum, sam̩sāra is connected
with the basic ground (gzhi) from where all appearances (snang ba) of the phenomenal
world arise: the outer melodious sound is that of the Mahāyāna teachings; the red cloth
band between both sides increases the lineage of “awareness-holders”; the bundles of
five cowry shells are the palaces of the root and lineage lamas; and the beaters of the
drum shake the depths of sam̩sāra, while the holder of the strap, the yogin or chödpa,
controls appearances.

The thighbone trumpet

The femoral bone trumpet (rkang gling) is a distinguishing ritual instrument of the
chödpa. According to the Rongphu yogin, the thighbone should be taken from a

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 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche 179

corpse by someone without attachment or hatred20; others say the thighbone should
come from a corpse of a sixteen-year-old girl.21 The yogin further stresses that when
cleansed of flesh, the bone trumpet symbolizes the renouncement of inner and outer
turmoil, the flat opening the “same taste” (ro snyom) of every phenomenon, while the
central hold represents the central channel (Skt. avadhūtī, Tib. dbu ma) of liberation.
When blowing the trumpet, the chödpa invites the deities to the feast. The first blow
is an offering to the lama, the second overwhelms appearances, the third summons all
sentient beings, the fourth transfers accumulated merit, and the fifth cuts through the
grasping mind and the grasped object.

Ritual dance
The chödpa not only performed recitations to beautiful melodies, but would also
dance.  The chöd dance is done to control the demons in the five directions who
personify the power of negative emotions: hatred and anger (east), pride and
miserliness (south), desire and attachment (west), jealousy and envy (north), and
ignorance and confusion (center).22 Ritual dance is part of public monastic ceremonies
in Tibet, while the esoteric dance of the chödpa is often performed at haunted sites.
Because of its secret nature there are hardly any descriptions of chödpas dancing at
charnel grounds.23

Wandering hermits
Contrary to our image of the Buddhist yogin meditating in a secluded hermitage,
the chödpas wandered from place to place and could practice in groups. During
chöd pilgrimage, a network of such dangerous sites (ideally 108 springs and
8 charnel grounds) were visited and considered ideal places to perform the ritual. In
contemporary Mongolia, luijin practitioners perform pilgrimages (jardz),24 a short
circuit in the mountains around Ulaanbaatar, while a long pilgrimage extends wider
and lasts for four months.25
Wandering chödpa would earn their living performing services for laypeople,
and today chödpa can be observed in towns and villages in Tibet reciting chöd while
passers-by offer money into their beggar’s boxes. In Mongolia, chöd, or luijin (lus
sbyin, “offering the body”), is performed as a daily ritual in Red Tradition temples and
also by individual practitioners, some of them old women.

Ani Lochen’s career as a chödpa

Ani Lochen was one among a relatively large number of yoginīs and female chödpa in
premodern Tibet, but we still have scant knowledge about their lives. Luckily she was
one of the very few Tibetan women who left an autobiography, offering us detailed
insight into her spiritual life since her childhood, including her practice of chöd.26

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Ani Lochen was a nonsectarian but primarily Nyingmapa yoginī and nun. She was
born in northern India and took part in a vibrant milieu of itinerant tantric yoga and
chöd practitioners roaming the Himalayas and Western and Central Tibet during the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. During the first decade of the twentieth century,
Ani Lochen established a combined hermitage and nunnery for 300 women at Shugseb
(Shug gseb), south of Lhasa; here chöd continued to be a focus of meditational practice.27
After her father died, the thirteen-year-old Ani Lochen and her mother joined a
group of nonsectarian adepts, male as well as female, roaming the Himalayas and the
Tibetan plateau. The group gathered around a charismatic yogin, who was a direct
disciple of a famous nonsectarian master from Amdo (A mdo), northeastern Tibet,
Shabkar Tshogdrug Rangdrol (Zhabs dkar Tshogs drug Rang grol 1781–1851).28 Along
their path the group of adepts halted in caves and mountain hermitages to meditate
and practice yoga. They performed chöd at haunted sites and were asked by locals
to stop epidemics and to perform funerary rituals. They called each other “religious
friend” (mched grogs), an appellation also used for a tantric partner. From their root
teacher, the yogins and yoginīs received religious teachings transferred in the lineages
of some of the most famous sages in Tibet. The practice of chöd was an important part
of their repertoire and became a hallmark of Ani Lochen’s spiritual expertise.

Ani Lochen’s outward appearance

When introduced to the yogic practice of producing inner heat (gtum mo) in the
Himalayas as an adolescent, Ani Lochen dressed in the outfit of the yoginī. Her
mother made meditation trousers (ang rag) and a meditation belt (sgom thag) from
their bedding for her and bought her a meditation shawl (gzan a ti) to wear around
her shoulders.29 According to the Rongphu yogin, the meditation belt symbolizes the
ultimate sphere of reality and should be worn like a garland of cakras around the three
yogic channels believed to circulate in the body: dbu ma, ro ma, and rkyang ma (Skt.
avadhūtī, rasanā, and lalanā).30
When Ani Lochen and her companions arrived in Lhasa in the 1890s, people were
amazed at their aberrant behavior and appearance, and she had to borrow a woman’s
dress to be admitted in an audience with the thirteenth Dalai Lama. We hear about
the highly unconventional behavior of some of her companions; once they practiced
in their underwear, and Ani Lochen’s female friend did ritual prostrations naked. Ani
Lochen was even told by one of her yogin teachers, Thrulshig Rinpoche (’Khrul zhig
Rin po che, 1862–1922), who was also known to be a crazy yogin (smyon pa), to tie
her hair on top of her head and walk naked around the Jokhang (Jo khang) temple in
Lhasa. Thrulshig Rinpoche himself is known, on one occasion, to have meditated in
a woman’s sheepskin dress (gos log) and hair ornament (spa lung), offered to him for
performing rituals for the diseased woman by her family.31 We learn that Ani Lochen
felt drawn toward her crazy yogin teachers, but gradually came to settle for a more
conventional monastic life. As a sign of her allegiance to the lifestyle of the wandering
mountain hermit she did, however, keep her hair long also after she was ordained a

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 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche 181

Buddhist nun in her late twenties. Several of Ani Lochen’s female disciples kept their
hair long throughout their lives, wearing either monastic robes or lay clothes.

Nyingma chöd
A famous chödpa from eastern Tibet, Dharma Senge (Dharma Seng ge) or “the
Madman from Kham” (Khams smyon), was one of Ani Lochen’s main chöd masters
who imparted to her the root lineage of chöd. Ani Lochen was also an adept in the
highest teachings of the Nyingmapa school, called dzogchen (rdzogs chen), in which
chöd is an integral part. One of the most widespread ritual texts on chöd, mKha’ ’gro
gad rgyangs “The Laughter of the D̩ākinīs” in the Klong chen snying thig collection by
Jigme Lingpa (’Jigs med Gling pa, 1729–98), is an esoteric teaching cycle classified as
dzogchen.32 The mKha’ ’gro gad rgyangs is identified as the Yeshe Tsogyal tradition
of chöd. While both Yeshe Tsogyal and Guru Rinpoche are important in Nyingmapa
chöd, Ani Lochen’s favorite meditational deity was Machig Labdron, who is considered
an emanation of Yeshe Tsogyal. Ani Lochen received the sNying thig teachings from her
root lamas, and sNying thig was, throughout her life, the core of her religious practice.
The hermit, poet, philosopher, and “treasure revealer” Longchen Rabjampa
(Klong chen Rab ’byams pa, 1308–63), one of the greatest scholars and nonsectarian
religious masters the Nyingmapa tradition has produced prepared the ground for the

Figure 11.2 A mural of Ani Lochen’s lineage in Longchen Rabjampa’s cave at Gangri
Thökar. Ani Lochen, bottom right. (Photo: Havnevik 2001).

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 182 Meditation and Culture

Klong chen snying thig teachings later revealed by Jigme Lingpa. The institution Ani
Lochen built, Shugseb Nunnery, is located just below Longchen Rabjampa’s cave on
the sacred mountain Gangri Thökar (Gangs ri Thod dkar), located south of Lhasa.
Vajravārāhī or Dorje Phagmo (rDo rje Phag mo), one of the principal meditational
deities of chöd, was also one of Longchen Rabjampa’s main meditational deities. The
sacralized landscape of Gangri Thökar is conceived as the body of Vajravārāhī laying
on her back, with milky water streaming from her breasts and a major stream from her
yoni. Shugseb Nunnery is believed to be located on Vajravārāhī’s left knee.33

Ani Lochen, the emanation of Machig Labdron

Female meditational deities like Vajravārāhī (Dorje Phagmo) and her various forms,
as well as the deified Yeshe Tsogyal and Machig Labdron, are prominent in chöd, and
some female practitioners are seen as their emanations. The abbesses of Samding
(bSam lding) Monastery by Yamdrok (Yar ’brog) Lake were recognized by the Tibetan
State as emanations of Dorje Phagmo.
Machig Labdron looms large in Ani Lochen’s autobiography, and elements in her
life tend to correspond to those of Machig Labdron’s, as told in her biographies. Ani
Lochen had intimate knowledge of Ma cig rnam bshad, the most famous hagiography
of Machig Labdron, and gave oral transmissions of it on several occasions.34 Gradually
she became recognized as an emanation of Machig Labdron by her disciples: both
women were born as remarkable children with sacred signs on their bodies; both had
revelations in Sanskrit; both were trained in the fast reading of the Prajñāpāramitā
scriptures and engaged as house lamas; and both had visions and attained miraculous
powers. Moreover, both were challenged by monks who wanted to test their knowledge.

Figure 11.3 New mural at Samding with portrayals of Machig Labdron (top left) and
some of the Dorje Phagmo reincarnations. (Photo: Havnevik 2010).

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 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche 183

Ani Lochen says that once, when she was practicing chöd, two monks came up to her
to refute her views, whereupon she blew the thighbone trumpet, making the monks’
legs lame. The next day the monks’ teacher had to plead on their behalf, whereupon
Ani Lochen released them from the paralysis.
Machig Labdron and Ani Lochen were both yoginīs and nuns, but while Machig’s
sexual relationship with men is explicit—she was married for twelve years and a
mother of three sons—Ani Lochen was never married. Ani Lochen’s practice of sexual
yoga is, however, implicit, but kept secret as part of the highly esoteric inner practices
of chöd and dzogchen.

Connection with Machig Labdron

During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Ani Lochen went to Sangi Kharmar
(Zangs ri mkhar dmar) in southern Tibet to practice chöd. This was Machig Labdron’s
residence for about sixty years, from her late thirties until her death. Ani Lochen
says she could feel a special relation with the place, and she miraculously moved to
a large rock in the middle of the Brahmaputra River which, she says, had auspicious
signs of being Machig’s residence. Ani Lochen was inspired by visions and stayed in
meditation retreat during the day, but at night she practiced chöd at a charnel ground
and performed a chöd dance (gcod ’cham) with a dog in the middle of a field.35 She also
danced chöd, the D̩ākinīs of the Five Directions (mKha’ ’gro sde lnga), at cemeteries.36
At Sangri Kharmar, a master of zhiche, the ritual cycle to which chöd is subsidiary,37
maintained that Ani Lochen was the wisdom d̩ākinī Machig Labdron, and as such she
became known to everyone in the area.
Sangri Kharmar was frequented both by Ani Lochen and her yogic companions
for chöd meditational practices.38 Today, Sangri Kharmar is one of the religious
institutions in Central Tibet, along with Shugseb and Terdrum (gTer sgrom), where
chöd is practiced as a temple ritual, as we also find it in Red Tradition temples in
contemporary Mongolia.

Chöd at Shugseb
Chöd continued to be a core of Ani Lochen’s religious practice and teaching after she
settled at Shugseb in 1904. When Ani Lochen in her mid-sixties ended a long secluded
meditation retreat in a cave on the mountain behind her nunnery, the first religious
teaching she imparted to her nuns was the Hundred Empowerments of Chöd (gCod
dbang brgya rtsa), and she sent them to “fearful places” (gnyan sa) and to the One
Hundred and Eight Springs to practice the meditation. Villagers from settlements
below Shugseb came to ask Ani Lochen for chöd rituals such as “the transference of
consciousness” (’pho ba). When dead bodies were brought to Shugseb for funerary
services, four to ten nuns performed the chöd dance around the bodies at a platform
by the local charnel ground.

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Figure 11.4 Statue of Ani Lochen at Shugseb Nunnery. (Photo: Havnevik 2004).

Emanation of Machig Labdron

Ani Lochen’s strong dedication to the practice of chöd and the numerous parallels
in Ani Lochen’s and Machig Labdron’s lives led to speculation that Ani Lochen
was the emanation of the so-called Founding Mother of Chöd. Already as a young
girl, religious masters, through clairvoyance and by prophesies, indicated that Ani
Lochen was indeed the emanation of Machig Labdron. Gangshar Rinpoche (Gang
shar Rin po che) once came to see Ani Lochen at Shugseb with a prophecy in his
hand from their common root lama, Taklung Matrul Rinpoche (sTag lung Ma sprul
Rin po che), saying that in a previous life Ani Lochen had been Machig Labdron
and Gangshar Rinpoche her son Tonyon Samdrup (sTod smyon bSam grub). The
physical relationship of mother and son in the eleventh century called for a spiritual
mother-and-son relationship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Therefore
Gangshar Rinpoche requested that Ani Lochen should teach him chöd and assist him
in reaching Enlightenment in one life.
When Ani Lochen became sick and old, Gangshar Rinpoche came to Shugseb to
perform rituals to turn back obstacles (bsun bzlog) and prolong her life.39 He made a

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 Tibetan Chöd as Practiced by Ani Lochen Rinpoche 185

prophecy saying that if a life-size statue of Machig Labdron was installed at Shugseb,
Ani Lochen would live as long, and be of equal significance, as Machig Labdron.40 The
statue was made in Lhasa, and numerous miracles were said to accompany it when
it was brought to Shugseb Nunnery. The statue was destroyed during the Cultural
Revolution, but a new one can today be seen in the assembly hall at Shugseb, along
with one of Ani Lochen, both portrayed when performing chöd. During the last days
of her life, Ani Lochen finally believed that she was indeed an emanation of Machig
Labdron.

Conclusion
In the first part of her religious career, Ani Lochen followed the path of the wandering
and unconventional yoga practitioner and participated in advanced esoteric chöd and
dzogchen rituals. At the end of her twenties she took ordination as a Buddhist nun
and later advised her disciples to follow her example.41 A few female adepts continued,
however, to engage as consorts of visiting yogins, and thus the combined monastic and
yogic path was maintained at Shugseb. Chöd is a living tradition in contemporary Tibet
as well as among Buddhist practitioners in the Himalayas, Mongolia, and Buryatia.
After she met her root lama at the age of thirteen, Ani Lochen made chöd a main focus
of her meditational practice, and as her fame spread throughout Central Tibet she
contributed to the popularity of the tradition, particularly among female practitioners.

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