Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. In this 49-minute session, Geshe Sonam Rinchen teaches the core visualization and recitation practice of Green Tārā, one of Buddhism’s most accessible protector deities. He walks through the complete sadhana: imagining yourself transformed into Tārā seated on a lotus and moon disc, with a smaller Tārā at your heart containing the seed syllable TAM surrounded by her mantra. He covers the emanation and reabsorption of light rays—inviting wisdom beings into yourself, purifying all sentient beings, and acquiring the enlightened qualities of body, speech, and mind. He then transitions to mantra recitation, with the syllables traveling from your mouth down the central channel to dissolve at your heart. Rinpoche introduces both the peaceful Tārā mantra (recited mornings for auspicious rebirth) and the wrathful Tārā mantra (recited evenings to overcome obstacles), and gives the oral transmission of the Twenty-One Praises to Tārā. He concludes by emphasizing harmony and compassion in daily life as the foundation for both spiritual progress and world peace. Suitable for practitioners new to Tārā practice or those seeking to deepen existing sadhana.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 02 T.mp3
UUID: d9457233-951c-4672-ab98-53c5eabf35dd
Teacher: Geshe Sonam Rinchen
Collection: Tārā (Geshe Sonam Rinchen)
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 49.4 minutes
Words: ~2,727
So now you go on. So you’ve got this green Tārā in front of you on sitting on the moon disc. And now you imagine at her heart is a moon disk. On the moon disk is a green syllable TAM. And this green syllable TAM suddenly transforms into a tiny green Tārā.
So there’s a big green Tārā with a small green Tārā at her heart. Yeah. And at the heart of the small Tārā is another moon disc, and on the moon disc is a tiny syllable thumb. So you you focusing in and then getting smaller and smaller. And then at the on the moon disc around the seed syllable TAM are the ten syllables of her mantra.
So now you, this is in fact you yourself. Right? You you have transformed into this Tārā. So you create this vacuity first. And then from this vacuity, in the way that was described, you yourself appeared in the form of Tārā.
So first of all, there was the lotus and then the moon and then the flower, the flower with the throne, then all the lights went out and purified the environment and the beings in it. And then the lights came back again and transformed into Tārā. And that is you yourself. So you’re completely identified with that Tārā. And now that Tārā, which is you yourself, has a small Tārā at her heart.
And at the heart of that Tārā is a moon disc with the syllable TAM on it and the letters, the syllables of the mantra arranged around it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And now light rays go forth, go out from the tiny TAM and the mantra at the heart of the tiny Tārā at your heart. And they go out and they invite back all the wisdom beings, all the wisdom beings in the form of Tārā’s into you. So this energizes you.
And then you try to concentrate after you’ve invited all the wisdom beings into yourself. You try to concentrate really hard on the syllables of the mantra at your heart and the seed syllable TAM. And then you imagine light going out again. So you always have this thing of light rays going out, and light rays emanate from the mantra and the TAM at your heart and strike the living creatures around you. And then you imagine that they’ve all been transformed into Taras, that they’ve all become completely freed of all their limitations, and have gained every necessary insight, and that they will become fully enlightened.
So this is one activity with the light rays going out purifying all sentient beings or living creatures and transforming them into fully enlightened beings. And then the other activity is that you emanate countless light rays. And these light rays at the tips of all the light rays are different kinds of offerings, gifts to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. You make all these gifts of all these offerings of beautiful things, food and drink and light and everything beautiful that you can imagine and that you bestow gifts on them in this way. So how do you imagine it?
You yourself are Tārā. Right? At your heart is another Tārā. And then at her heart is the mantra on the moon disk surrounding the syllable TAM. So when you’re emanating light, you imagine the light going out, filling the tiny Tārā, and then emanating through her, and then filling your own body as Tārā, and then gradually going out through the pores of your body.
So it’s a gradual process. First, it fills the tiny Tārā at your heart. Then from her, the light streams out and fills your body, and then streams forth from the pores of your of your body as Tārā. And then you imagine that the light comes back again, bringing with it lots of Taras which are the embodiment of all the physical qualities of enlightened beings. And you imagine these Taras streaming into you streaming into you, bringing back with them the the qualities, the physical qualities of enlightened beings, and you imagine that you’ve been empowered in this way.
Then you imagine again that the lights go out and they come back this time bringing the blessings of enlightened beings’ speech. So you’re acquiring their speech, the qualities of their speech. And the speech comes back in the form of the mantra. So you imagine the syllables of the mantra coming back with the light rays and entering your body. And then you you feel that you’ve actually acquired the speech of all the enlightened beings in the ten directions.
And next, if you emanate light again and the light comes back with Utpala flowers. So these Utpala flowers embody the qualities of enlightened beings’ mind, of enlightened beings’ mind, of mind. So the energy, the energy and the qualities of enlightened beings mind come back to you in the form of flowers coming back with the light and dissolving into you. And then you should feel confident that you have you have gained the the qualities of an enlightened being’s mind. So we need to imagine that we’ve acquired all these different qualities.
So this is one kind of activity with emanating lights, reabsorbing them. So this is a very important kind of practice. You do this in your imagination. You’re emanating light and absorbing it, bringing back different qualities to yourself. And when you’ve done that for a time, then you switch over and recite the mantra.
So you do this for a time, and when you don’t feel like doing it anymore then you switch over to reciting the mantra. So remember who you are. You are Tārā. At your heart is a smaller Tārā. At her heart is the moon disc with the syllable TAM on it surrounded by the syllables of the mantra. As you recite, you concentrate on the syllables of the mantra.
And you imagine them coming up in a string, as it were, a string of the syllables coming up, leaving your mouth, going out through the air, entering again at the navel, entering at the navel, going up, dissolving into the TAM at your heart, and then beginning again. So they come up and go out and enter your at your navel, and then go back up to the TAM at the, heart of the tiny Tārā, and so on. And you follow this. Fix your mind on that as you recite. And then you try to recite the mantra as well as you can.
There is a peaceful Tārā mantra, which is this one, Om Tare Tutare Ture Svāhā, and then there is also a wrathful Tārā mantra. So why don’t we try to do it? Why don’t we try to imagine ourselves as Tārā in this way right now and try and recite the mantra together for a little? So imagine yourself as green Tārā seated on your lotus and moon disc, and think of a smaller green Tārā at your heart, and at the heart of that green Tārā is a white moon disc with the syllable TAM on it and the syllables of the mantra arranged around that TAM. Now imagine the lights going out in the way that was described for a moment.
Now let’s recite the mantra, imagining the syllables coming out through our mouth, reentering the body through the navel, and then dissolving into the TAM on the moon disc, and then the same thing again. So we recite it together. So will lead us. So this is the peaceful mantra. This is the mantra of peaceful Tārā.
And then there’s also a mantra associated with wrathful Tārā. So when do you use the wrathful Tārā mantra? If you feel that there are obstacles, when you feel that there are obstacles, that people are being hostile to you, are perceiving signs of hostility, of obstacles, of something unpleasant going on. And the time to recite the wrathful Tārā mantra is in the evening. So when things aren’t looking so good, then you can use the wrathful Tārā mantra to ward off any bad influences, anything hostile or inimical.
And the usual time to do it is in the evening. And if we’re afraid of taking bad rebirth, if we want to attain a good state of rebirth, if we are looking for pacification and, you know, when it’s for peaceful purpose of this kind, then you recite peaceful Tārā mantras, and you do that the morning. So now instead of the TAM, the TAM that you’re visualizing at the heart of the small Tārā, when you say wrathful Tārā mantras, you imagine a green TAM. So what you imagine around the green syllable. You imagine the syllables.
Om Tare Tuttare Ture Mama Hung Hrīḥ Svāhā. Yeah. So Rinpoche is going to recite this three times and then we should repeat it after him each time. So now let’s try reciting that a few times together. When you finish reciting, when you finish recitation, you imagine the lotus and moon disc dissolving into you, that the Tārā also dissolves into you.
And then if it’s possible throughout the day, whatever you’re doing, you remind yourself of the fact that you’re Tārā. So you completely identify with Tārā. In whatever you do, you imagine that you are Tārā. So, again, Rinpoche was asked to give an oral transmission of the twenty one Taras, the praise the twenty one praises to Tārā. And he’s going to recite that now, so we we’re receiving the oral transmission of that praise.
Yeah. I need to yeah. See, this praise has twenty one verses. The very beginning of the prayer starts with homage. It says, Om homage to the venerable Ārya Tārā.
The sound consists of three parts. There are three parts to that sound. If you make it, you know, if you make a long sound, it has three parts. And those three parts stand for the body, speech and mind of enlightened beings. Tārā is like the mother of all enlightened beings.
Yeah. So, again, he’s going to go through it once and recite it. See this is the oral transmission of the twenty one Taras, the twenty one praises to Tārā. So we’ve received that now. If we recite this, it’s very useful for repelling any kind of obstacles.
If we feel fear, it’s good to recite it to free ourselves from fear. And ideally, we should recite it three times in during the day and three times during the night. And it’s good if you can just make us a a small meditation session around each recitation. Recitation. So it’s useful if you can just stop for a short time, all the other things that you’re doing, and think in a certain way during that time.
And although there’s no need, there’s no necessity to do it only in the evening, but if we do it in the evening, it’s really good for making requests for pacification of wars, of conflict in the world. We wish to do it for purposes of pacification in that way, we can imagine wrathful Taras, and we can we can then recite these twenty one Taras, the twenty one praises to Tārā in the evening for purposes of of pacifying conflict and in the wish to stop war war in the world this kind of problem. So discord. Discord. Yeah.
Yeah. So how do you imagine wrathful Taras? You imagine them instead of seated within a a radiance, within an aura of radiance, you imagine them seated within an aura of flames. And their eyes are glowing like the setting sun and looking wrathful. So their eyes are wrathful.
And they’re emitting light from their bodies which would frizzle up everything that comes into contact with it. And this light which goes out, this laser like light which goes out from her completely destroys all bad thoughts all action which is based on bad thoughts, and all contrivances and machinery which are created by bad thoughts. So things which are intended for destruction, weapons, and so on. So these beams of light which go out from her completely destroy those. So you imagine her making this kind of mudra, right, which is called the threatening mudra.
So she’s making that mudra and So she’s, you know, puts her hands down like this towards the ground towards the ground and completely subdues everything. You know? It’s the subduing Mudra, the threatening Mudra, and subduing Mudra. And on the palms of her hands and feet, we imagine green syllables, so on the palms of her hand and on her feet. Yeah.
So she can point these mudras downwards. These gestures are made downwards towards the earth. And the searing light rays go out from the syllables and burn up everything inimical underground as well. So there are all sorts of Taras, and we can use our imagination. So when we imagine wrathful Taras, their eyes are burning like the sun.
And when we imagine peaceful Taras, their eyes are calming like the moon. And their bodies give off white light rays, white light rays which pacify, which create peace everywhere, and which completely remove all obstacles and limitations. So they’re pacifying. The light rays are pacifying, but in a very peaceful way. Like, they’re not destructive.
Just peaceful. So whatever it is we’re trying to achieve, whether we’re trying to achieve, whether we’re trying to overcome obstacles, whether we’re trying to attain things that we desire, if we make requests to Tārā, there’s nothing better that we can no one better than that we can turn to. Yeah. So you can imagine both peaceful and wrathful Taras filling all the world systems with light, filling all the world systems with light. And then you can imagine the sound of their mantras, both the peaceful Tārā mantra and the wrathful Tārā mantra reverberating from all corners of the universe.
And then you can imagine yourself as Tārā laughing loudly. And you laugh laugh the syllables of the mantra like the sound you emit as you’re laughing is this cosmic a cosmic laugh emitting the syllables of the mantra. So just imagine yourself uttering this laugh which is exclaiming the syllables of the mantra. K. Rinpoche says, now we’ve come to the end of the teachings.
He says, I’ve been very happy here. I’ve stayed here in Buddha House in Adelaide for two weeks, and it’s been a very happy time. And everybody has listened to me during all the talks I’ve given with such attention and interest. And it’s made me feel very happy. And I feel that you’ve come to like me.
And so I want to ask you not to forget what I’ve tried to tell you about and try to make this life worthwhile, and especially try to live in harmony with the people who are around you. Harmony we create by trying to live in peace, being tolerant and patient with those who are closest to us, with the people who belong to family, with our neighbors, with the people that we live with. And that harmony can then spread to the places where we live, and to the country where we live. And in that way it fans out and can turn into world peace. And that’s the way we have to do it.
We have to begin ourselves in our immediate contact. And harmony, harmony and accord are of great importance because we can’t achieve anything either on the worldly level or on the spiritual level unless we have peace and harmony. And when I speak of harmony and peace, I don’t just mean not quarreling with other people. I mean that you need to try and do things for other people, make yourself useful to other people. That’s what we have to do.
We need love for the people who are around us. If we’re living harmoniously within our families, then when we come back to work, everybody’s happy to be together again. And when we come to a place like this, if we’re in harmony with one another, then we’re all happy to meet each other, to be together. So this is really important.