Machik Labdron. Machik's Complete Explanation: Clarifying the Meaning of Chod

A Complete Explanation of Casting Out the Body As Food. — Snow Lion Publications; Tsadra Foundation, 2003. — 416 p. — ISBN: 1-55939-182-0.
Translated and introduced by Sarah Harding.This is the very first sentence, after the homage, of the current text, Clarifying the Meaning of Chöd, A Complete Explanation of Casting Out the Body As Food, or Machik’s Complete Explanation. How does the ineffable become a woman, or a woman become ineffable? Who was the woman behind this book? Stories of female saints are exceptional enough in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, or in any major religion for that matter, to make this story rare and precious. But even among the few that we can discover, the figure of Machik Lapdrön (Machig Labdrön) stands out as unique for several reasons. According to the legend, in her previous life she was an Indian man who made the unusual choice to take rebirth as a woman in Tibet. She was inspired primarily by the Prajñaparamita, the Great Mother Perfection of Wisdom that is the manifestation of the ultimate feminine. Unlike other female saints of Tibet, she was not a lama’s consort, a nun, or a hermit, but a mother who nurtured the spiritual life of her children, and a self-styled beggar woman. Above all, she was the only Tibetan, male or female, who was the progenitor of a distinct tradition that spread back into the Buddhist motherland of India, a cause for great national pride in Tibet. And she left a tremendous legacy of her own teachings, more than any other woman.