This week’s meditation session is led by Sharon Salzberg and the theme is Interdependence. The guided meditation begins at 14:58.

Machik Labdron (1055–1153), one of the most prominent female masters and lineage holders in Tibetan Buddhism, appears deified in this painting as a dakini, a female spirit who assists in a Tantric practitioner’s spiritual development through teaching and other forms of inspiration. Machik Labdron transmitted the practice of the female meditation deity Vajrayogini so widely that she came to be identified with the goddess. Here she is surrounded by deities and lineage masters, including Vajradhara at top center and the feminine personification of wisdom, Prajnaparamita, orange with four hands in the clouds. To the upper left is her main instructor, the Indian master Phadampa Sanggye, who initiated her into a practice known as chod, or severance practice, which involves the visualization of cutting away the human body, and ultimately the ego, as a means of reaching enlightenment. Machik Labdron is famous for helping establish chod practice in Tibet.