施身法修持儀軌 (The Practice of Chöd)

Chöd (Tibetan: gcod, “to cut”) is a Tibetan Buddhist ritual-music tradition whose chants, drum rhythms, and piercing trumpet calls accompany a tantric meditation aimed at cutting through ego-clinging. It is performed with a small two-headed hand drum (damaru), a ritual bell (drilbu), and the kangling (a high, reedy trumpet traditionally made from a thighbone), with vocal recitation moving between free-rhythm chant and formulaic melodic recitative. Its soundworld is stark and vivid: free-tempo vocal lines, sudden shouted interjections like “PHAT!”, cyclical drum patterns, rattling pellets on the damaru, and sustained kangling blasts that demarcate sections and summon deities and protectors. The music is inseparable from the sādhanā text and visualization sequence—invocation, offering, self-sacrifice as compassionate ‘feast,’ and dissolution—often practiced at liminal sites such as charnel grounds to cultivate fearlessness and compassion.