China / Tibet: The yogini Machig Labdron (1055-1149), 19th century

Machig Labdrön (Tibetan: མ་གཅིག་ལབ་སྒྲོན་, Wylie: Ma-gcig Lab-sgron) was a renowned 11th century Tibetan Tantric Buddhist practitioner and teacher.

Machig Lapdrön was a great Tibetan yogini who originated several Tibetan lineages of the Indian tantric practice of Chöd. Machig may have come from a Bönpo family and, according to Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, developed Chöd by combining native Tibetan Bönpo shamanism with the Dzogchen teachings.

Machig's Chöd, also known as Mahamudra Chöd, has been widespread in Tibet since Machig's lifetime. It is also called 'The Beggars' Offering' or 'The Cutting-Off-Ritual.' Chöd is a visionary Buddhist practice of cutting attachment to one’s corporeal form (in terms of the dualistic proclivity to relate to one's corporeal form as a reference-point that proves one’s existence).

In some lineages of the Chöd practice, chodpas and chodmas (practitioners of Chöd) use a bell, small drum (a Chöd damaru), and a thigh-bone trumpet (kangling) made of human bone (often obtained from the charnel ground of sky burials).

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TIBETAN BUDDHISM