Chod, cutting, is a Tibetan Buddhist practice systematised by the eleventh and twelfth century female master Machig Labdron, whose teaching and lineage stand among the relatively few major meditative systems within Tibetan Buddhism founded and transmitted from a woman practitioner, a fact Tibetan Buddhist historians and Chod practitioners themselves regard as notable within a tradition whose major lineage founders are predominantly male.
In the practice, structured through visualisation, ritual melody, and the sound of the damaru drum and bell, the practitioner visualises offering their own body as a feast to all beings, benevolent and malevolent alike, an imagined act of total generosity aimed directly at cutting through, chod, the practitioner's own deepest clinging to self and body, treating the ordinary instinct toward self preservation as itself the specific obstacle the practice targets, unlike most other Buddhist practices that address ordinary attachment more generally. Chod practitioners have traditionally sought out isolated, frightening locations, charnel grounds, remote mountain passes, sites reputed to be inhabited by spirits, deliberately, on the understanding that genuinely confronting fear directly is part of what the practice is meant to accomplish, a distinctive and demanding practical dimension that sets Chod apart from most seated meditative technique.