Machik's Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod

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 Labdron, the great female sain and yogini of the 11th-12th century Tibet, addresses these issues in a practical, direct way. This valuable text is now finally translated in its entirety into English. 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.

Sarah Harding is a lama in the Shangpa Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. She became a student of the late master Kalu Rinpoche in 1972 and completed the first traditional three-year retreat for westerners under his guidance in 1980. She works as a teacher and translator. She has been a faculty member of the Naropa University since 1992, where she teaches a full range of religious studies classes. She is currently working on textual translation and research as a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation. Published work includes Creation and Completion, Lion's Gaze, Machik's Complete Explanation, and The Life and Revelations of Pemalingpa. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her two children.