What are your thoughts on Lady Tara of Tibettan Buddhism? Also, any Tibetan Buddhists out there?

Question

I'm curious and want to know more about this belief system, and more about Lady Tara and what kind of character she is. Is she a goddess? Do you heap superlatives on her the way Christians do their "God", or is she a believable character? Is she based on a real person, or does she have her roots in myth?

I'd also like to know what people think of Tibetan Buddhism, and Lady Tara.

Don't follow the first answer's example for two reasons:

I want people's opinions in their own words, not websites.

I want information on Tibettan Buddhism. Not Judaism, not Christianity, not Islam, not Taoism, and preferrably not Zen. Tibettan Buddhism. If I wanted to be Christian, I would be by now. There are plenty out there trying to convert me already. If you're thinking of posting your conversion attempt here, stop and think, and then do us all a favor and let it be.

Answer 1

Tara can be understood on many different levels. First, she is an historical figure, a person who generated bodhicitta - the altruistic intention to attain full enlightenment in order to benefit all living beings most effectively - and then actualized that intention by becoming a Buddha. Second, she is a manifestation of awakened qualities, and third, she is our Buddha potential in its future, fully purified and evolved form. A meditator may alternate between these understandings, using them as needed to cultivate his or her good qualities.

Tara as a Person
Many eons ago in a different universe, a princess named Yeshe Dawa lived. Based on her own investigation and experience, she came to have great confidence in the Three Jewels - the Buddhas, Dharma, and Sangha. She understood the unsatisfactory nature of cyclic existence and thus determined to be free from all sufferings. Thinking that all living beings were like her in wanting happiness and not wanting suffering, Princess Yeshe Dawa developed genuine, impartial love and compassion for each and every living being. She was not enchanted by the luxuries of palace life; instead, she vowed to show the way to liberation to millions of beings each day before eating breakfast, to millions more before eating lunch, and to even more before going to sleep at night. Because of this, she was called Arya Tara (Tibetan: Pagma Drolma), meaning "The Noble Liberator." "Arya" indicates that she has directly realized the nature of reality and "Tara" shows her liberating activity. When religious authorities suggested that she pray to be born a man in future lives, Tara refused, pointing out that many Buddhas had already manifested in male bodies and vowing to attain full awakening in a woman's body and continuously return in female form in order to benefit others.

Be we men or women, this historical Tara is a role model for us. Just like us, she was once an ordinary being with problems, stress, and disturbing emotions. But by training her mind in the Buddha's teachings, she attained full awakening, the state of complete freedom from all defilements and of total development of all good qualities. Likewise, if we practice the Dharma with joyful effort, we too can attain her state. Smiling at us, Tara says, "If I can do it, so can you!" thus encouraging us along the path.

In another legend, Tara is said to have been born from Avalokiteshvara's tear. As a bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara (Tibetan: Chenresig; Chinese: Kuan Yin) worked diligently to free all beings from the hell realms. Having done achieved this, he rested a while; but when he awoke, he found the hells completely repopulated with sentient beings born there by the power of their harmful actions. For a moment he despaired and began to weep with sorrow for the plight of these ignorant beings. From one of his tears, Tara emerged and encouraged him on the bodhisattva path, saying, "Do not despair. I will help you to liberate all beings."

In this story, we again see Tara as a person, although she had a miraculous birth. This legend can inspire us not to lose faith in the arduous practice of benefiting beings. Such patience and perseverance are necessary, for as we know, ignorant beings such as we are at present often do the opposite of what would bring happiness and peace. Tara's optimism gives us strength in difficult situations through showing us that suffering always has the possibility of being overcome.

Tara as a Manifestation of Enlightened Qualities
A second way Tara can be understood is as a manifestation or embodiment of enlightened qualities. A Buddha's mind is beyond our limited perceptual or conceptual abilities. All those who are awakened practiced for eons in order to purify their minds and enhance their capabilities in order to benefit us. But they need a way to communicate with us to lead us on the path out of suffering to full awakening. Since we are embodied beings who relate to color, shape, and other objects of the senses, the compassionate Buddhas appear in various forms in order to communicate with us. Tara, like all other meditational deities, is one of those forms.

Each deity is a manifestation of the same enlightened qualities - love, compassion, joy, equanimity, generosity, ethical discipline, patience, enthusiasm, concentration, wisdom, and so forth - although each manifestation may emphasize a particular quality. For example, Tara symbolizes awakened activity, while Avalokiteshvara embodies compassion. Among the diverse forms of Tara, Green Tara, who will be described below, eliminates obstacles and brings success. White Tara counteracts illness and bestows long life. Among the Twenty-one Taras and the 108 Taras, each has her own specialty, symbolized by her color, implements, and physical posture.

In another way of speaking, Tara is an emanation of bliss and emptiness. Within the sphere of emptiness - the absence of inherent existence - the blissful wisdom realizing emptiness appears in the form of Tara. By appearing in this physical form of Tara, the minds of bliss and emptiness of all the Buddhas inspire us to cultivate constructive attitudes and actions. By understanding the symbolic meaning of Tara's physical characteristics, we gain confidence in and are moved to follow the path she teaches, generating her qualities within ourselves.

Her female form draws us into spiritual life. My teacher, Lama Thubten Yeshe, who practiced Tara meditation daily, often referred to her as "Mummy Tara." Just as most of us worldly beings feel affinity for our mothers and rely on their constant, compassionate help, we are naturally attracted to Tara. We can relax in her presence and look at ourselves honestly, knowing that Tara will not judge, reject, or abandon us due to our shortcomings. Like any mother, she sees her child's potential - in this case, our spiritual potential or Buddha nature - and wants to nurture it. We feel that we can easily entrust ourselves to the path she teaches. In this way her female form functions to increase our confidence in the Three Jewels and to feel supported in our practice.

Her female form represents wisdom, the essential element needed to remove the ignorance which misconstrues reality and is the root of all our suffering. Women tend to have quick, intuitive, and comprehensive understanding. Tara represents this quality and consequently can help us to develop such wisdom. Thus she is called "the Mother of all the Buddhas," for the wisdom realizing reality that she embodies gives birth to full awakening, the state of freedom from narrow, dualistic discriminations and its attendant, self-centeredness.

Green Tara's color symbolizes activity and success. Although she possesses the same qualities as all other manifestations of the omniscient ones, she specifically embodies the enlightening influence by which the Buddhas act to benefit and guide us. Also, she represents the purified aspect of the element of air, which that activates growth in the world. Just as the air element generates the growth of green plants, which consequently brings the uplifted spirit of springtime after the dreariness of winter, Tara's enlightening influence makes our good qualities bloom and leads us to the freshness of liberation after the oppression of cyclic existence. Lush green plants that grow easily are a farmer's delight. Similarly, her green color represents success - in worldly affairs as well as in spiritual development - giving us a sense of delight, hope, and optimism. Aspirations made in the presence of Green Tara may easily grow into results, and requests made to her may be actualized quickly. One reason for this is that by visualizing and praying to Tara, we are energized to create causes for happiness and to eliminate interferences in our Dharma practice.

Tara's body is made of light. Transparent, it appears and yet is intangible, like a rainbow, mirage, or illusion. In this way, her body represents the compatibility of the two truths: conventional and ultimate. On the conventional level, Tara appears and exists. Yet when we search more deeply for her ultimate mode of existence, we cannot find anything that exists inherently, independent from causes and conditions, parts, and term and concept. Tara conventionally appears, like an illusion, but ultimately cannot be found and is empty of an inherent essence.

Tara's body language expresses her inner realizations and outer activities. She doesn't sit with her head down or with her arms crossed in front of her chest, as we do when we are closed or unhappy. Rather, her "dancing posture" is relaxed, open and friendly. Her outstretched right foot indicates her readiness to step into the realms of suffering, confused beings in order to help us. Due to her altruistic intention, Tara can appear in these realms without being adversely affected by the environment. She doesn't shy away from suffering, but faces it fearlessly and compassionately, thereby counteracting it. Her left leg is tucked in, demonstrating that she has full control over her subtle inner energies. No matter whether others praise or blame her, harm or help her, her energy is not pushed off balance and she does not lose her equanimity.

Tara's right hand in the gesture of granting sublime realizations shows that by following the path we can attain these realizations ourselves. This gesture is also called the gesture of generosity, symbolizing her willingness to give material possessions, love, protection and the Dharma to all beings according to their needs and their dispositions. Her left hand is in the gesture of the Three Jewels, with the thumb and ring finger touching and the other three fingers stretched upward. These three fingers represent the Three Jewels. They indicate that by entrusting ourselves to these three and practicing their teachings, we can actualize the unity of compassionate bliss and wisdom, symbolized by the joining of her ring finger and thumb.

Thus extended outward, Tara's right hand and foot emphasize compassionate activity - the method aspect of the path to awakening. Her left hand and foot, which are closer to her, indicate her imperturbable inner peace, gained through practicing the wisdom aspect of the path.

On Tara's crown is Amitabha Buddha, peaceful and smiling. As Tara's spiritual mentor, he represents the importance of having a fully qualified, wise, and compassionate guide on the path. By keeping her mentor on her crown, Tara is ever-mindful of the teachings she has received from him. In this way we are reminded to do the same.

While we ordinary beings decorate ourselves with external ornaments in order to look beautiful, Tara's inner beauty - her tranquility, compassion, and wisdom - are her real adornments. Her dazzling jeweled necklaces, armlets, anklets, earrings, and tiara indicate that the six far-reaching attitudes or paramitas - generosity, ethics, patience, joyous effort, concentration, and wisdom - are fully integrated in her being and decorate her every activity.

Tara is also adorned with three syllables: an om at her crown chakra, ah at her throat chakra, and hum at her heart chakra. These three syllables embody respectively, a Buddha's physical, verbal, and mental faculties. They also represent respectively the Sangha, Dharma, and Buddha Jewels of Refuge. These syllables serve as subtle objects upon which a meditator may focus and also remind us of the qualities we are developing within ourselves as a result of practicing the Buddha's teaching. In this way, each characteristic of Tara's form illustrates the path to Buddhahood and its resultant qualities.

Tara as the Resultant Buddha
A third way to view Tara is as the reflection of our present Buddha potential in its future fully developed state. Our extremely subtle mind and body have the potential to transform into the fully enlightened body and mind of a Buddha. When we visualize Tara and regard her as the resultant Tara that we will become, we are inspired to train our mind in the path leading to this result. Let's examine how the practice of Tara does this (1).

A Tara sadhana - a text describing a guided meditation - begins with taking refuge in the Three Jewels and generating the altruistic intention of bodhicitta. Contemplating these, we clarify our spiritual direction and our motivation for following it. We then visualize Tara in front of us and cultivate positive attitudes through practicing the seven limb prayer. The first limb, prostration, purifies pride and cultivates respect for an awakened one's magnificent qualities, thus opening ourselves to develop those qualities. The second limb, making offerings, involves offering real and imagined beautiful objects. This purifies miserliness and cultivates delight in being generous. The third, revealing our mistakes, purifies denial, justification, rationalization and other unhealthy psychological machinations that prevent us from being honest with ourselves. Revealing our errors cultivates honesty and humility. The fourth, rejoicing in our own and others' virtues, cuts jealousy and develops delight in the goodness and attainments of others. The fifth and sixth limbs, requesting the Buddhas and our spiritual mentors to remain in our world and to teach us the Dharma, purify any harm or disrespect we may have had towards them and help us to appreciate their presence in our lives. The seventh, dedication, shares the positive potential from the above practices with all beings and dedicates it for their temporary and ultimate well-being.

The sadhana continues with verses praising Tara's qualities and requesting her inspiration for our spiritual practice. These verses, recited while we visualize Tara in front of us, focus our attention on Tara's enlightened qualities. The more we reflect upon Tara's qualities as we meditate, the more we can give and receive the happiness that comes from following the spiritual path she taught. The verses help us give voice to our noblest spiritual aspirations, and by doing so, we are energized to actualize them.

The heart of the sadhana - the dissolution into emptiness and the self-generation - follows. Tara now comes on top of our head and dissolves into green light which flows into us and merges with our heart-mind in our heart chakra. At this point we meditate on selflessness, the emptiness or lack of independent or inherent existence. That is, there is no solid "me" meditating, no concrete Tara to meditate on, and no findable action of meditation. All false appearances of inherent existence cease and we rest our mind in the ultimate nature.

Within this empty space which is free from all false, dualistic appearances, our wisdom mind appears in the form of Tara, with a body made of radiant green light. Still aware of the absence of an independently existing "I," we simultaneously label "I" in dependence on the appearance of Tara. Having neither a solid conception of self nor the selfishness that it engenders, we nevertheless can have the sense of being Tara and envision performing a Buddha's enlightening activities to benefit all beings. In our mind's eye, we imagine feeling the impartial love and compassion for all beings that Tara feels and having her skillful means to be able to benefit them. From our Tara body made of light, we emanate countless small Taras that go throughout the universe, touching each sentient being, becoming what they need and alleviating their suffering. All sentient beings' defilements are purified and they gain all of Tara's realizations. Now that all beings have become Tara, we radiate offerings to them that generate in them bliss uncontaminated by attachment. Then all these Taras fall like snow flakes into us, blessing and inspiring our mind.

Like a child who dresses up and pretends to be a fireman, thereby inspiring himself to become one, we imagine ourselves to be a Buddha who relates to people as a fully enlightened being - without ignorance, hostility, or clinging attachment and with immeasurable wisdom, compassion, and skill. In this way, we train our mind to think and act like a Buddha by bringing the Tara we will become in the future into the present moment and imagining being that Tara. This plants the seeds for us to actually become Tara in the future. Identifying ourselves with our Tara nature, we gain invigorating confidence that spurs us to make our life meaningful.

The visualization of performing Tara's enlightening activities is often done while reciting her mantra, om tare tuttare ture soha. A mantra is a set of Sanskrit syllables uttered by a Buddha when in deep meditative equipoise on the nature of reality. We recite a mantra in order to calm our energies, concentrate our mind, and approach a state of meditative equipoise. In Green Tara's mantra, om represents Tara's body, speech, and mind, the faculties that we want to develop. Tare, tuttare, and ture all have the meaning of "to liberate." In one interpretation, these liberate us from the obstacles to generating the paths of the three levels of practitioner - initial, intermediate, and advanced. In another, they banish the obstructions to generating the three principal aspects of the path - the determination to be free, the altruistic intention, and the wisdom realizing emptiness.

In a third mode of interpretation, tare means liberating from cyclic existence, that is, from uncontrolled, continuous rebirth with a body and mind under the influence of ignorance. Of the Four Noble Truths, tare liberates from the first noble truth, true suffering. Tuttare indicates liberation from the eight dangers, which will be discussed below. Thus tuttare liberates us from the second noble truth, true origins of suffering - afflicted attitudes and emotions and the contaminated actions they motivate. Ture liberates from disease. Since the most severe disease we have is the afflicted attitudes and emotions as well as the subtle obscurations on the mind, ture indicates the third noble truth, true cessation of suffering and its origins. Such liberation is our ultimate purpose and is true spiritual success. This is arrived at through practicing the fourth noble truth, the path to awakening. Soha means "may this come about." It indicates planting the root of the path to full awakening in our hearts.

A praise to Tara's mantra illustrates the qualities of each syllable group:

Om to the transcendent subduer, Arya Tara, I prostrate.
Homage to the glorious one who frees with tare;
With tuttara you calm all fears;
You bestow all success with ture;
To the sound soha I pay great homage.

Briefly, this is the way that Tara sadhana guides our mind on the path to full awakening. As practitioners progress and realize the altruistic intention, single-pointed concentration, and insight into the nature of reality, their spiritual mentor will instruct them in more advanced visualizations and meditations to purify their extremely subtle body and mind. They will be able to use these in wondrous ways to benefit all beings.

Tara the Liberator
Tara liberates us from eight external and eight internal dangers. While the eight external ones threaten our life or property, the eight internal ones endanger us spiritually by turning us away from the path to awakening.

How does Tara protect us? The real protection is the Dharma refuge - the true paths and true cessations of sufferings and their causes in our mindstream. To cultivate and then perfect these we must first study them, then reflect on their meaning, and finally familiarize ourselves with them in meditation and in daily life. To accomplish these three steps, we must depend on a teacher; it is in this way that Tara guides us. First she teaches us the Dharma, and then she stimulates us to investigate its meaning so that we reach a correct understanding. Finally, she guides us in meditation practice so that we generate actual realizations rather than mere fantastic experiences. Awakened beings cannot take our defilements away like pulling a thorn from someone's foot. Nor can they give us their realizations like pouring water into an empty bowl. Rather, the real help they give is by teaching us the path to awakening, the Dharma.

The following eloquent verses requesting Tara to protect us from these dangers were composed by the First Dalai Lama after he had completed a meditation retreat on Tara. They point out obstacles in the path so that we will investigate and understand how they operate in our mind. Then we can apply the antidotes that the Buddha taught to first subdue and finally eradicate them so that they never reappear in our mind.
by Bhikshuni Thubten Chodron

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

OM TARA TURE TARA TURE SVAHA

Answer 4

http://www.biblebelievers.com/SimpleSalvation.html