Introduction to Western Chod

The following is an excerpt from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo called “Western Chod” 

The main thought about this teaching that I am going to describe to you is that all of this occurred before I ever met with my root guru, with either one of my root gurus. I have two root gurus,;I hadn’t met with either of them. I had not met with the path called “Buddhism”. I had not read any books about Buddhism. I did not know anything about Buddhism. In fact, I am embarrassed to say now that I thought the Tibetans were kind, smelly, old guys who sat on rugs. I really did think like that. I am sorry, but, you know that is the truth. I am bound to tell the truth.

I was about 20 at the time. I had known for about one year that I had to engage in a course of preparation for some later events in my life. I really didn’t know what the later events were. I had no idea about being connected with Buddhism or anything like that. But I had always known that there would be something, and I had always known that I should prepare for it.

At the age of 19 I received certain indications that it was time to prepare.  I had already begun on my program of meditation. Right around the time that I was twenty I gave birth to my first son, and he was a very cooperative son. He was willing to take naps during the day so that I could meditate. I swear that I didn’t bonk him over the head or anything. He just took naps. So, I was able to engage in meditation early in the morning,  then in the afternoon during his nap time, and then later on in the evening. I was very much involved with it. My feeling for my practice was that this was really the main part of my life, that everything else was kind of black and white, and, that was the colored part somehow. Every time I would come to a place where I felt as though I had engaged in a certain element of my practice for long enough, or it just simply felt naturally time to move on, I would request inwardly to, I would have to say, the absolute nature (which is the way I understood divinity at that time). What was the next step?  How could I practice?  How should I continue to grow and engage?  And this one time I received an awareness, and an indication and instruction that I should begin to practice in a certain way.

The practice will be presented in upcoming posts…

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