Swamiji on Class and Chod (PDF) - The Movement Center

( 

CLASS 

AND CHÖD 

Tools for Creating 

a Bigger Life 

by Swami Chetanananda 

TMC News, December 2008 Class and Chod 1

I’ve been asked to explain again how Chöd, a tantric ritual practice from the tradition of 

Vajrayana Buddhism, has come to be part of our practice here. 

First, you should know that the Tibetan influence in our lives 

has been artistic, cultural and spiritual, and it originated with 

Rudi. Rudi’s earliest spiritual experiences involved Tibetans 

and Tibetan practice. Rudi’s art collection included some 

incredible pieces from Tibet, including a very special statue of 

Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), an eighth century Kashmiri 

tantric master who was the first person to establish a monastery 

in Tibet. Thanks to Rudi, we also have a longstanding 

connection with the Tibetan refugee community that has 

continued until this day. 

After Rudi’s death, I started pursuing the historical foundations of our practice, and that led me 

to the esoteric Shaiva tradition of Kashmir. The Kashmirian 

authors and commentators were really well educated, really 

brilliant people. While their main audience was an 

aristocratic court, they had the foundation in training and 

practice that came from the cremation ground where 

tantrism had its roots. 

Chöd is also a cremation ground pratice. When I met Lama Wangdu and I started studying 

Chöd, I realized that the earliest written sources of Chöd practice are Shaiva sources. Lama 

Wangdu agreed, and he told me that his gurus considered Padmasambhava to be a reincarnation 

of Shiva and that all the practices that they have as part of their training came from Shiva. This 

is consistent with what we have learned from Professor Sanderson of Oxford University. It is 

his position that many of the Vajrayana sources were drawn from significant Shaiva tantras. 

So these two traditions developed mutually, coexisted and shared information and insight over 

the years and developed in tandem. In fact, I think tantric Hinduism, esoteric Shaivism and 

Vajrayana Buddhism have more in common with each other than they do with the other versions 


of their own religious traditions. In other words, tantrism is really about creative energy and not 

religious identity. 

In the Shaiva tradition, there are four layers of practice, called “upayas.” There is Anavopaya, 

which is related to the ritual aspects of any practice, as well as asana and pranayama. There is 

Shaktopaya, which has to do with the awakening and circulation of the kundalini energy. It 

relates to the perception that we are energy and the awareness of the pulsation of that energy 

and its vibrancy in us, and the awareness of our interconnectedness with other human beings. 

The third layer of the esoteric Shaiva practice tradition is called Shambavopaya. That is seeing the 

interconnectedness as a whole. It’s like looking at the ocean and not seeing the waves or the 

currents there, but seeing the whole thing as a totally interconnected dynamic oneness. 

Then, beyond those three, there is one final layer that is called Anupaya. Anupaya is the total 

transcendence of any perception of separateness whatsoever and the dissolution of all 

phenomenon and all thought into a very simple profound, state of being, beyond any beginning 

or end, which is simply one and simply is. 

In the Vajrayana tradition of 

Padmasambhava that Lama Wangdu 

teaches, there are nine yanas. Each of those 

yanas is divided into three. They are 

religious, philosophical and practical 

training. The pinnacle of that system is the 

practice called Dzogchen. 

In my opinion, Dzogchen and Anupaya are 

the same thing. Dzogchen means the 

perfection of wisdom. It is the recognition 

of the state of meditation that is always within us. It is the recognition that we are not 

meditating, but rather that this body and this individual life is like a small thought that is being 


meditated upon by the ultimate reality. It is appreciating that we are not breathing, but rather 

but we are being breathed. We are nothing but the breath of God, if you will. 

Within the Dzogchen tradition and in esoteric Shaivism, there are two principal training 

programs at the highest level. Those two programs are Chöd, which exists in different forms in 

Shaivism and in Dzogchen, and the circulation of the energy or kundalini yoga. Kundalini yoga, 

as you know, is the awakening of the energy, the expansion of the chakras and the circulation of 

the energy through the channels. In the Dzogchen tradition, it’s called Togyal. 

These two practices, Chöd 

and kundalini yoga, are the 

main ways in which we 

practice to bring out the best 

in us and the best in 

everything in our 

environment. The circulation 

of the energy brings about a 

vibrancy and vitality in your 

physical body, a 

transformation of all of the 

emotional garbage that we 

carry. We dissolve that and become emotionally balanced and clear and mentally clear and 

sharp. Ultimately, we become profoundly aware of the power of spirit that is functioning within 

us as the very essence of our desires and our will, functioning as us, and also functioning as the 

vibrancy in all of our experience. We come to that place where we appreciate the total 

interconnectedness of our body and mind and our environment. 

Chöd practice is the conscious contemplation of the transcendence of our physical body and our 

mind, and our ego and all of our desires and our agendas and our trips and our attitudes and our 

likes and our dislikes and our beliefs and our disbeliefs. It is the transcendence of everything to 


do with mind and body and the contemplation of who we are beyond that sack of flatulence that 

we walk around in all the time. 

Chöd practice is also a demonstration of loving 

kindness and compassion. It is the awareness that we 

are responsible for the quality of our environment, for 

our own transformation and the transformation of that 

environment for the benefit of the whole. It is the 

appreciation that this whole world is not someplace 

we have come to to get something from. 

We are not in this world to get anything. We are in 

this world to give. Giving of ourselves to the tensions, 

whether they be spirits or people, whatever 

circumstances, giving of ourselves in every 

circumstance that demands of us, requests of us, 

presents itself to us, allows us to dissolve the boundaries of our awareness and transcend the 

whole paradigm of desire and a version, of love and hate, of want and don’t want, of pain and joy, 

pain and pleasure, allows us to dissolve that and begin to appreciate the wholeness of life within 

us and wholeness of life 

itself. In which case, we 

are released, relieved to be 

able to live in the 

dimension of ourselves 

which is whole, which has 

never had a problem. 

We live in the dimension 

that has no problem, has no 

limitation, has no tension, 

is nothing but the vibrancy 


of the creative energy and is inherently joyful. The point of growing is to bring us to that place 

where we can live conscious of the completeness, the wholeness, which is ever present within 

ourselves and enjoy it. Enjoy it now! Not tomorrow. Not after we die. Now, because that 

dimension of ourselves is beyond time and space. In that dimension there is no past and no 

future. There is an infinite present, infinitely now, which is infinitely complete. 

I was honored to receive Lama Wangdu’s teachings 

on Chöd and profoundly impressed by those 

teachings. They resonated with my Catholic 

upbringing, where I first learned that it is necessary 

for us to be concerned about our fellow human 

beings. Because we exist in a totally integrated, 

totally interconnected environment, in which we 

are not now, nor will we ever be separate, we cannot 

achieve anything just for ourselves. Because we are 

never going to be working only for ourselves; it is 

not possible in an integrated environment. We have to be concerned about our 

interconnectedness and to appreciate that the quality of our life is in some measure dependent 

upon the quality of the environment around us. 

The circulation of the energy is really about the quality of the whole. I was very pleased that we 

could bring this Chöd teaching to reinforce that understanding and to have a practical way of 

beginning to put people in touch with that boundless dimension of themselves, and the fact that 

that boundless dimension of ourselves operates in our everyday life all the time. It operates 

every moment of every day in every context. 

How does all fit with our core practice, class? Class is about transmitting, making available to 

you the experience of that dimension where the you and the me no longer exist and there is only 

one pure joyous loving awareness. Class is what is described in the Dzogchen tradition as 

direct transmission. It is the direct transmission of the awareness of awakened mind or pure 

consciousness, which is the term in the Anupaya of esoteric Shaivism. 


An important Dzogchen master in Tibet told me that the essential method of practice in that 

tradition, according to the greatest exponent, Longchenpa, is to find your guru and merge your 

mind with his. In Buddhism, the term “mind” really means your individual awareness. That is 

more than just your thoughts; 

it’s also your energy and your 

awareness. Merge with your 

teacher. Realize there is only 

one mind. 

In Dzogchen teachings, as in 

Anupaya teaching, whether we 

use the term Shaktipat or 

direct transmission, the 

possibility of experiencing this 

dimension of reality is made 

present in our lives by a 

teacher, a mentor. So, class is 

where TrekChöd and Togyal 

come to the same point, where 

Chöd and the circulation of the 

energy meet as the experience 

of totally undifferentiated pure 

awareness, beyond flow and 

beyond time and beyond space. 

There is only one thing happening here. There is one practice, which has several forms. All 

those various forms meet and become completely one-pointed in class, which is the Shaktipat of 

the Anupaya, the highest practice tradition among all the tantric Shaivas and the direct 

transmission of awakened mind in the Dzogchen tradition. 


I hope this helps you to understand why we embrace Chöd and where it fits into where we do. 

Because class is Chöd and Chöd is class. Circulation of the energy is class and class is the 

circulation of the energy. You can’t ultimately separate the two. 

The Shaiva and Vajrayana practices we have are really the same thing put in different cultural 

envelopes. We’re not Hindu and we’re not Buddhist. We are just trying to be ourselves, in the 

finest possible demonstration of that that we can evoke from within ourselves and the total 

environment in which we move. 

Please don’t get confused about what our practice is or isn’t. We have to think instead about 

how we can use these tools to live in the finest place within ourselves—the most open, the most 

loving, the kindest, most compassionate place we can live from within ourselves. How can we 

live big, large and generous lives? Think about how these tools can help you. 

(from a talk at the July 2008 Retreat)

Swamiji on Class and Chod (PDF) - The Movement Center

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