Tibetan Buddhist Temple of Montreal Chöd Cutting through
duality
The Chöd practice has
various tunes that a person can sing and involves a principle of aspects of
activities which are pacifying, enriching, magnetizing and destroying. The main
source of this lineage was the great Bodhisattva Padampa Sangye. Padampa was his
Tibetan name. Kamalashila was his Sanskrit name. The main text he taught in
Tibet was called the "Dam Chu She Che". This text had its source in both Sutras
and Tantras. Part of this text is known as the "Chöd". When Padampa Sangye
transmitted this lineage two different aspects developed. One was the general
She Che and the other aspect was the Chöd. She Che specifically deals with the
pacifying of suffering. Chöd deals with the cutting through of duality. So,
there was a slight difference between the two even though they had the same
basis. Padampa Sangye had forty-nine remarkable disciples, twenty-five of which
were male and twenty-four of which were female. He passed the general She Che
teachings to all of them. The Chöd lineage as well as the She Che was passed
down to one main disciple who was known as Machik Lapdron Drolma. There are
three principles which must be established to practice and get profound benefit
and appropriate development from Chöd practice. The first principle we need is
to have a proper foundation. This means that one's view must be sincere and very
clear. When a person lives by a principle such as karma they will do their best
not to cheat or harm others. This is the kind of clear foundation one must have.
Such a principle relates to a person who has developed awareness and mindfulness
of their actions. This is very important. Their actions should be tempered with
correct view. When our compassion and loving kindness for others has "perfect
intention" this will make our outer actions more real and valuable. So, the
second basic principle is having compassion and loving kindness. This means that
one should have compassion for those less fortunate and have love for those more
fortunate, those having more insight and strength than oneself. The last
condition one must have is a profound sense of samaya. Samaya just means having
some sort of level of commitment or responsibility. The samaya commitment has to
do with getting it all right from the beginning so there is no mistake. If there
isn't a correct transmission of the practice and it's principles there is a
great danger of getting it wrong. When we have proper transmission then our
actions, our intentions, our understanding will help us to progress properly.
Having these three principles as a basis then when we practice something like
Chöd things go properly. When one has these three principles clearly established
then the conditions for obtaining the appropriate development out of the
practice methods would be present.
Days of practice, Mondays at 7:30pm March, April and
May
Chöd 
