Machik's Complete Explanation ─ Clarifying the Meaning of Chod, a Complete Explanation of Casting Out the Body as Food

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 Lapdron, 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 Chod, 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 Lapdron's earliest known teaching, the original source text for the tradition, The Great Bundle of Precepts on Severance (Chod). This pithy set of instructions reveals that the teachings of the perfection of wisdom are the true inspiration for Chod. It is beautifully clarified in a short commentary by Rangjung Dorje, the Third Karmapa.

Sarah Harding has been a Tibetan Buddhist translator and practitioner since 1974. She became a student of the late master Kalu Rinpoche, and in 1980, she completed the traditional three-year retreat under his guidance. Since then, she has been a teacher and translator. Her publications include Machik's Complete Explanation, The Treasury of Knowledge: Book Eight, and The Life and Revelations of Pema Lingpa. She is a fellow at the Tsadra Foundation and has been on the faculty of Naropa University for nearly twenty years.