Wisdom Dharma Chat | Sarah Harding
July 2, 2025
In this episode of Wisdom Dharma Chats, translator and scholar Sarah Harding joins host Daniel Aitken to discuss her new volume, Severance: The Early Practice of Chö. In this conversation, Sarah looks back on her journey in translating chö texts and how she came to translate these three raw texts from the 13th-century master Jamyang Gönpo—texts that strip the practice down to its fearless core.
Together, they explore how chö (severance)—an ancient Tibetan Buddhist practice—guides us to confront our deepest fears, cut through ego-clinging, and realize the mind’s innate clarity. This conversation touches on themes of vulnerability, self-liberation, and the transformative power of meditation in difficult circumstances. It’s a rare opportunity to learn about some of the earliest known chö instructions—practices meant to be lived rather than performed and teachings that help us face the hardest parts of life with fierce compassion.
Show Links:
- Severance: The Early Practice of Chö
- Four Tibetan Lineages
- Creation and Completion
- Learn more about Machik Labdron in her biography from The Treasury of Lives here.
- Learn more about Sarah’s earlier volume, Machik’s Complete Explanation, here.
- Learn more about Sarah’s volumes within The Treasury of Precious Instructions, Volumes 13—Zhije: The Practice of Suffering—and 14—Chod: The Sacred Teachings on Severance—here and here, respectively.
Meet Our Guest
Sarah Harding
Sarah Harding has been studying and practicing Buddhism since 1974, and has been teaching and translating since completing a three-year retreat in 1980 under the guidance of Kyabjé Kalu Rinpoché. She was associate professor at Naropa University for twenty-five years in Boulder, Colorado, where she currently resides, and has been a fellow of the Tsadra Foundation since 2000. She specializes in literature with a focus on tantric practice. Her publications include Creation and Completion; The Treasury of Knowledge: Esoteric Instructions; Niguma, Lady of Illusion; two volumes on Chö and Shijé from The Treasury of Precious Instructions; Four Tibetan Lineages: Core Teachings of Pacification, Severance, Shangpa Kagyü, and Bodong; and Ornament of Dakpo Kagyü Thought: Short Commentary on the Mahāmudrā Aspiration Prayer.
