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Tara (Buddhism)
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 the Tibetan branch of Vajrayana Buddhism to develop
certain inner qualities and understand outer, inner and secret teachings
about compassion and emptiness. Tara is not found in the Japanese branch of
Vajrayana Buddhism, Shingon.
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 oṃ tare tuttare ture svaha (pronounced by Tibetans
and Buddhists who follow the Tibetan traditions as oṃ 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
Tara 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".
Terma teachings related to Tara
Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo discovered Phagme Nyingthig (Tib. spelling: 'chi med
'phags ma'i snying thig, Innermost Essence teachings of the Immortal
Bodhisattva [Arya Tara]).[2]
Earlier in the 19th century, according to a biography[3], Nyala Pema Dündul
received a Hidden Treasure Tara Teaching and Nyingthig (Tib. nying thig)
from his uncle Kunsang Dudjom (Tib. kun bzang bdud 'joms). It is not clear
from the source whether the terma teaching and the nyingthig teachings refer
to the same text or to two different texts.
Notes
1. ^ Beyer (1978)
2. ^ Masters of Meditation and Miracles, by Tulku Thondup, Shambhala
Publications, 1999, p. 218
3. ^ Biography of Pema Dudul
References
* Beyer, Stephen (1978). Cult of Tara. University of California Press. ISBN
0-520-03635-2
* Blofeld, John. Bodhisattva of Compassion: The Mystical Tradition of Kuan
Yin. Shambhala Publications, Boulder, Colorado, 1977
* Blofeld, John. The Tantric Mysticism of Tibet. Prajna Press, Boulder,
Colorado, 1982
* Dalai Lama, H.H. Deity Yoga: In Action and Performance Tantra. Snow Lion
Publications, Ithaca, New York, 1987
* Dalai Lama, H.H. Worlds in Harmony: Dialogues on Compassionate Action.
Parallax Press, Berkeley, CA, 1992
* Getty, Alice. The Gods of Northern Buddhism. Charles E. Tuttle, Co.
Rutland, Vermont, 1974
* Govinda, Lama Anagarika.Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimensional
Consciousness . The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Ill., 1976
* Kalu Rinpoche. Gently Whispered: Oral Teachings by the Venerable Kalu
Rinpoche. Station Hill Press, Barrytown, New York, 1994
* Kathar, Khenpo (Rinpoche). The Wish-Fulfilling Wheel: The Practice of
White Tara. Rinchen Publications, Kingston, New York, 2003.
* Kongtrul, Jamgon. Creation and Completion: Essential Points of Tantric
Meditation. Translated by Sarah Harding. Wisdom Publications, Boston, Mass.,
1996
* Norbu, Thinley. Magic Dance: The Display of the Self-Nature of the Five
Wisdom Dakinis. Jewel Publishing House, New York, N.Y., 1981
* Taranatha, Jo-nan. The Origin of the Tara Tantra. Library of Tibetan works
and Archives, Dharamsala, India, 1981
* Sherab, Khenchen Palden (Rinpoche). The Smile of the Sun and Moon: A
Commentary on The Praise to the Twenty-One Taras. Sky Dancer Press, Boca
Raton, Florida, 2004
* Tromge, Jane. Red Tara Commentary. Padma Publishing, Junction City, CA,
1994
* Tulku, Chagdud (Rinpoche). Red Tara: An Open Door to Bliss and Ultimate
Awareness. Padma Publishing, Junction City, CA, 1991
* Vessantara. Meeting the Buddhas: A Guide to Buddhas, Bodhisattvas &
Tantric Deities. Windhorse Publications, 1996
* Willson, Martin. In Praise of Tara: Songs to the Saviouress. Wisdom
Publications, London, 1986
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