Chod empowerments

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CrawfordHollow
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Chod empowerments

Post by CrawfordHollow »

Hello all,

I am rather new to chod and recently received a chod empowerment in Vermont with Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche. Without going into detail, I will say that this was a very extensive and profound empowerment to a practice that combines the lineages of Machig with the terma revalations of the Drikungpa Nuden Dorje. I also have the lung (via ChNN) of the Longchen Nyingtig chod, Sound of the Dakini Laughter. Does the empowerment I received enable me to practice this as well? Now that I have been introduced to Machig's mandala, does that enable me to practice any chod out there (providing I have the lung), or does every practice have its own empowerment? Does anybody know how this empowerment I received relates to the "opening sky door" empowerment that I have heard so much about?

Thank you. I should mention that I was blown away by Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche. He is truly amazing.

Troy
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ratna
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by ratna »

I don't know if what you received the is the same as Nüden Dorje's Rainbow Body Chod empowerment, but the latter one in fact includes the sky door empowerment.

In any case, you should be good to go for Dakini Laughter, at least. In general, I've heard it said that the sky door empowerment is enough for any Chöd.

R
CrawfordHollow
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by CrawfordHollow »

Yes, this was Nuden Dorje's Rainbow Body empowerment.

Thanks!
philji
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by philji »

I received a sky door Empowerment last year and it took a good few hours to complete, there was extensive instruction and explanation given during it however. I am wondering if all Chod Empowerments take this length of time as a few friends say they received an empowerment and it was pretty short...
Knotty Veneer
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Knotty Veneer »

philji wrote:I received a sky door Empowerment last year and it took a good few hours to complete, there was extensive instruction and explanation given during it however. I am wondering if all Chod Empowerments take this length of time as a few friends say they received an empowerment and it was pretty short...
I've received this empowerment three times in the Kagyu tradition - once in a quite elaborate form from Thrangu Rinpoche and twice in a more concise format from Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. I think there is scope for empowerments to be more or less elaborate depending on the time and inclination of the vajra master.

Also more than one empowerment may have this name - I recently read a book on Chod in the Bon tradition and I believe the empowerment (or at least the Phowa associated with it) was called opening the sky door or similar. Obviously the empowerment text in the Bon tradition would not have come from the same source as that from the Kagyu (which I think originates from Karmapa Rangjung Dorje).
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philji
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by philji »

Knotty, thanks. Can I ask when/ where Mingyur Rinpoche gave this empowerment..I was not aware of him giving this... As a student of his I find this interesting.great merit....
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SunRay
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by SunRay »

CrawfordHollow wrote:Hello all,

I am rather new to chod and recently received a chod empowerment in Vermont with Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche. Without going into detail, I will say that this was a very extensive and profound empowerment to a practice that combines the lineages of Machig with the terma revalations of the Drikungpa Nuden Dorje. I also have the lung (via ChNN) of the Longchen Nyingtig chod, Sound of the Dakini Laughter. Does the empowerment I received enable me to practice this as well? Now that I have been introduced to Machig's mandala, does that enable me to practice any chod out there (providing I have the lung), or does every practice have its own empowerment? Does anybody know how this empowerment I received relates to the "opening sky door" empowerment that I have heard so much about?

Thank you. I should mention that I was blown away by Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche. He is truly amazing.

Troy
Chöd is fine, but wouldn't it be better to just practice Dharma? Like Marpa gave the empowerments basically to everyone else but Milarepa. Now, Milarepa did do his fair share of bitching and whining at the time. But, it was just Marpa way of pushing him towards Dharma practise and away from sorcery and witchcraft wasn't it? Cutting the Ego-clinging stuff and all that, and it turned out that Milarepa turned out be just fine. And, it was him - Milarepa - that gave us the original Chöd teachings out of his boundless compassion towards all sentient beings. So, it would seem to me that once one sees one's teacher as Marpa and oneself as Milarepa developing the kind of guru devotion and realization of selflessness it will become quite natural to act like Milarepa and receive all the visions and the rest as he did.
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conebeckham
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by conebeckham »

SunRay wrote:Chöd is fine, but wouldn't it be better to just practice Dharma? Like Marpa gave the empowerments basically to everyone else but Milarepa. Now, Milarepa did do his fair share of bitching and whining at the time. But, it was just Marpa way of pushing him towards Dharma practise and away from sorcery and witchcraft wasn't it? Cutting the Ego-clinging stuff and all that, and it turned out that Milarepa turned out be just fine. And, it was him - Milarepa - that gave us the original Chöd teachings out of his boundless compassion towards all sentient beings. So, it would seem to me that once one sees one's teacher as Marpa and oneself as Milarepa developing the kind of guru devotion and realization of selflessness it will become quite natural to act like Milarepa and receive all the visions and the rest as he did.
If one understands Chod, there is nothing else one needs in order to practice the Dharma. In that sense, practicing Chod and practicing the Dharma are synonymous.

Marpa did, eventually, bestow empowerment on Milarepa--but only after engineering a path to exhaust Mila's obstructive habits and tendencies.

And Mila didn't give us the Chod teachings, per se.....specifically, Machig Labdron is credited with the specific "Body Offering" practice which is known these days as "chod," though of course the roots of this are with the Prajnaparamita, so I suppose in a sense Mila's practice could be called "Chod"--the severing of attachments, and also the Perfection of Wisdom.

Regarding the original question, I can't say for sure...but I do know that there are a variety of empowerments specific to various practices--Dudjom Throma, for example, is something one wouldn't practice merely by obtaining the "Opening the Door of the Sky" empowerment, I believe.

I think "Chod" as a primary practice is a wonderful thing...but I think you should choose one tradition, and practice that--and obtain the empowerment from that lineage. There's no sense in trying to practice the various Chod sadhanas out there--or, at least, not without repeated exposure and time with one, at a time.....

Because you have a connection with Lamchen Gyalpo Rinpoche, I'd recommend seeking instruction in the practices related to that empowerment, and sticking with that practice for some time. Don't worry about the other chod practices, at least for some time....

My cheap two cents, as always...
དམ་པའི་དོན་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ཆེ་བ་དང་།
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དེ་ནི་ཤེས་རབ་ལ་ནི་ལོ་རྟོག་སེལ།།


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It is realized through the blessing grace of the Guru and fortunate Karmic potential.
Like this, mistaken ideas of discriminating wisdom are clarified."
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Knotty Veneer
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Knotty Veneer »

philji wrote:Knotty, thanks. Can I ask when/ where Mingyur Rinpoche gave this empowerment..I was not aware of him giving this... As a student of his I find this interesting.great merit....
It was in a retreat situation in the mid-noughties in the UK - it wasn't a public empowerment. it was very special though on both occasions.
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Knotty Veneer
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Knotty Veneer »

SunRay wrote: Chöd is fine, but wouldn't it be better to just practice Dharma? Like Marpa gave the empowerments basically to everyone else but Milarepa. Now, Milarepa did do his fair share of bitching and whining at the time. But, it was just Marpa way of pushing him towards Dharma practise and away from sorcery and witchcraft wasn't it? Cutting the Ego-clinging stuff and all that, and it turned out that Milarepa turned out be just fine. And, it was him - Milarepa - that gave us the original Chöd teachings out of his boundless compassion towards all sentient beings. So, it would seem to me that once one sees one's teacher as Marpa and oneself as Milarepa developing the kind of guru devotion and realization of selflessness it will become quite natural to act like Milarepa and receive all the visions and the rest as he did.
Just reiterating what Cone said. Where did you get the idea that Chod wasn't Dharma? And Chod, though integrated into the Kagyu and systematized by the 3rd Karmapa, does not comes through Marpa or Milarepa. It is effectively a separated lineage coming via Machig Labdron from PhaDampa Sangye, Aryadeva and Nagarjuna. Chod is very definitely not magic or sorcery or exorcism, it is "the realization that gods and demons are one's own mind" - it is the practice par excellence for cutting through ego-clinging as its translated name suggests. Not meaning to be rude but if you are going to give other people advice on practices to avoid should you not take the time to learn more about them first.
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Stewart
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Stewart »

Knotty Veneer wrote:
philji wrote:Knotty, thanks. Can I ask when/ where Mingyur Rinpoche gave this empowerment..I was not aware of him giving this... As a student of his I find this interesting.great merit....
It was in a retreat situation in the mid-noughties in the UK - it wasn't a public empowerment. it was very special though on both occasions.
If it was at Samye Ling, then we definitely know each other!....I was at those Wangs too, upstairs in the Temple?...Did you get it from Thrangu R at Samye Ling too? I was also there.
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Palzang Jangchub
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Palzang Jangchub »

ratna wrote:I don't know if what you received the is the same as Nüden Dorje's Rainbow Body Chod empowerment, but the latter one in fact includes the sky door empowerment.

In any case, you should be good to go for Dakini Laughter, at least. In general, I've heard it said that the sky door empowerment is enough for any Chöd.

R
Does anyone know if the Rainbow Body Chöd empowerment and the wang for Nuden Dorje's Chöd Body Offering: The Swift Completion of the Two Accumulations (gcod kyi lus sbyin tshogs gnyis myur rdzogs zhis bya ba bzhugs so) are one and the same?

Lho Ontul Rinpoche gave the lung for this text and the Magical Net of Samantabhadra at the same time as the empowerment, if that context is useful.
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"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme

དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ
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Palzang Jangchub
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Palzang Jangchub »

Conferred with a friend of mine who also attended, and it seems it was the Rainbow Body Chöd empowerment with a reading transmission for the other 2 texts. For anyone else who received Chöd wang from Ontul Rinpoche at one of the DDCs, that should give you some clarity (unless it was otherwise specified).
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"The Sutras, Tantras, and Philosophical Scriptures are great in number. However life is short, and intelligence is limited, so it's hard to cover them completely. You may know a lot, but if you don't put it into practice, it's like dying of thirst on the shore of a great lake. Likewise, a common corpse is found in the bed of a great scholar." ~ Karma Chagme

དྲིན་ཆེན་རྩ་བའི་བླ་མ་སྐྱབས་རྗེ་མགར་ཆེན་ཁྲི་སྤྲུལ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཁྱེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ།།
རྗེ་བཙུན་བླ་མ་མཁས་གྲུབ་ཀརྨ་ཆགས་མེད་མཁྱེན་ནོ། ཀརྨ་པ་མཁྱེན་ནོཿ
Glyn
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Re: Chod empowerments

Post by Glyn »

conebeckham wrote: If one understands Chod, there is nothing else one needs in order to practice the Dharma. In that sense, practicing Chod and practicing the Dharma are synonymous.
I agree. In my limited experience Chod really covers everything. Happy do do nothing else for the rest of my life.
conebeckham wrote:I think "Chod" as a primary practice is a wonderful thing...but I think you should choose one tradition, and practice that--and obtain the empowerment from that lineage. There's no sense in trying to practice the various Chod sadhanas out there--or, at least, not without repeated exposure and time with one, at a time.....
Again agreed, but with the caveat of doing it according to the instructions of ones main Lama. I occasionally do a chod which isn't my main one due to bieng invited by a Lama next door, or at certain gompas, but I have one that is my main practice and prefer sticking to that for all sorts of reasons.
"It's not ok to practice Dharma sometimes, just when you feel like it. You have to practice all the time" - Lama Rigzin Rinpoche.
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