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http://whitetara.tripod.com (http://whitetara.tripod.com)
(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g20/mysticaldaf/whittara2.jpg)
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:)
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Gorgeous and serene!
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Daphne, what draws you to Tara?
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Daphne, what draws you to Tara?
Not entirely sure... been drawn to her for some time, or rather, to the Tara expression of the Mother. Possibly because of problems my son is going through at the moment, as well as others that I know.
White Tara seems to call to me, and she is also invoked for others, not for the self, more so than the other 'Tara's'.
I have always been drawn more to Tara than to other expressions, even without knowing too much about her. She kind of sings to me..
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Not entirely sure... been drawn to her for some time, or rather, to the Tara expression of the Mother. Possibly because of problems my son is going through at the moment, as well as others that I know.
White Tara seems to call to me, and she is also invoked for others, not for the self, more so than the other 'Tara's'.
I have always been drawn more to Tara than to other expressions, even without knowing too much about her. She kind of sings to me..
Beautiful!
I'll post Arya Tara meditation in the evening (I guess we're in the same time zone :) )
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WOW Daphne & thank you! ;)
I was headed up to my sauna to start the fire early yesterday afternoon. As I looked at the clouds I saw Tara in cloud formation. Not knowing what it was at the time I could only describe it as a female Buddha.
Looks like I have some research for this is the first time I've come across this.
Many Blessings
Fade
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:D
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That is a beautiful Tara image!
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This one seems to be a more 'modern' image of Tara - I love the blues!
(http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g20/mysticaldaf/tara.jpg)
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Self-generation as White Tara
OM SÖBHAWA SHUDDHA SARWA DHARMA SÖBHAWA SHUDDHO HAM
OM All phenomena including myself are purified of inherent existence HAM
Everything becomes emptiness.
OM SHUNYATA GYANA VAJRA SHÖBHAWA ÄMAKO HAM
I am the Wisdom Truth Body of all the Buddhas,
inseparable from emptiness.
From the state of emptiness, upon a white lotus and moon, my mind appears as a letter TAM. This transforms into an upala flower marked by a letter TAM. From this, light rays radiate, fulfilling the welfare of living beings. Gathering back, they completely transform, and I arise as White Tara, the Compassionate Mother of all living beings, who bestows the attainment of the deathless vajra body. I have a white-coloured body, the nature of wisdom light, one face, two hands, and seven eyes. My right hand is in the gesture of supreme giving and my left hand holds an upala flower. I sit with my legs in vajra posture. I am in the prime of my youth, adorned with beautiful garments and the major and minor marks. My back is supported by a moon disc.
Light rays radiate from my heart and invite the wisdom beings from all directions, together with the empowering Deities. The wisdom beings dissolve into me and we become inseparably one. The empowering Deities grant the empowerment and my crown is adorned by Amitayus.
Stop ordinary appearance, and with clear appearance and divine pride meditate on this self-generation of yourself as the enlightened being White Tara.
Mantra recitation
On a moon at my heart is a letter TAM surrounded by the mantra rosaries. Light rays radiate from the letter TAM and mantra rosaries and draw back the power of the five elements: the blessings of the body, speech, and mind, good qualities, and deeds of all the Buddhas; the power and potential of mantras and of the life and merit of every single living being in the six realms – all in the aspect of the nectar of immortality and rays of light. These enter through my crown, filling my body. All negativities, obstructions, and obstacles to life are completely pacified, and I attain the supreme, deathless vajra body
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MAMA AYUR PUNAYE GYANA PUTRIM KURU YE SÖHA (21x)
OM TARE TUTTARE TURE (recite as many times as possible)
Dedication
When I see the signs of untimely death,
May I immediately receive the blessings of Arya Tara;
And, having destroyed the Lord of Death,
May I quickly attain the deathless vajra body.
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White Tara
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/white_tara-w.jpg)
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Green Tara
(http://buriedshiva.com.au/assets/green_tara-w.jpg)
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there is a difference between White tart and Green Tara, and also there is a Tara in Hinduism, who is basically Kali.
White Tara has her legs closed, and has 5 (I think, or 7?) eyes, which you can see on her hands, forehead etc. Green Tara has one leg half extended.
I would love to know more about the difference, if someone wanted to do some research.
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Here's just a c and p smattering...
http://www.answers.com/topic/tara-buddhism
Tara (Buddhism)
This article is about the Buddhist bodhisattva. For the Hindu goddess, see Tara (Devi).
Tara or Arya Tara, also known as Jetsun Dolma in Tibetan, is a female Buddha typically associated with Buddhist tantra practice as preserved in Tibetan Buddhism. She is the "mother of liberation", and represents the virtues of success in work and achievements. Tara is a tantric deity whose practice is used by practitioners of Vajrayana to develop certain inner qualities and understand outer, inner and secret teachings about compassion and emptiness.
Tara is actually the generic name for a set of Buddhas or bodhisattvas of similar aspect. These may more properly be understood as different aspects of the same quality, as bodhisattvas are often considered metaphoric for Buddhist virtues.
The most widely known forms of Tara are:
Green Tara, known as the Buddha of enlightened activity
White Tara, also known for compassion, long life, healing and serenity; also known as The Wish-fulfilling Wheel, or Cintachakra
Red Tara, of fierce aspect associated with magnetizing all good things
Black Tara, associated with power
Yellow Tara, associated with wealth and prosperity
Blue Tara, associated with transmutation of anger
Cittamani Tara, a form of Tara widely practiced at the level of Highest Yoga Tantra in the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism, portrayed as green and often conflated with Green Tara
Khadiravani Tara (Tara of the teak forest), who appeared to Nagarjuna in the Khadiravani forest of South India and who is sometimes referred to as the "22nd Tara."
There is also recognition in some schools of Buddhism of twenty-one Taras. A practice text entitled "In Praise of the 21 Taras", is recited during the morning in all four sects of Tibetan Buddhism.
The main Tara mantra is Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha (pronounced sometimes as "Om Tare Tu Tare Ture Soha").
Emergence of Tara as a Buddhist deity
Within Tibetan Buddhism Tara is regarded as a Buddha of compassion and action. She is the female aspect of Avalokitesvara and in some origin stories she comes from his tears. Tara is also known as a saviouress, as a heavenly deity who hears the cries of beings experiencing misery in samsara. The Tara figure originated not in Buddhism but in Hinduism, where she, Tara (Devi), was one of a number of Mother Goddess figures alongside Sarasvati, Lakshmi, Parvati, and Shakti. In the 6th century C.E., during the era of the Pala Empire, Tara was adopted into the Buddhist pantheon as an important bodhisattva figure. Not uncoincidentally this was just a few centuries after the Prajnaparamita Sutra had been introduced into what was becoming the Mahayana Buddhism of India. It would seem that the feminine principle makes its first appearance in Buddhism as the "Mother of Perfected Wisdom" and then later Tara comes to be seen as an expression of the compassion of perfected wisdom. However, sometimes Tara is also known as "the Mother of the Buddhas", which usually refers to the enlightened wisdom of the Buddhas, so in approaching Buddhist deities, one learns not to impose totally strict boundaries about what one deity covers, as opposed to another deity.
They all can be seen as expressions of the play of the energies of manifested form dancing out of vast emptiness. Be that as it may, Tara began to be associated with the motherly qualities of compassion and mercy. Undoubtedly for the common folk who were Buddhists in India of that time, Tara was a more approachable deity. It is one thing to stare into the eyes of a deity who represents wisdom as void. It is perhaps easier to worship a goddess whose eyes look out with infinite compassion and who has a sweet smile.
Tara then became very popular as an object of worship and was becoming an object of Tantric worship and practice by the 7th century C.E. With the movement and cross-pollination of Indian Buddhism into Tibet, the worship and practices of Tara became incorporated into Tibetan Buddhism. Independent of whether she is classified as a deity, a Buddha or a bodhisattva, Tara remains very popular in Tibet and Mongolia. And as Ms. Getty notes, one other reason for her popularity was that Tara became to be known as a Buddhist deity who could be appealed to directly by lay folk without the necessity or intervention of a lama or monk. Thus, as Tara was accepted into the ranks of Buddhist bodhisattvas, she became popular to both common folk as one to appeal to in daily life, and for monastics, as an entry way into understanding compassion and mercy as part of one's evolving path within Buddhism. (See also Guan Yin, the female aspect of Avalokitesvara in Chinese Buddhism.)
Origin as a Buddhist bodhisattva
Red TaraTara has many stories told which explain her origin as a bodhisattva. One in particular has a lot of resonance for women interested in Buddhism and quite likely for those delving into early 21st century feminism.
In this tale there is a young princess who lives in a different world system, millions of years in the past. Her name is Yeshe Dawa, which means "Moon of Primordial Awareness". For quite a number of aeons she makes offerings to the Buddha of that world system "Tonyo Drupa". She receives special instruction from him concerning bodhicitta — the heart-mind of a bodhisattva. After doing this, some monks approach her and suggest that because of her level of attainment she should next pray to be reborn as a male to progress further. At this point she lets the monks know in no uncertain terms that from the point of view of Enlightenment it is only "weak minded worldlings" who see gender as a barrier to attaining enlightenment. She sadly notes there have been few who wish to work for the welfare of beings in a female form though. Therefore she resolves to always be reborn as a female bodhisattva, until samsara is no more. She then stays in a palace in a state of meditation for some ten million years, and the power of this practice releases tens of millions of beings from suffering. As a result of this Tonyo Drupa tells her she will henceforth manifest supreme bodhi as the Goddess Tara in many world systems to come.
With this story in mind it is interesting to juxtapose this with a quotation from H.H the Dalai Lama about Tara, spoken at a conference on Compassionate Action in Newport Beach, CA in 1989:
"There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tara. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, "I have developed bodhicitta as a women. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman."
Tara then, embodies certain ideals which make her attractive to women practitioners, and her emergence as a Bodhisattva can be seen as a part of Mahayana Buddhism's reaching out to women, and becoming more inclusive even in 6th century C.E. India.
Tara as a Saviouress
Tara also embodies many of the qualities of feminine principle. She is known as the Mother of Mercy and Compassion. She is the source, the female aspect of the universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion and relief from bad karma as experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence. She engenders, nourishes, smiles at the vitality of creation, and has sympathy for all beings as a mother does for her children. As Green Tara she offers succor and protection from all the unfortunate circumstances one can encounter within the samsaric world. As White Tara she expresses maternal compassion and offers healing to beings who are hurt or wounded, either physically or psychically. As Red Tara she teaches Discriminating Awareness about created phenomena, and how to turn raw desire into compassion and love. As Blue Tara (Ekajati) she becomes a protector in the Nyingma lineage, who expresses a ferocious, wrathful, female energy whose invocation destroys all Dharmic obstacles and engenders good luck and swift spiritual awakening.[1]
In all within Tibetan Buddhism she has 21 major forms, each tied to a certain color and energy. And each offers some feminine attribute, of ultimate benefit to the spiritual aspirant who asks for her assistance.
Another quality of feminine principle which she shares with the dakinis is playfulness. As John Blofeld expands upon in Bodhisattva of Compassion, Tara is frequently depicted as a young sixteen year old girlish woman. She oftens manifests in the lives of dharma practitioners when they take themselves, or spiritual path too seriously. There are Tibetan tales in which she laughs at self-righteousness, or plays pranks on those who lack reverence for the feminine. In Magic Dance: The Display of the Self-Nature of the Five Wisdom Dakinis, Thinley Norbu explores this as "Playmind". Applied to Tara one could say that her playful mind can relieve ordinary minds which become rigidly serious or tightly gripped by dualistic distinctions. She takes delight in an open mind and a receptive heart then. For in this openness and receptivity her blessings can naturally unfold and her energies can quicken the aspirants spiritual development.
These qualities of feminine principle then, found an expression in Indian Mahayana Buddhism and the emerging Vajrayana of Tibet, as the many forms of Tara, as dakinis, as Prajnaparamita, and as many other local and specialized feminine divinities. As the worship of Tara developed, various prayers, chants and mantras became associated with her. These came out of a felt devotional need, and from her inspiration causing spiritual masters to compose and set down sadhanas, or tantric meditation practices. Two ways of approach to her began to emerge. In one common folk and lay practitioners would simply directly appeal to her to ease some of the travails of worldly life. In the second, she became a Tantric deity whose practice would be used by monks or tantric yogis in order to develop her qualities in themselves, ultimately leading through her to the source of her qualities, which are Enlightenment, Enlightened Compassion, and Enlightened Mind.
Tara as a Tantric deity
Tara as a focus for tantric deity yoga can be traced back to the time period of Padmasambhava. There is a Red Tara practice which was given by Padmasambhava to Yeshe Tsogyal. He asked that she hide it as a treasure. It was not until this century, that a great Nyingma lama, Apong Terton rediscovered it. This lama was reborn as His Holiness Sakya Trizin, present head of the Sakyapa sect. A monk who had known Apong Terton succeeded in retransmitting it to H.H. Sakya Trizin, and the same monk also gave it to Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, who released it to his western students.
Martin Willson in In Praise of Tara traces many different lineages of Tara Tantras, that is Tara scriptures used as Tantric sadhanas. For example a Tara sadhana was revealed to Tilopa, (988-1069 C.E.) the human father of the Karma Kagyu. Atisa, the great translator and founder of the Kadampa school of Tibetan Buddhism, was a devotee of Tara. He composed a praise to her, and three Tara Sadhanas. Martin Willson's work also contains charts which show origins of her tantras in various lineages, but suffice to say that Tara as a tantric practice quickly spread from around the 7th century C.E. onwards, and remains an important part of Vajrayana Buddhism to this day.
The practices themselves usually present Tara as a tutelary deity (thug dam, yidam) which the practitioners sees as being a latent aspect of one's mind, or a manifestation in a visible form of a quality stemming from Buddha Jnana. As John Blofeld puts it in his The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet:
The function of the Yidam is one of the profound mysteries of the Vajrayana...
Especially during the first years of practice the Yidam is of immense importance. Yidam is the Tibetan rendering of the Sanskrit word "Istadeva" — the in-dwelling deity; but, where the Hindus take the Istadeva for an actual deity who has been invited to dwell in the devotee's heart, the Yidams of Tantric Buddhism are in fact the emanations of the adepts own mind. Or are they?
To some extent they seem to belong to that order of phenomena which in Jungian terms are called archetypes and are therefore the common property of the entire human race. Even among Tantric Buddhists, there may be a division of opinion as to how far the Yidams are the creations of individual minds. What is quite certain is that they are not independently existing gods and goddesses; and yet, paradoxically, there are many occasions when they must be so regarded.
Sadhanas of Tara
Sadhanas in which Tara is the yidam (meditational deity) can be extensive or quite brief. Most all of them include some introductory praises or homages to invoke her presence and prayers of taking refuge. Then her mantra is recited, followed by a visualization of her, perhaps more mantra, then the visualization is dissolved, followed by a dedication of the merit from doing the practice. Additionally there may be extra prayers of aspirations, and a long life prayer for the Lama who originated the practice. Many of the Tara sadhanas are seen as beginning practices within the world of Vajrayana Buddhism, however what is taking place during the visualization of the deity actually invokes some of the most sublime teachings of all Buddhism.
In this case during the creation phase of Tara as a yidam, she is seen as having as much reality as any other phenomena apprehended through the mind. By reciting her mantra and visualizing her form in front, or on the head of the adept, one is opening to her energies of compassion and wisdom. After a period of time the practitioner shares in some of these qualities, becomes imbued with her being and all it represents. At the same time all of this is seen as coming out of Emptiness and having a translucent quality like a rainbow. Then many times there is a visualization of oneself as Tara. One simultaneously becomes inseparable from all her good qualities while at the same time realizing the emptiness of the visualization of oneself as the yidam and also the emptiness of one's ordinary self.
This occurs in the completion stage of the practice. One dissolves the created deity form and at the same time also realizes how much of what we call the "self" is a creation of the mind, and has no long term substantial inherent existence. This part of the practice then is preparing the practitioner to be able to confront the dissolution of one's self at death and ultimately be able to approach through various stages of meditation upon emptiness, the realization of Ultimate Truth as a vast display of Emptiness and Luminosity. At the same time the recitation of the mantra has been invoking Tara's energy through its Sanskrit seed syllables and this purifies and activates certain psychic centers of the body (chakras). This also untangles knots of psychic energy which have hindered the practitioner from developing a Vajra body, which is necessary to be able to progress to more advanced practices and deeper stages of realization.
Therefore even in a simple Tara sadhana a plethora of outer, inner, and secret events is taking place and there are now many works such as Deity Yoga, compiled by the present Dalai Lama, which explores all the ramifications of working with a yidam in Tantric practices.
The end results of doing such Tara practices are many. For one thing it reduces the forces of delusion in the forms of negative karma, sickness, afflictions of kleshas, and other obstacles and obscurations. The mantra helps generate Bodhicitta within the heart of the practitioner and purifies the psychic channels (nadis) within the body allowing a more natural expression of generosity and compassion to flow from the heart center. Through experiencing Tara's perfected form one acknowledges one's own perfected form, that is one's intrinsic Buddha nature, which is usually covered over by obscurations and clinging to dualistic phenomena as being inherently real and permanent.
The practice then weans one away from a coarse understanding of Reality, allowing one to get in touch with inner qualities similar to those of a bodhisattva, and prepares one's inner self to embrace finer spiritual energies, which can lead to more subtle and profound realizations of the Emptiness of phenomena and self.
As Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche, in his "Introduction to the Red Tara Sadhana", notes of his lineage: "Tara is the flawless expression of the inseparability of emptiness, awareness and compassion. Just as you use a mirror to see your face, Tara meditation is a means of seeing the true face of your mind, devoid of any trace of delusion".
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My knowledg is limited here about this. Budism is not exactly my predilection except when it comes to the focus of natural breathing in meditation.
From my understanding OF GREEN TARA has more to do with "ACTION'
White Tara is connected with LONGEVITY. She is also the ONE who helps her
followers overcome obstacles, particularly roadblocks to the practice of religion.
This might be seen with the depictions you mentioned micheal. With green Tara and the leg half extended might be a means of illustrating the process of taking action That you describe. While the depiction of the white Tara might be seen in more of a repose illustration with all the eyes being able to see for others who seek guidance.
I think this comes from my readings "The Little Budha" Companion book and a little googleing in the past. They talk allot of natural breath in this book which I really like! Focus on natural breathing is allot harder then I would have thought. And it is very awesome that the longer you do it the harder it is to engage your awareness on it. Partly because you breath lighter and lighter as you go along. Bringing the heartbeat down......all that cool stuff
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thanks nichi and elliot
that's interesting info
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Green Tara
dTam
Green Tara (Dölma) embodies the female wisdom activity of the mind and is basically an emanation of the air-element (Amoghasiddhi Buddha). In some lower tantras of the fire-element (Buddha Amithaba). She is also called 'Mother of All Buddhas' and has many peaceful and wrathful emanation forms. Results of the Green Tara meditation are e.g. quick thinking and according wisdom-reaction, generousity, magical perfection, fearlessness and spontaneity to reach a quick karmic completion. Her attributes are lightblue upala-flowers (paeonias). She is adorned with jewels and precious cloth, sitting on a white moon-disk. Her right leg is outside the lotus flower, which symbolizes her continous activity, alertness and her determination for quick active help. Her hands are in the gesture of granting protection and freeing from fears. Her short mantra is OM TARE TUTARE TURE SVAHA.and her seed-syllable is dTAM. She was a main meditation deity of Ven. Kalu Rinpoche.
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Wrathful Green Tara
(http://www.grahamwakefield.net/Goldsmiths/Green_Tara/img/tara2.jpg)
dTam
Green Tara & the Air-Element
This old Tibetan thangka painting of the 8-armed Green Tara (the 8 arms symbolize her 8 various magical siddhis or wisdom powers) shows Tara being surrounded by 20 other Tara deities (21 female wisdom activities of enlightenment). The original mandala of wrathful Green Tara is inhabited by other deities than shown above. Tara is also called the 'Quick Heroine' and can take many magical forms to fulfill various spontanious wisdom activities. Beside identifications during meditation she is also active as a so-called 'protector deity'.
The above shown 8-armed form of Tara stems from a very rare tantra lineage, still kept alive in some Tibetan-Nepalese traditions. The tantra belongs to the highest Buddhist tantra group, the Anuttara Tantra. In contrast to the 'peaceful-only' White Tara with her symbol of a snow-white upala, Green Tara's main attributes are the lightblue upala-flowers (paeonia). The lightblue color of this flower signalizes the potential that this basically peaceful deity 'can' change into wrathful, when a dangerous situation occurs. Also her head-aura is painted lightblue. Her main 2 hands are in the gesture of granting help and fearlessness. Her right foot outside the lotos shows her continuous readiness to interact with all kinds of karmic hindrances. The main intention of Green Tara is to avoid negative karma and to free oneself from old karmic bondages, reaching enlightenment for oneself and for the sake of all sentient beings as quick as possible.
Her seed-syllable (basic sound) is dTam and her short mantra is OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA. Besides Karmadrikh and Vishvapani (two male bodhisattva-forms of Buddha Amoghasiddhi) she is the most popular bodhisattva (enlightened being) of the air-element or 'Karma-Family' (Buddha Amoghasiddhi). In older times this element (family) was also named Sword (Khadga), Wisdom (Prajna) or Double-Cepter (Vishva) family.
The air-element (color green) tries to unite and interact between all other elements and realms (from gods to demons to ghosts to animals etc.). Thereby it is the basis and basic spirit of all mandalas (circle of unity). All Buddhist mandalas are seated on a so-called 'vishva' or 'double-dorje', symbolizing the unity and interaction between the elements (see animated logo beside). The vishva and the sword of wisdom-activity (khadga) are the main symbols of the 'Karma-Family'. The seed-syllable of the air-element in general is the green HA. The direction is the North and the realm are the manifold worlds of the powerful demi-gods and titans.
In many aspects the characteristics of the Buddhist understanding of the air-element and the understanding from the viewpoint of Western astrology are identical. In Western astrology the air-element is symbolized by the quick thinking, spontaneous, harmony-seeking and magical powerful zodiac signs libra, aquarius and gemini and there planetary equivalents Venus, Uranus and Mercury. The esoteric wisdom aspect of Venus could be seen as a Green Tara archetype.
Some results of taking Green Tara as a main object of meditation are: spontaneity, quick thinking, quick acting, magical perfections, fearlessness and the wisdom-based wish to help others as good and effective as possible. - One of my main teachers, Kalu Rinpoche, was secretly honored as an emanation of Green Tara.
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Tara - connection to India
A bit of history - Tara after Je Tsongkhapa in Tibet
While he was living in retreat, Ged,ndrup (1391-1475), the First Dalai Lama and Tsongkhapa's most eminent disciple, wrote a prayer of praise to White Tara, "A Gem to Increase Life and Wisdom." Its opening verses may well have been the inspiration for Zanabazar's image of White Tara, the goddess who, above all others, filled the hearts of Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhists with her compassion and with the hope of long life:
Homage to White Tara, a Female Buddha exquisite with youth. Radiant as the eternal snows in all their glory, She sits on a white lotus and a silvery moon Indicating fully developed compassion and knowledge.
Homage to the Youthful One with full breasts, One face and two arms. Sitting in vajra position, She regally displays both grace and calm And is filled with great bliss.(1)
Ged,ndrup came into his Gelugpa title, Dalai Lama, only posthumously, but his love for the goddess Tara was nurtured during his childhood, which he spent in a Kadampa monastery. The Kadam order ("Bound to the Proclamation") was founded by the Indian sage, Atisha (982-1054), who was "preserved by Tara, the patron deity of his former lives."(2) Tsongkhapa too was inspired by Atisha's teachings; his reformed Gelugpa was styled the "New Kadam," and his teachings recognize Tara as the mother of all Buddhas, past, present, and future; transcendent, yet capable of intercession and compassionate action.
Atisha was one of several Indian pundits who were invited to Tibet to help restore the dharma after the bitter persecutions of the apostate king Langdarma (838-42). Trained at the great monasteries of India and Indonesia, Atisha was a tantric adept and a devotee of Tara. His life was "filled with visions of the goddess,"(3) and it was she who encouraged him to make the journey to Tibet, warning him in a dream that it would shorten his life, but go far in re-establishing the faith. Atisha's teaching of the tantric Buddhism current in India was severely censored by Tibet's neo-orthodox religious hierarchy, however, who feared that the tantras, with their sexual imagery, would have an adverse effect on Tibetan morals. This stance determined Tara's (and Atisha's) career in Tibet, for her primary texts were tantras, not sutras, and therefore were not, at first, translated or taught.(4)
By Atisha's day, Tara was an established goddess in India. Even very early texts, such as the Manjushrimula-kalpa and the Mahavairochana-sutra, place her near Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, and the earliest known Indian images of her show her as a celibate consort of Avalokiteshvara, whose active role in compassionate work she eventually assumed.(5) By the ninth century, however, she had already appeared in the Buddhist cave-temples at Ellora as an independent savioress, who, like Avalokiteshvara, rescued those who prayed to her from both physical and psychological dangers. This role is implied by her name, which means both star and saviour, a reading that derives from the Sanskrit root tar, to "cross over," and, in the Buddhist context, means "to cross over the ocean of rebirths to enlightement." Her eight different forms as Green Tara, each one efficacious against a different peril, and her twenty-one forms, described in the Praise in Twenty-one Homages (Ekavamstatistotra), were all well-known to Atisha (see cat. nos. 103-106).
Atisha's visions of Tara were inspired by the tantras, sadhanas (visualization texts), and prayers that described her in her green, or active form, but also by the potent, personal revelations of her contemplative white form granted to the Indian Vagishvarakirti (ninth-tenth century), who first conceived of her specialized function of "cheating death" and bestowing long life.(6) Atisha wrote an evocation of Vagishvarakirti's White Tara and another of Green Tara. White Tara, however, was more acceptable to the neo-orthodox hierarchy of eleventh-century Tibet, because she was the product of a personal vision, rather than a figure whose authority came through the tantras. During Atisha's brief sojourn in Tibet, it was his own abiding devotion to the goddess more than anything else that fueled the growth of her cult in a way that ignored sectarian lines.
The Mongolian Bogdo Gegen, Zanabazar, received his own devotion to Tara through two transmissions of Atisha's teachings, the first (as outlined above) via the Gelugpa adoption of Kadampa precepts, the second inherently, by way of his immediate preincarnation, Taranatha (1575-1634). Taranatha belonged to the Jonangpa, an offshoot of the Sakyapa (whose lamas also wholeheartedly shared Atisha's reverence for Tara) and was one of the greatest of Tibet's religious historians. His Origin of the Tara Tantra, written in 1604, deals with the source of the tantra and its promulgation, and it is he who is credited with the diffusion and promotion of the cult of Green Tara, and with fashioning its mature form.(7)
There are a few scattered records that document Zanabazar's relationship to Tara; certainly images he made of her in her many forms dominate his extant works (see also cat. nos. 103-106). In 1649, when he went as a fifteen-year-old boy to Tibet to receive consecrations from the Panchen and Dalai lamas, he was also recognized as Taranatha's rebirth. Before returning to Mongolia, he traveled to monasteries where he had spent his earlier lives, collecting, among other things, the goddess's texts and images.( 8 ) Legend also has it that Zanabazar had a beautiful consort, the Girl Prince, who was as deft a sculptor as he. She died at the age of eighteen and her ashes were used for printing scriptures. Zanabazar is said to have modeled his Taras on her, the White Tara shows her as a young virgin, the large Green Tara in her last year, as a physically mature, voluptuous woman (several of his twenty-one Taras are echoes of this central figure; see Berger, "After Xanadu," fig. 5.)
Zanabazar's White Tara was originally kept at the monastery at Erdeni-zuu, and in scale, style, and detail she approximates his extraordinary group of the Five Meditation Buddhas (see cat. no. 97). His Tara is a pubescent girl, exquisite in form and with an expression of focused, serious compassion. She appears just as the First Dalai Lama, Ged,ndrup, describes her in his poem, where she is revealed as the "Spiritual Mother" of the Buddhas, as the "Refuge of the World," and as she "whose head is adorned with Amitayus, Buddha of Boundless Life."(9) White Tara sits on a moon-disc placed on top of a single lotus pedestal, erect and alert, and without any of the activating dÈhanchement usually seen in images of her. Nonetheless, her posture and even her flesh appear remarkably natural; Zanabazar's abstractions take the subtler form of perfectly exquisite surface and proportion. Tara lowers her right hand in a gesture of "Supreme Giving," and holds a white lotus in her left. Her hands and feet are inset with eyes; she also has a third eye in her forehead, but even these extraordinary attributes seem natural. Her "sapphire tresses" are half-knotted and half-free, and she wears a five-pointed crown that transforms itself into a kirtimukha (a protective, terrifying halo-face) at the front. Elaborate earrings and fluttering, flattened scarves surround her elongated ears, and her body is adorned with the spare, elegant jewelry of a bodhisattva, typical of Zanabazar's Nepalese-inspired sensibility.
The First Dalai Lama's poem (as well as his invocation to the goddess) specifically appeals to her for long life, but it also prays for protection from danger, and access to enlightenment, hopes that are inextricably intertwined. This vision of Tara as the source of long life is based on Vagishvarakirti's revelations, which saw Tara as a sixteen-year-old girl, in every way the antithesis of death, and his dream of the goddess is perfectly captured by Zanabazar's calm, yet energized image. In the most basic sense, Buddhists in Tibet and Mongolia saw the offerings, praises, and prayers they offered to Tara as an "initiation into life,"(10) and as a way of extending and prolonging the unique opportunity for enlightenment that only human life presented.
--P.B.
1. Glenn H. Mullin, Selected Works of the Dalai Lama I: Bridging the Sutras and Tantras, pp. 194-97. back
2. Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tara, p. 11. back
3. Ibid. back
4. Ibid, pp. 11-13. back
5. Mallar Ghosh, Development of Buddhist Iconography in Eastern India: A Study of Tara,Prajnas of Five Tathagatas and Bhrikuti, pp. 6-31; and Martin Willson, In Praise of Tara: Song to the Saviouress, pp. 39-43. back
6. Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tara, p. 363. back
7. Jo-nan Taranatha, The Origin of the Tara Tantra, David Templeman, ed. and trans.; and Martin Willson, In Praise of Tara, pp. 33-36, 169-206. back
8. See e.g. Charles Bawden, The Jebtsundamba Khutkhtus of Urga, p. 45. back
9. Glenn H. Mullin, Selected Works of the Dalai Lama I, p. 195. back
10. Stephan Beyer, The Cult of Tara, pp. 363-467. back
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~TARA~
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Tara The Liberator (http://www.fpmt.org/teachings/lzr/tara.asp)
by Lama Zopa Rinpoche
From two teachings given at Kopan Monastery and Himalayan Yogic Institute, Nepal in May 1987. Originally published as a Wisdom Transcript by Wisdom Publications in 1993.
The ultimate meaning of life
First I would like to thank everybody from my heart for coming to this meditation course. I rejoice greatly that you want to make your life beneficial for other sentient beings by developing your mind, that you are concerned about the happiness of others. I thank all of you from my heart.
You do not do meditation courses and spiritual practice to have a healthy body, and not even to have temporary peace of mind; you do spiritual practice to have everlasting mind-peace, with ultimate liberation from mental afflictions, or disturbing thoughts. At this time you have a precious human body. Using this to obtain even the ultimate happiness of everlasting liberation from all problems and their causes—disturbing thoughts and action-result, or karma—is still not the ultimate purpose of your having this precious human body. The real purpose of taking this precious human body at this time is to avoid giving harm to other sentient beings; and on the basis of that, to benefit all other sentient beings, each of whom wants happiness and does not want suffering.
Having this pure attitude of wishing to avoid harm to others in the very depths of your heart, you then act to benefit them without discrimination. You do not recognize some beings, such as relatives and friends, as close and help them, but others as enemies and not help them—or even harm them. Rather than these discriminating thoughts, you have a pure attitude of loving kindness, thinking to benefit all sentient beings equaling the extent of infinite space. With the attitude of loving kindness and compassion towards all living beings, you should also act to benefit them equally. This is the main purpose for which we have taken this precious human body. This is the ultimate meaning of life.
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Everlasting happiness
You should live each day, each hour, each minute, in order to accomplish this ultimate purpose. This is why you try to be healthy and to have a long life. The purpose of everything you do—sleeping, waking, wearing clothes, eating, sitting, walking, having medical treatment—is to develop the good heart towards every sentient being, and to act to benefit each of them equally. Other living beings are exactly the same as you in wanting even the smallest comfort and not wanting the smallest discomfort, even in a dream. They are exactly the same as you.
Just as you want to eliminate all your suffering and to obtain happiness so does every other living being. They are exactly the same as you. Therefore, you need to eliminate their suffering and obtain their happiness.
And again just like you, other living beings want the greatest, longest-lasting happiness. When you go shopping, you try to buy the best quality, longest-lasting goods that you can. Like this, every being wishes to have the greatest, longest-lasting happiness—and that means great liberation. Great liberation means removal of the two obscurations: the obscuration of the gross disturbing thoughts and the obscuration of the subtle mental stains. When the cessation of these is established on the mind, this is the purest happiness of full enlightenment.
Why is the happiness of full enlightenment everlasting? Because once the obscurations, the cause of suffering, are completely removed, it is impossible for suffering to recur and happiness to degenerate. Because the cause of suffering has been removed, it is impossible for suffering to return.
For example, why is our mind controlled today by disturbing thoughts such as ignorance, anger and attachment? Our mind is obscured by these because they are the continuation of the mental afflictions, or disturbing thoughts, that existed yesterday. Because we did not remove yesterday's disturbing thoughts, the continuation of these—today's disturbing thoughts—has arisen.
It is the same with our previous life: If we had completely removed disturbing thoughts by actualizing the remedy of the path within our mind in our previous life, it would have been impossible for us to be born with these mental afflictions in this life. There could be no such evolution if we had ceased the continuation of disturbing thoughts. With nothing to cause disturbing thoughts in this life, there would be no disturbing thoughts—and no unhappiness or problems in this life.
For example, if a cloth that had been dirty for many days was completely cleaned yesterday, there would be no continuation of yesterday's dirt. In the same way, once the disturbing-thought obscurations are completely removed, it is impossible for them to arise again since there is no cause, and it is impossible to experience suffering again. This is the everlasting happiness of liberation. As I mentioned before, the ultimate purpose of having this precious human body is to liberate all living beings from all obscurations, or mental stains, and lead them to the greatest liberation of full enlightenment, which is everlasting, peerless happiness.
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Developing the mind
Now, in order to accomplish this great work for other living beings, you have to develop your own mind by putting effort into listening to, reflecting and meditating on the teachings. And in order for you to lead other beings to this peerless happiness of full enlightenment, they have to follow the path. Therefore, to lead them in the path to full enlightenment, you must reveal the teachings to them. In order to reveal the teachings, the means to guide them in the path to full enlightenment, you yourself must see very clearly, without the slightest mistake, the level of mind, characteristics and karma of every single living being. As living beings have various levels and characteristics of mind, the methods you reveal to them also have to be of various types. Again you must realize clearly, without the slightest mistake, all the various means to guide living beings.
The only mind that can see all these things fully is omniscient mind. Therefore, in order to accomplish this great work for sentient beings, this ultimate benefit of great liberation, which living beings need and are lacking, you yourself need to have omniscient mind.
For example, a teacher—whether in a school, university or monastery—teaches different subjects to various classes to educate students with knowledge of science, mathematics, engineering, biology, medicine, psychology or whatever. It is generally accepted that the more education a student has, the easier it will be for him to find a job, earn a living and have an easy life. The general aim of education is to have an easier life. And in order to educate others, the teacher himself has to be educated and knowledgeable in all the subjects he teaches. The less knowledge—or more ignorance—you have, the more limited your capacity to educate and help others. The more knowledge you have, the more you can fulfill the wishes of other people.
If you are blind, you cannot guide others to where they want to go. If you have no arms, you cannot help your mother when she is in danger of falling down a precipice, or of being swept away by a river and drowned. Like this, in order to guide sentient beings perfectly to the peerless happiness of full enlightenment, you should first have omniscient mind.
By having omniscient mind, you also have perfect power and great compassion for every living being. Because of this great compassion, which feels no discrimination, there is no danger that you will help some beings and not others. There is no partiality in your actions. And with omniscient mind, there is the power to reveal every skilful means to guide living beings.
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Developing compassion
How is it possible to achieve this? For this mental continuum to become omniscient mind? You can figure this out even from this simple example: When you memorize anything, in the beginning your mind is completely ignorant. In the very beginning, you do not even know the alphabet; but with the help of a teacher and by applying effort, you gradually begin to learn. As you continue, you learn more and more. It is the nature of the mind that understanding can be developed. The mind has the power to understand gross phenomena, and even subtle existence if you attempt to do this correctly.
You have compassion for some beings now, even though you do not have fully developed compassion, which means compassion towards every living being. However, you can develop your present small compassion for these beings so that it becomes greater and greater. You can increase your compassion for these beings. By understanding the teachings and practicing meditation, you can also generate compassion for the other beings for whom you do not feel compassion at the moment. In this way compassion can be developed.
With the compassion you already have for others, with your present understanding of their wishes and the methods to fulfill them, you have some capacity to help others. Even at this present time, with this human body, with the understanding and compassion that you have, you have some power to help others. As your understanding of and compassion for all living beings develop through actualizing the remedy of the path within your mind, your obscurations will gradually become less and less, and you will gain more and more understanding. When this process is completed, you will have complete and perfect power to guide other beings.
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Developing omniscient mind
How is it possible to separate the mind from mental afflictions? In your everyday life you can see that even if your mind is overwhelmed by anger in the morning, this anger does not last; your mind is not continuously overwhelmed by anger. In the morning you may be angry with someone, but in the afternoon there is no anger—instead there may be attachment to that person, or indifference.
Even without meditation, disturbing thoughts arise and change. This proves that the nature of the mind is not oneness with anger, attachment, ignorance, pride or jealousy. The mind is temporarily obscured by these, but is itself not oneness with them. If the mind itself were oneness with anger, it should be spontaneously and continuously in the nature of anger. Or spontaneously and continuously in the nature of attachment. Then, to the one object, anger and attachment would be arising at the same time.
If a mirror was oneness with the dirt on it, the dirt could not be cleaned away—this would be like cleaning dirt away from dirt. Because the mirror is not oneness with but temporarily covered by dirt, it can be cleaned with water and a cloth. The more the dirt is cleaned away, the clearer the mirror's reflection. In the same way, as you listen to, reflect and meditate on the graduated path to enlightenment, as you generate more realizations of this path, your obscurations first become gradually thinner and thinner, and are then removed completely.
The Mahayana, or Greater Vehicle, path to enlightenment has five paths: the paths of merit, preparation, right-seeing, meditation and no-more learning. And the Paramitayana path has ten levels, or bhumis. Certain obscurations are removed when you achieve the third, right-seeing path; and further obscurations are removed when you reach the path of meditation. When a bodhisattva achieves the eighth bhumi of the Paramitayana path, the gross disturbing-thought obscuration is completely removed. By developing his mind to the ninth and tenth bhumis, the bodhisattva removes even the subtle obscurations, the mental stains, or impressions, left on the mind by disturbing-thought obscurations such as ignorance grasping the I as existent from its own side.
While the I is merely imputed on the aggregates by thought, ignorance grasps the I as independent, existing from its own side. Due to imprints left on the mind, everything appears as existing from its own side. However, even these subtle obscurations are completely removed when the mind is developed to the ninth and tenth bhumis. When the remedy of the path is complete within the mind, there is not even the slightest mental stain. At that time, the mental continuum becomes omniscient mind, fully seeing all the past, present and future without the slightest mistake; all the minds and wishes of living beings; and all the various means to guide them. Without the slightest effort or mistake, one is able to guide all living beings perfectly.
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Obstacles to success
Now, in order to achieve this, we have to complete the realizations of the graduated path to enlightenment, or lam rim. Developing your mind in the graduated path to enlightenment is the most important and most beneficial thing for you, and especially for other living beings. However, there are many obstacles even to accomplishing some small happiness in this life. Even finding a job can take many months, even years. Even in business, which is small work to obtain happiness of only this life, there are many obstacles. So of course there are many obstacles to developing your mind and achieving the everlasting liberation of omniscient mind for the sake of all living beings. There are many inner obstacles created by disturbing thoughts: the dissatisfied mind; the selfish mind; the mind of worldly concern, grasping to this life and samsaric perfections.
Worldly concern brings so many problems in this life: fear, worry, depression, even suicide. This grasping mind does not allow your everyday activities to become virtue, the cause of happiness. Besides interfering in your finding happiness in future lives, which means receiving a good rebirth, worldly concern does not even allow you to have happiness and mind-peace from hour to hour in your present life.
Even if you try to practice Dharma, worldly concern does not allow your practice to become pure Dharma. Grasping samsaric perfections also causes you to take rebirth again, so there is the suffering of death and the experience of all these problems again and again. It does not allow you to achieve everlasting liberation from suffering, and its causes.
Generally, the ignorance believing that the I, which is merely imputed on the aggregates by thought, exists from its own side is the main cause of suffering. This ignorance is the root of all suffering. But also there is the selfish mind, which does not allow you to have any mind-peace. As long as you constantly follow the selfish attitude, you do not have any relaxation, any happiness. Besides harming you, the selfish attitude gives harm to all other living beings continuously—from day to day, month to month, year to year, and life to life. It does not allow the activities of your everyday life to become the cause of your achieving full enlightenment, omniscient mind, for other living beings. In a similar way, attachment grasping samsaric perfections does not allow your everyday actions to become the cause of liberation.
The hallucinated view that believes the I to be independent, even though it is a dependent arising, does not allow you to realize the absolute nature of the I. As long as you grasp the I as truly existent, there is no way you can realize the absolute nature of the I. In this way, there is no way to escape from suffering, from samsara. Following ignorance in this way does not allow the actions of your daily life to become a remedy to samsara, to the cause of suffering and all the resultant problems.
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Relying on Tara
There are so many inner obstacles to the development of your mind, and these inner obstacles create many outer obstacles. Therefore, for the success of your Dharma practice, of your actualizing the graduated path to enlightenment, you must rely upon a special deity, or buddha, such as Tara. All the actions of the buddhas have manifested in this female aspect of buddha, Tara the Liberator, in order to help living beings to accomplish successfully both temporal and ultimate happiness.
Many Indian yogis relied upon Tara. By taking refuge in Tara, they completed the path and did great works for the teachings and for living beings, leading uncountable numbers in the path to temporal and ultimate happiness. For example, the great pandit Lama Atisha, who completed the whole graduated path to enlightenment, relied upon Tara.
Lama Atisha was invited by the religious king of Tibet, Yeshe O, to re-establish and spread Buddhadharma in Tibet. Lama Atisha also wrote the text, Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment, which established the term graduated path to enlightenment. By listening to, reflecting and meditating on Lamp of the Path of Enlightenment, so many people have achieved enlightenment.
Besides benefiting the Tibetan practitioners who are experimenting on and accomplishing the path to enlightenment, Lama Atisha's text is nowadays even benefiting extensively in the West. The light of this lam rim teaching has dispelled so much ignorance, even in the minds of many thousands of people living in the West. Because Lamp of the Path to Enlightenment integrates all the teachings of Buddha into a step-by-step practice by which anyone can achieve enlightenment, many practitioners have been able to use it to train their minds in the path to enlightenment.
Even though Lama Atisha passed away a long time ago in Tibet, he is still benefiting us by having given us the opportunity to understand the teachings of the graduated path to enlightenment. Understanding and practicing this path gives you confidence and much happiness. By understanding the cause of happiness, you have the opportunity to obtain whatever happiness you wish. These are Lama Atisha's actions benefiting all living beings.
Lama Atisha was able to offer these extensive benefits to living beings and the teachings through depending upon Tara. Throughout Lama Atisha's life, Tara always gave him advice. When Lama Atisha had to make decisions about doing works for living beings—such as traveling to Tibet—he always asked Tara, and then followed Tara's instructions. Like this, even present-day Tibetan yogis who are actualizing the graduated path to enlightenment, having great success in developing their minds, also rely upon Tara.
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The benefits of Tara practice
Tara is quick to grant success in obtaining the ultimate happiness of enlightenment. You receive much good merit, or cause of happiness; it prevents a suffering rebirth in your next life; you receive initiation from millions of buddhas; and you achieve enlightenment. Besides these, however, Tara practice has many other benefits. Reciting the Twenty-one Taras' prayer with devotion, at dawn or dusk—or remembering Tara, singing praises and reciting mantras at any time of the day or night—protects you from fear and dangers, and fulfill all your wishes. If you pray to Tara, Tara is particularly quick to grant help.
There are also many temporal benefits from Tara practice, either reciting the Tara mantra or the Twenty-one Taras' prayer. Tara can solve many problems in your life: liberate you from untimely death; help you recover from disease; bring you success in business; help you to find a job; bring you wealth. When you have a really serious problem, such as a life-threatening disease, if you rely upon Tara, very commonly you will be freed from that problem; you will recover from that disease. If you eat poison, if you rely upon Tara, the poison will not harm you. By doing Tara prayers and mantras, couples with difficulty having a child can have a child—and whichever they want, a son or a daughter. These are very common experiences. Through Tara practice, you can obtain any happiness of this life that you wish.
If you recite the Twenty-one Taras' prayer once every evening, it is impossible—I can put my signature to this!—for you to die of starvation. It is also a very common experience for lay practitioners, monks and nuns with financial difficulties to have such problems relieved by doing Tara practice. In my personal experience, I have seen many instances of people who have prayed to and taken refuge in Tara and been saved from the danger of untimely death from disease without taking medicine.
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The meaning of tare
The Tara mantra is OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. To explain the meaning of TARE TUTTARE TURE: TARE means liberating from samsara. This samsara means these aggregates: the aggregate of form, or the physical body; of feeling; of recognition; of karmic formations; and of consciousness. These aggregates, on which the I is labeled, are caused by the contaminated seed of karma and disturbing thoughts. Under the control of karma and disturbing thoughts, the past-life aggregate of consciousness circled to this life. Because these aggregates are contaminated by the seed of karma and disturbing thoughts, on meeting desirable and undesirable objects, the different disturbing thoughts such as attachment and anger arise. As the seed of the disturbing thoughts is there, you again create karma. And the karma and disturbing thoughts again cause the aggregate of consciousness to circle, or join, to the aggregates of the next life.
Even though this gross body has no continuum into the next life, the aggregate of consciousness does continue to the next life. From life to life, it continuously circles. From one life to the next, from the past life to the present, the aggregate of consciousness circles. It joins to these present aggregates, then later joins to the aggregates of the next life. This is why these aggregates are called samsara, or cyclic existence.
So, TARE shows that Mother Tara liberates living beings from samsara, from true suffering, or problems. You can relate this to the particular sufferings of human beings: birth, old age, sickness and death; meeting undesirable objects and experiencing aversion; not finding desirable objects or finding them but gaining no satisfaction. No matter how much pleasure you enjoy, there is no satisfaction. No matter how much you follow desire, there is no satisfaction at all.
Also, nothing in samsara is definite. You have to leave the body again and again, and take another body again and again. Like this, again and again you experience the suffering of joining to another body.
Your present-life mother came from her mother, your grandmother; your grandmother came from another mother; and that mother came from another mother. It is the same with your father. You can see this body that you have now as a collection of all the sperm and blood that has continued from parent to child for inconceivable generations since this earth evolved, since human beings began. This collection of sperm has come to you through your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather, and so on. It is the same with the blood, which has come to you through your mother, your grandmother, and so on. Since this body you have now is a continuation of all this sperm and blood from all these other beings, there is no essence to cling to; there is no reason to get attached to this body, this samsara. The waste from all the toilets in a big city is collected into one big sewer—the body is just like this sewer.
By joining again and again to the body like this, again and again you experience problems. If you have high status, you fall down to low status. Again and again this happens. When you are born, you are born alone without any companion; when you die, you also die alone. Even this body does not accompany the consciousness; the consciousness has to go alone to the next life. All these are the problems of true suffering. If you rely upon Tara by taking refuge in her and doing Tara practices—such as the recitation of mantra or praises—with TARE, Tara liberates you from all these true sufferings.
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The meaning of TUTTARE
The second word, TUTTARE, liberates you from the eight fears. There are eight fears related to external dangers from fire, water, air, earth, and also from such things as thieves and dangerous animals. However, the main dangers come from ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, jealousy, miserliness, doubt and wrong views. These eight disturbing thoughts that you have in your mind are the main dangers. By taking refuge in Tara and doing Tara practice, you are liberated from these eight internal dangers, these eight disturbing thoughts. In this way, you are also liberated from external dangers, as these external dangers come from the inner disturbing thoughts.
This second word, TUTTARE, which liberates you from the eight fears, frees you from the true cause of suffering: karma and the all-arising disturbing thoughts. All-arising means that disturbing thoughts bring all the sufferings. By taking refuge in Tara and doing Tara practice, you are liberated from the true cause of suffering: this is the meaning of TUTTARE.
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The meaning of TURE
The third word, TURE, liberates you from disease. Now, of the Four Noble Truths, TURE shows the cessation of suffering, which is the ultimate Dharma. In terms of liberating from disease, the actual disease we have is ignorance not knowing the absolute nature of the I, and all the disturbing thoughts that arise from this ignorance. These are the actual, serious diseases that we have. With cessation of all these diseases of disturbing thoughts, all the true sufferings, all the resultant problems, are also ceased. By liberating us from disease, TURE actually liberates us from the true cause, disturbing thoughts, and also the true sufferings.
How can we achieve this ultimate Dharma, this true cessation of the cause and result of suffering? What can lead us to this state, the cessation of suffering, which is the meaning of TURE? You achieve this by practicing the true path. As revealed in the Lesser Vehicle paths of the Hearer-Listeners and Self-conquerors, and in the Mahayana path, the true path is the wisdom directly perceiving emptiness. This is the absolute Dharma. Actualizing this wisdom within our mind leads us to the state of cessation of suffering. This true path is contained in TUTTARE, which liberates us from the eight fears—the word liberates indirectly indicates the true path. And as I have just explained, the third word, TURE, liberates you from the actual disease, the disturbing thoughts.
The conclusion is that by taking refuge in Tara, doing Tara practices such as recitation of the Tara mantra, and practicing the path contained in that mantra, you can achieve the fully enlightened state with the four kayas, which is the cessation, liberated from the two obscurations. In short, OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA means "I prostrate to the Liberator, Mother of all the Victorious Ones." Tara is the mother of all the Victorious Ones, or buddhas. Why are buddhas called Victorious Ones? Because they are victorious over the two obscurations.
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Tara the Mother
Tara is called Mother because it is the mother who gives birth to children. The actual meaning of Tara is the transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss and voidness, which sees the absolute and conventional truth of all existence. This is the absolute guru, the real guru—and we should understand this real meaning of guru. Now, even though they have different aspects and different names, all the buddhas are born from this transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss and voidness, which is the dharmakaya. In reality, every buddha is the embodiment of this absolute guru: one manifests in many; many manifest in one. The absolute guru manifests in all these various aspects of buddha; the essence of all buddhas is the absolute guru. The real meaning of guru, the absolute guru, manifests in ordinary aspect as the conventional-truth guru, the lama from whom you receive the teachings directly.
As Khedrup Sangye Yeshe explained: "Before the guru, there is not even the name 'Buddha'." The whole Guru Puja expresses that the foundation is the guru, the dharmakaya, the transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss and voidness. From the very beginning, while experiencing great bliss, we manifest as the guru-deity. Even the front-generation merit field comes from inseparable bliss and voidness, and from this merit field we take initiation; we request to be granted blessings to generate the realizations of the graduated path to enlightenment from beginning to end; and we also make the four types of offering (outer, inner, secret and absolute). We train our mind with these meditations, which evolve from non-dual bliss and voidness.
First we meet the guru externally and separately. After receiving teachings, we listen, reflect and meditate on the path that is revealed by this guru. On the basis of correct devotion to the guru, we gradually actualize the remedy of the path and remove our obscurations. When our obscurations are completely removed, we meet the guru mentally.
On the basis of actualizing the Three Principles of the Path, we receive the four perfect Highest Yoga Tantra initiations, which definitely plant the seeds of the four kayas within our mind. This allows us to practice the unification of the clear light and illusory body. By gradually actualizing this path, we can completely cut off even subtle dual view, ceasing even the gross minds of the white, red and dark visions, which are more subtle than the preceding gross minds but gross when compared to the subtle mind of clear light.
When you achieve dharmakaya, the transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss and voidness, you have achieved the guru. You have achieved the wish expressed in our usual dedication prayer: "Due to all these merits may I quickly achieve the guru-Buddha's enlightenment, and lead every single living being to the guru-Buddha's enlightenment." In reality, by training your mind in these meditations, developing your mind in the path, your mental continuum actually becomes that of the guru. In the future, you actually become the guru you have been visualizing.
So, all the buddhas are born from the absolute guru, the transcendental wisdom of non-dual bliss and voidness, which is the actual meaning of Mother. This transcendental wisdom, this completely pure subtle mind, manifests in this female aspect that is labeled "Tara".
Normally children feel much closer to their mother than to their father. When they have some trouble, most children seem to scream for their mother. I don't know about in the West, but in the East even adults, when they have some severe pain or problem, rely on their mother.
My father died when I was small, and I don't remember at all what he looked like. People say that he had a beard, was very good at reading texts, and did not speak much. All I can remember clearly is my father's sheep-skin chuba. Everybody in the family slept under that big chuba—it was our blanket. The whole family tried to get underneath it. I can remember that very clearly. I was introduced to my father's chuba—that is all I remember.
So my mother was the only adult in our home. My sister, because she was a little older, was able to help my mother a little by taking our animals out on the mountains and bringing them back home. Otherwise, the rest of us—there were three, including me—were useless. Since my sister had to look after the animals, all the hard work was done alone by my mother.
One day my mother had to go into the forest to get firewood. We waited outside the house. Because none of us could cook, we waited outside for her to come home and give us some food. She came back very late from the forest with a very heavy load of firewood. After she returned, she could not make a fire because she was sick, with much pain. There was no fire in the stove, and no food. She lay down next to the fireplace, screaming for her mother: "Ama! Ama!" My grandmother, who was still alive at that time, lived quite near to us, maybe five or ten minutes' walk away.
The three of us—me, my brother Sangye, and another young brother who had a small piece of tail, and later died—didn't know what to do. We just sat around the fireplace looking at our mother. There was no fire; none of us could make a fire. We just sat and watched our mother.
Like this, somehow, naturally, even grown-ups call their mother when there is some really serious pain or problem. However, Tara is much closer to us than our mother.
The meaning of OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA
This female aspect, Tara, Mother of all the Victorious Ones guides you and other living beings from the danger of falling into samsara or the lower nirvana, and leads you to the perfect state of enlightenment, which is qualified with the five transcendental wisdoms and the four kayas.
The rough meaning of these three words TARE TUTTARE TURE is: "To you, embodiment of all the buddhas' actions, I prostrate always—whether I am in happy or unhappy circumstances—with my body, speech and mind."
All the paths (Lesser Vehicle, Mahayana, Paramitayana, tantra) from the beginning up to enlightenment are contained in TARE TUTTARE TURE. The remedy of the path and all the obscurations it removes are contained in TARE TUTTARE TURE. In regard to the lam rim, TARE is the graduated path of the lower capable being; TUTTARE, of the middle capable being; and TURE, of the higher capable being. All the outlines of the lam rim meditations are contained in this mantra. In the mantra TAYATA OM MUNI MUNI MAHAMUNIYE SOHA, MUNI MUNI MAHAMUNIYE can also be related to the lam rim in the same way.
The final word SOHA means establishing the root of the path within your heart. In other words, by taking refuge in Tara and doing Tara practice, you receive the blessings of Tara in your own heart. This gives you space to establish the root of the path, signified by TARE TUTTARE TURE, in your heart. By establishing the path of the three capable beings within your heart, you purify all impurities of your body, speech and mind, and achieve Tara's pure vajra holy body, holy speech and holy mind, which are signified by OM. Your body, speech and mind are transformed into Tara's holy body, holy speech and holy mind. This is the rough meaning of OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA.
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Visualizing Tara
When you recite the mantra, visualize Tara in space in front of you, level with your forehead, at a comfortable distance of about one body-length. As I mentioned when explaining the mantra, first think of the transcendental wisdom of great bliss of all the buddhas, which fully sees all existence. Think of this holy mind of dharmakaya, the absolute guru. Because the holy mind of all the buddhas, the absolute guru, is bound by great compassion for you and all living beings, who are obscured and suffering under the control of karma and disturbing thoughts, it manifests in this particular female form of Tara. This happens due to compassion. Just as you act under the control of anger and attachment, the buddhas work for you and other living beings under the control of compassion.
The holy mind of all the buddhas manifests in this female aspect, Tara. What does this aspect look like? Tara is in the nature of green light, with one face and two arms. Her face is very peaceful, with a slight smile. Her hair is very dark, half tied up and half loose, and decorated with an utpala flower at the crown. Tara is adorned with jewel ornaments of necklace, bracelets, armlets, anklets, and so on. Her eyes, very loving and compassionate, are not opened widely but are fine and a little rounded. Tara's eyes express compassion for you, like the look of loving kindness a mother gives her beloved only child. Tara's right hand, holding the stem of an utpala flower, is in the mudra of granting sublime realizations. Her left hand holds the stem of another utpala flower, with three fingers standing upright to signify refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.
With fully developed breasts, Tara is adorned with a jewel necklace and also with jewel garlands and various scarves. Her right leg is stretched out, and the left one contracted. Behind her is a moon disc. Tara is adorned with the complete holy signs and exemplifications of a buddha. On her forehead is a white OM, essence of the vajra holy body; at her neck, a red AH, essence of vajra holy speech; and at her heart, a blue HUNG, essence of the vajra holy mind.
White nectar beams come from the OM, strike your forehead, and enter inside you to purify all the obscurations and negative karmas you have accumulated with the body from beginningless rebirths until now. From the AH at Tara's throat, red nectar beams are emitted and strike your own throat; all obscurations and negative karmas accumulated with your speech are completely purified. Then, from Tara's heart syllable HUNG, blue nectar beams are emitted and enter your heart; all the obscurations and negative karmas accumulated with your mind from beginningless rebirths until now are purified. Out of compassion for you and all living beings, Mother Tara has purified you. Concentrate on this as you recite the mantra: OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA. Or if you wish, you can visualize Tara on your crown as in the short Tara sadhana.
When you finish the meditation, pray to Tara: "Without delay of even a second, may I become Tara and in each second free uncountable numbers of living beings from all their sufferings and lead them to full enlightenment."
Pray to achieve this through generating bodhicitta, the wish to achieve Tara for the sake of other living beings. Because you are not following the selfish mind but have changed your attitude to one of using your life to serve others, to obtain their temporal and ultimate happiness, Tara is extremely pleased with you. Your practicing the loving, compassionate thought of bodhicitta and morality, which means keeping your vows, please Tara the most. These essential Mahayana practices are the best offerings you can make to Tara; these bring you closer to Tara, so that she quickly helps all your actions to succeed. How much Tara helps you depends on how much you practice the essence of the Mahayana teachings.
So, because of your attitude of bodhicitta, Tara is extremely pleased with you; she melts into green light, enters through your forehead, and absorbs into your heart. Think: "My body, speech and mind have been blessed to become Tara's vajra holy body, holy speech and holy mind." By receiving the blessings of Tara with a calm, devoted mind, you plant the seed to develop your mind and actually achieve Tara.
After the absorption, if you wish, one-pointedly concentrate on the nature of Tara's holy mind. Then conclude your practice by dedicating the merits to the generation of bodhicitta and to your achievement of Tara, in order to lead every living being as quickly as possible to Tara's enlightenment.
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The Twenty-one Praises of Tara
Homage (Respect) to the Twenty-one Taras
OM; je tsun ma pag ma drol ma la chag tsal lo
OM; I prostrate to the noble transcendent liberator.
1
Chag tsal drol ma nyur ma pa mo
Chen mi kay chig lhog dang dra ma
Jig ten sum gon chu kye shel gyi
Ke sar je wa lay ni jung ma
1
Homage to Tara swift and fearless
With eyes like a flash of lightning
Lotus-born in an ocean of tears
Of Chenresig, three worlds' protector.
2
Chag tsal ton kay da wa kun tu
Gang wa gya ni tseg pay shel ma
Kar ma tong trag tsog pa nam kyi
Rab tu che way o rab bar ma 2
Homage to you whose face is like
One hundred autumn moons gathered
And blazes with the dazzling light
Of a thousand constellations.
3
Chag tsal ser ngo chu ne kye kyi
Pay may chag ni nam par gyen ma
Jin pa tsun du ka tub shi wa
So pa sam ten cho yul nyi ma
3
Homage to you born from a gold-blue lotus
Hands adorned with lotus flowers
Essence of giving, effort and ethics,
Patience, concentration and wisdom.
4
Chag tsal de shin sheg pay tsug tor
Ta yay nam par gyal wa cho ma
Ma lu pa rol chin pa tob pay
Gyel way say kyi shin tu ten ma
4
Homage to you who crown all Buddhas
Whose action subdues without limit
Attained to every perfection
On you the bodhisattvas rely.
5
Chag tsal TU TA RE HUM yi ge
Do dang chog dang nam ka gang ma
Jig ten dun po shab kyi nen te
Lu pa may par gug par nu ma
5
Homage to you whose TUTTARE and HUM
Fill the realms of desire, form and space.
You crush seven worlds beneath your feet
And have power to call all forces.
6
Chag tsal gya jin may lha tsang pa
Lung lha na tsog wang chug cho ma
Jung po ro lang dri sa nam dang
No jin tsog kyi dun ne to ma
6
Homage to you adored by Indra,
Agni, Brahma, Vayu and Ishvara.
Praised in song by hosts of spirits,
Zombies, scent-eaters and yakshas.
7
Chag tsal TREY che cha dang PEY kyi
Pa rol tul kor rab tu jom ma
Yay kum yon kyang shab kyi nen te
May bar tug pa shin tu bar ma
7
Homage to you whose TREY and PEY
Destroy external wheels of magic.
Right leg drawn in and left extended,
You blaze within a raging fire.
8
Chag tsal TU RE jig pa chen po
Du kyi pa wo nam par jom ma
Chu kye shel ni tro nyer den dze
Dra wo tam che ma lu so ma
8
Homage to you whose TURE destroys
The great fears, the mighty demons.
With a wrathful frown on your lotus face,
You slay all foes without exception.
9
Chag tsal kon chog sum tson chag gye
Sor mo tug kar nam par gyen ma
Ma lu chog kyi kor lo gyen pay
Rang gi o kyi tsog nam trug ma
9
Homage to you beautifully adorned
By the Three Jewels' gesture at your heart.
Your wheel shines in all directions
With a whirling mass of light.
10
Chag tsal rab tu ga wa ji pay
U gyen o kyi treng wa pel ma
Shay pa rab shay TU TA RE yi
Du dang jig ten wang du dze ma
10
Homage to you, radiant and joyful
Whose crown emits a garland of light.
You, by the laughter of TUTTARE
Conquer demons and lords of the world.
11
Chag tsal sa shi kyong way tsog nam
Tam che gug par nu ma nyi ma
Tro nyer yo way yi ge HUM ki
Pong pa tam che nam par drol ma
11
Homage to you with power to invoke
The assembly of local protectors.
With your fierce frown and vibrating HUM,
You bring freedom from all poverty.
12
Chag tsal da way dum bu u gyen
Gyen pa tam che shin tu bar ma
Rel pay tro na o pag may lay
Tag par shin tu o rab dze ma
12
Homage to you with crescent moon crown
All your adornments dazzling bright.
From your hair-knot, Amitabha
Shines eternal with great beams of light.
13
Chag tsal kel pay ta may may tar
Bar way treng way u na ne ma
Yay kang yon kum kun ne kor gay
Dra yi pung ni nam par jom ma
13
Homage to you who dwells in a blazing wreath
Like the fire at the end of this age.
Your right leg outstretched and left drawn in,
Joy surrounds you who defeats hosts of foes.
14
Chag tsal sa shi ngo la chag gi
Til gyi nun ching zhab gyi dung ma
Tro nyer chen dze yi gay HUM ki
Rim pa dun po nam ni gem ma
14
Homage to you whose foot stamps the earth
And whose palm strikes the ground by your side.
With a wrathful glance and the letter HUM,
You subdue all in the seven stages.
15
Chag tsal de ma gay ma zhi ma
Nya ngen de zhi cho yul nyi ma
SO HA OM dang yang dag den pay
Dig pa chen po jom pa nyi ma
15
Homage to the blissful, virtuous, peaceful one
Object of practice, nirvana's peace
Perfectly endowed with SOHA and OM
Overcoming all the great evils.
16
Chag tsal kun ne kor rab ga way
Dra ye lu ni nam par gem ma
Yi gay chu pay ngag ni ko pay
Rig pa HUM lay drol ma nyi ma
16
Homage to you with joyous retinue
You subdue fully all enemies' forms
The ten-letter mantra adorns your heart
And your knowledge-HUM brings liberation.
17
Chag tsal TU RE zab ni dab pay
HUM gi nam pay sa bon nyi ma
Ri rab man da ra dang big je
Jig ten sum nam yo wa nyi ma
17
Homage to TURE with stamping feet
Whose essence is the seed-letter HUM
You cause Merus, Mandara and Vindaya
And all three worlds to tremble and shake.
18
Chag tsal lha yi tso yi nam pay
Ri dag tag chen chag na nam ma
TA RA nyi jo PEY kyi yi gay
Dug nam ma lu pa ni sel ma
18
Homage to you who holds in your hand
A moon like a celestial lake
Saying TARA twice and the letter PEY
You dispel all poisons without exception.
19
Chag tsal lha yi tsog nam gyal po
Lha dang mi am chi yi ten ma
Kun ne go cha ga way ji kyi
Tso dang mi lam nyen pa sel ma
19
Homage to you on whom the kings of gods,
The gods themselves and all spirits rely.
Your armor radiates joy to all
You soothe conflicts and nightmares as well.
20
Chag tsal nyi ma da wa gye pay
Chen nyi po la o rab sel ma
HA RA nyi jo TU TA RE yi
Shin tu dag po rim ne sel ma
20
Homage to you whose eyes, the sun and moon,
Radiate with pure brilliant light
Uttering HARA twice and TUTTARE
Dispels extremely fearful plagues.
21
Chag tsel de nyi sum nam ko pay
Zi way tu dang yang dag den ma
Don dang ro lang no jin tsog nam
Jom pa TURE rab chog nyi ma
21
Homage to you, adorned with three natures
Perfectly endowed with peaceful strength
You destroy demons, zombies and yakshas
O TURE, most exalted and sublime!
Tsa way ngag kyi to pa di dang
Chag tsal wa ni nyi shu tsa chig
Thus the root mantra is praised
And twenty-one homages offered.
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(http://photo.net/general-comments/attachment/5376761/greendancer2.jpg)
(http://gonativeamerican.org/img/national-powwow/boys-best-fancy-dancer.jpg)
(http://sydney.diarystar.com.au/images/cirque-du-soleil-dralion1.jpg)
Cirque Du Soleil
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Green Tara mantra (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NU1La7k-ajs)
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Thanks, Juhani. Found this one too:
http://www.youtube.com/v/iF_-F3X-oIg&hl=en&fs=1
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Beautiful, aren't they? So peaceful.
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Beautiful, aren't they? So peaceful.
I see the Tara, esp the Green Tara meditations, as blessing the earth, and therefore blessing the physical self. The 'healing' really enters from this realm. Imagine you have fertilizer, earth, but below, deep. You set a hole in the earth, plant a seed, just right, to plant it (like the sacral chakra); then the sun solar, allowing sun 'in' yet, sun also shines to ground, plant (solar). then the bud, sprout comes out, the heart chakra, rises above the surface, I see this more as seeing the magic of Green Taras face, the healing (like herbs) and heart (glowing green).
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From The Psychology of Buddhist Tantra:
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Jung wrote that the psyche's inner disposition is always to attempt to move towards the healthiest state in any given situation. He considered this to be an important function of Self as an archetype of wholeness. The Self has a fundamental homocostatic intention that will enable the individual to adjust to integrate life expereinces in a way that always attempts to remain unified and whole. We may be unconscious of this capacity of the Self to maintain wholeness, but once awakened it becomes central to every aspect of life, giving it meaning and value.
However, our habitual failure to listen to the inner call towards wholeness leads to endless suffering, confusion, and sickness. Our experience of emotional or physical problems could from one perspective be seen as reflections of the imbalance of body/psyche whole. They could equally be seen as symptoms emerging as the psyche adjusts to life's traumas. Symptoms of dis-ease are the psyche's way back toward wholeness. Symptoms become a source of chronic suffering only when they are stuck and cannot move through.
~Rob Preece
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I included this cause I thought it very moving that Self (or not-self as self), is striving toward wholeness at all times and never ventures away from that motion.Jung knew this and so do the tantrikas.
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Isn't that stunning!
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Isn't that stunning!
Yes thats a good one of her. But its Tibetan, doesnt it belong in the Buddhism folder? :)
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Yes it does - it is Hindu also, but not in the same way. We should move this to the Buddhist folder.
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Yes it does - it is Hindu also, but not in the same way. We should move this to the Buddhist folder.
Made it so.
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Thanks Nichi
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Yeah hope it was ok to move it, just felt it appropriate with it being mainly Tibetan she was in her proper place, esp if we bring over more images of her over time.
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(http://i249.photobucket.com/albums/gg213/8celery6/GrneTara.jpg)
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Seems we have 3 Tara threads -- should we merge them?
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Doesn't matter to me either way -- M's call. I have noticed over the years that it's not so easy to find images of her which aren't in thangka form. But then again, one sees Saraswati in thangka too, so that in and of itself is not the identifier.
I go with the flow.
True. And ive found it difficult at times to find what might be 'hindu' or 'buddhist' because the two have borrowed so much from each other. I know tara has her role in hinduism, but she plays a much larger role in buddhism I believe, and is revered more, esp cause the three consorts, Lakshmi, Kali/Parvati, and Saraswati seem to take a bigger role of the goddesses of hinduism, whereas in buddhism tara is much larger. I guess thats why I felt she was more appropriate here, plus I do already have Tara on a couple threads here too.
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Seems we have 3 Tara threads -- should we merge them?
Yeah we could, that'd be cool, probably easier to read them that way.
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Seems we have 3 Tara threads -- should we merge them?
(I think this means there's a thread of affinity for her here, eh?)
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(I think this means there's a thread of affinity for her here, eh?)
Yeah, there is, shes special :)
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Should we merge the threads?
seems a good idea.
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(http://www.exoticindia.com/hindu/goddess_tara_hi93.jpg)
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(http://www.exoticindiaart.com/buddha/immortal_beauty_tc22.jpg)
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(http://www.exoticindiaart.com/buddha/red_thangka_of_white_tara_tl62.jpg)
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(http://www.thangka.ru/gallery/img/belzont_6.jpg)
White Umbrella Tara
She has the awe-inspiring majesty and radiates light. Taking the white parasol as Samayamandala she protects all beings.
She has beautiful face and two arms. She holds a parasol in her hand as the major religious instrument. It is said that in extremely hot India aristocrats and leading monks used the parasol to avoid being exposed in the sunlight. The parasol is one of the seven treasures and eight auspicious things. It helps eliminate evil thoughts and symbolizes that the Buddhist virtues shine on all beings.
http://www.thangka.ru/gallery/ge_belzont.html
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That's a beautiful one.
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(http://thangkapaintings.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/wt-1.jpg)
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(http://thangkapaintings.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/wt-6.jpg)
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(http://thangkapaintings.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/wt-7.jpg)
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(http://thangkapaintings.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/wt-9.jpg)
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These are beautiful - so calming and gentle
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(http://buriedshiva.com.au/vicky/misc4/taragr.jpg)
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(http://buriedshiva.com.au/vicky/misc22/tara.jpg)
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(https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/q82/s720x720/1426724_675339019176124_15603187_n.jpg)
(https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/1450795_675339275842765_305319114_n.jpg)
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(https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/t1/q71/s720x720/1013200_596816033705883_1160130981_n.jpg)
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(http://rubinmuseum.org/images/content/804/f1997.15.1har237__slider.jpg)
Tara is one of the most popular female deities in Tibetan culture. She is particularly associated with protecting from a group of calamities known as the Eight Fears, depicted here as scenes surrounding her: ghosts/sickness (bottom center), drowning (center), fire (mid-left), false imprisonment (bottom right), bandits (top right), wild elephants (top), snakes (bottom left), and lions (top left). Although these dangers center on the worries of secular life, they also have a more esoteric meaning, namely associations with inner obstacles that prevent spiritual progress.
This painting exemplifies the “Khamri,” style of southeastern Tibet. Khamri paintings feature deep blues and greens in the landscape with thicker applications of pigment than other local styles. Some elements, such as the bluegreen crags to the main figure’s right and the flowers and leaves beneath her lotus seat, derive from the parent New Menri style in central Tibet out of which this tradition grew. However, other elements, such as the sky fading into blank canvas and the depiction of the clouds back-shaded with indigo are not found in central Tibet, but rather are regional characteristics borrowed from the other major local painting style. One hallmark of this Khamri style is the dramatic twisting rainbow lights seen in the scene at the upper right.
~Rubin Museum
http://rubinmuseum.org/collection/artwork/tara