Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.
About this talk. Venerable Thubten Dondrub teaches the Twenty-One Taras praises in this 110-minute session, guiding practitioners through visualizations and commentary on the tantric practice of Tārā. He opens by establishing bodhicitta as the foundation of all tantra, clarifies that tantric teachings are an integral aspect of Mahāyāna Buddhism aimed at rapid enlightenment, and walks through preliminary prayers to set the practitioner’s mind. The talk covers detailed explanations of specific verses, particularly verses fourteen through seventeen, exploring Tārā’s wrathful and peaceful aspects, her power to subdue obstacles and demons, and her dharmakaya nature. Dondrub emphasizes the critical role of faith in connecting with Tārā’s enlightened qualities, provides extensive teachings on Buddhist cosmology involving Mount Meru and the seven levels beneath the earth, and addresses the purifying power of Tārā’s mantra even against extreme negative karma. The session includes visualizations of the twenty-one Taras, explanation of peaceful and wrathful mantras, and practical guidance on deity yoga requiring emptiness understanding. Pitched at practitioners with some familiarity with tantric practice and preliminary Buddhist teachings.
File metadata (for organising)
File: 01 – 21 taras 2014 05 22 22-5-14.mp3
UUID: 2d38b217-c20e-4bfb-bf81-2ae986d35614
Teacher: Ven Thubten Dondrub
Collection: Twenty One Taras (Ven Thubten Dondrub)
Date: 2014-05-22
Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide
Duration: 109.9 minutes
Words: ~10,684
So the very basis of practicing Tantra any aspect is bodhicitta, the wish to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. Sometimes among Buddhist groups and non-Buddhist groups they divide Buddhism into the Theravāda tradition and the Mahāyāna tradition and then there’s the Vajrayāna or Tantric tradition. And my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, says that this is completely ridiculous because it gives the impression that Tantra is something different from the Mahāyāna, but it is an integral aspect of the Mahāyāna. It’s not something different from the Mahāyāna. It’s just a very specific aspect of the Mahāyāna teachings.
Because the Mahāyāna teachings are about how to achieve enlightenment, the Tantric teachings are how to achieve enlightenment as quickly as possible. So bodhicitta is the very basis of all tantra. So for that reason, outside, as much as possible, we should try and generate the bodhicitta motivation for studying these praises and practicing them. The reason for doing these praises, connecting with Tārā is to help us cut through all problems, difficulties, ordinary and spiritual, to be able to achieve every kind of success in order for us to accumulate all the things necessary to be able to achieve enlightenment. So please try and bear that in mind especially when we come to the refuge prayer but just before we do that, we’ll do the preliminary prayers starting with the praise or the prayer to the lion-faced dakini on page five.
I prostrate to the gathering of dakinis and the three places who abide in the holy yoga of using space by your powers of clairvoyance and magical emanation. Look after practitioners like a mother, her child. By the teachings of the three supreme jewels possessing the power of truth, may inner and outer hindrances be transformed. May they be dispelled. May they be pacified.
May they be completely pacified. May all negative forces opposed to dharma be completely pacified, may the host of eighty thousand obstacles be pacified, may we be separated from problems and harmful conditions to dharma, may all enjoyments be in accord with the dharma, and may there be auspiciousness and perfect happiness here right now. Obeisance to my guru and protector Mañjuśrī who holds to his heart a scriptural text symbolic of his seeing all things as they are, whose understanding shines forth as the sun, unclouded by defilements or traces of ignorance, who teaches in sixty ways with the patient love of a father for his only child, all creatures caught in the prison of confusion in the darkness of their ignorance, overwhelmed by their suffering. You whose dragon thunder proclamation of the dharma arouses us from the stupor of our delusions and frees us from the iron chains of our karma, whose powerful sword of wisdom hews down suffering wherever its sprouts appear, clearing away the darkness of all ignorance. I bow to you, o Mañjuśrī, whose princely body is adorned with the one hundred and twelve marks of a Buddha, who has completed the ten stages achieving the highest perfection of a bodhisattva, who has been pure from the beginning.
O Mañjuśrī, all loving one, with the brilliance of your wisdom, illuminate the darkness enclosing my mind. Enlighten my intelligence and wisdom so that I may gain insight into Buddha’s words and the texts that explain them. Then visualizing Śākyamūni Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, guidance, we offer the mandala of the whole universe as a way to request the teachings, as a way to accumulate merit that helps us understand and practice the teachings, as a way to purify our mind of the obstacles to understanding and practicing. So as we continue to think of the Buddha in front of us as our source of refuge, inspiration, guidance, the embodiment of all our perfect teachers of the past, present, and future, we can also think at the heart of the Buddha, Śākyamūni, is Ārya Tārā. And but also we particularly focus now on thinking of all sentient beings surrounding us and trying to have that sense that I have this very, very intimate connection with all of these beings.
It’s not just that I have a connection with my parents, family, friends, and helpers and so on of this life, but I’m equally connected to all other human beings, all the beings in the different realms of cyclic existence. They’ve all been my mother and father, brother and sister. I’ve been in every possible positive relationship with every sentient being. I depend on their kindness and amazingly, over and over again in Samsāra, I do receive this kindness in so many different big and small direct, indirect ways. And especially, I depend on the kindness of the mother, and I have received this from every sentient being.
And yet all these kind beings are suffering in cyclic existence. Most of them not even knowing the situation they’re in, the potential they have to experience all sorts of sufferings in the lower realms and so on. In their confusion, trying to be happy, trying to avoid suffering, mother sentient beings get caught up in their own self-cherishing and simply create the cause of more suffering. So they’re completely helpless in their situation. So thinking along these lines, we can generate that thought no matter what.
Since I have Buddha nature and I have found precious human rebirth, the optimum chance to practice the Dharma, then no matter what, I have to seize this opportunity and all future lives to free my mind of all self-cherishing, all self grasping, and, again, the enlightened state in order to perfectly repay the kindness of mother sentient beings. So to achieve that enlightened state, I have to be free of all sorts of obstacles, outer and inner, achieve every kind of success. And to do these things, I can rely on the great wisdom and compassion and skillful means of mother Tārā. So for this reason, I will study this practice of training the mind in developing the praises and devotion to the twenty one Taras.
I go for refuge until I’m enlightened to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Supreme Assembly. By the merits I create through practicing the Dharma, may I become a Buddha in order to benefit all sentient beings. So thinking the Buddha is very pleased with our motivation, we imagine the Buddha shows this by now coming towards the crown of our head, and then when directly above our crown, the Buddha turns facing the same direction as ourselves, dissolves into golden light. That golden light we can imagine then dissolves into Ārya Tārā who’s at the heart of the Buddha. So we now have Ārya Tārā on the crown of our head.
She then dissolves into blissful green light, and that blissful light pours down into us, blessing our mind. So then we enhance that positive state of mind by briefly doing some breathing meditation, particularly the nine round breathing exercise, so that our mind can become a little bit calmer, clearer, more concentrated, so that we can use that mind, that level of mind, to listen to and think about the Buddha’s teachings tonight.
Okay. Thank you. So it’s useful to begin by reminding ourselves how everything arises dependently. Nothing truly exists. Everything arises dependently.
So the benefit that we can receive from relying on Ārya Tārā or the Buddhas such as mother Tārā, Ārya Tārā, it depends on many, many factors. One of which is our own faith in Tārā and her qualities and her vow to quickly benefit all sentient beings, to quickly be able to cut through all sorts of difficulties and to be able to be free of all different kinds of fears and so on. So this is her promise, this is what she embodies. She’s the very embodiment of wisdom and compassion, but also the enlightened activity of the Buddha. And very especially this enlightened activity that is able to cut through things, cut through our confusion and the problems we experience in life are usually the result of our own confusion.
Depending on how much faith we have, then that much we will receive benefit from relying on Tārā. It’s not something magical. And in turn, our faith can develop and increase. Like everything, we don’t start off with this huge perfect faith. Everyone’s faith varies.
We have some imprints from the past, have some faith in the Buddhist teachings in general. And we come to this life with different levels of merits and faith and so on, but we can develop that faith more and more. It’s not something static. So what helps us develop that faith is reciting the praises. And because the praises are speaking of the qualities and powers of Tārā and although of course these praises don’t explain in some nice simple mechanistic way how it works, which would be great if that could be done, but how these things work I think is just beyond anyone’s, especially our understanding at this point.
But one thing to bear in mind is that these praises are believed to have been spoken by the Buddha himself. These are the historical Buddha, Śākyamūni Buddha’s praises to Tārā saying, You have these qualities, you have these abilities. So the Buddha can’t lie. It’s impossible. So if we have faith in the Buddha in general, in the enlightened mind, then when we chant these praises and remember this is coming from the Buddha, it can help us have trust and faith that Tārā does have these qualities and if she does have these qualities, then we can rely on them.
Right? So like that, and so the more we recite the praises, the more with some kind of awareness and so on, then our faith increases, our connection with Tārā increases, then Tārā is able that that enlightened energy that Tārā embodies can affect us. Right? Yeah? Good.
Something like that. So last week, we got to, I think, got to verse thirteen. So no. No. We got to verse we finished that one.
We got to verse fourteen. So this is sorry. Just excuse me. I’m trying got so many little bits and pieces to refer to here. So this is Tārā who is frowning wrathfully.
So Alright. So this Tārā is either a very, very dark green or maybe even black color, and she holds a dark blue flask. And she has frowning eyebrows, and she’s the one who so she, this Tārā is called she who is frowning wrathfully, and she destroys hindering demons. Okay? So the verse says in Tibetan remember this has been translated by the Tibetans from the original Sanskrit.
So this is praising Tārā with reference to how light radiates from the syllable at her heart. So this is under the section remember of praising Tārā according to her wrathful sambhogakaya form. So it says, Homage to you, Tārā, with hand on the ground by your side, pressing your heel and stamping your foot on the earth. With a wrathful glance from your eyes, you subdue all seven levels through the syllable hum. So with her hand in the threatening mudrā, is like that, this is the threatening mudrā, Tārā wrathfully suppresses the entire world, meaning suppresses all the negative aspects of it.
With her two holy feet, she stamps on the earth that refers to Mount Meru and the four continents. I’m not sure how many people here are familiar with the Buddhist concept of Buddhist cosmology, which is basically taken from what the Hindus at the time of the Buddha believed as well. But just very simply, according to I should give some classes on Buddhist cosmology one day just to give some background of how the original Buddhists viewed the world, the physical world. But anyway, they believe that a world system, one world system, is made up of this mountain called Mount Meru, which is absolutely ginormous. And that mountain is in the center of a huge ocean surrounding that mountain Meru are these seven rings of golden mountains.
And then beyond those golden mountains are these four continents. There’s the eastern continent, southern, western, and northern continents. And we, human beings, live on the southern continent. And we are in the best continent because this is the one where, for various reasons it’s possible to practice the Dharma. On the other continents, which are said to be human continents, human beings live.
They look different from us, they live much longer, but they’re human beings. But it’s only on the southern continent where the Dharma really flourishes. Yeah. And on Mount Meru, these different like these I talked about the four guardian kings, remember? So they live on the lower part of Mount Meru.
So these are the first level of the desire realm gods. And then on the top of Mount Meru live Indra and so on. Anyway, this is basically one and each of these continents has a subcontinent on either side of it. So this is the basic format of the world system. So one of these continents really there’s many debates whether the continent, for example, the southern continent refers to the whole of this planet or just to India or what.
Or it could even mean the actual, what do you call it, the Milky Way or something even vaster. But anyway, so one world system is made up of a Mount Meru and these four continents and their subcontinents and with all the god realms and the hell realms that go with that, because the hell realms are underneath and the god realms are above. And one thousand of these world systems makes up a larger system, like a galaxy. I don’t know what the Sanskrit term is, but let’s call it a galaxy. And then a thousand of these galaxies makes up one universe.
So one universe is made up of one billion Mount Merus therefore one billion Southern Continents. So in one universe, there are one billion southern continents like ours, where there are human beings like us. One billion of them. That’s one universe, and there are infinite universes. But when we become enlightened, which we all will at some point, the enlightened influence of one Buddha, generally speaking, extends to one universe.
That’s their main influence. Their sphere of activity is one universe, which is one thousand million world systems. So that’s a lot of sentient beings. But remember, that’s just so there are infinite universes. Infinite universes.
Tārā tramples on all of them. She’s got control. So the commentary says her holy face is in a wrathful aspect and her hand is in a threatening gesture. From the blue syllable on the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. Fire and countless vajras.
Oh, vajras. Do you know what a vajra looks does everyone know what a vajra looks like? In Tantric Buddhism, vajras have many many symbolisms. That is a vajra. So it also symbolizes one of its basic ways to understand the vajra, it symbolizes bodhicitta.
Don’t ask me why, but it does. It symbolizes bodhicitta. And it’s also like I like Indra throws you know, just like in the Greek gods, there is Zeus, who is Zeus, isn’t it? Who throws these lightning bolts down on nasty human beings or, you know, other little gods and whatever. Indra also throws lightning bolts down on people to subdue them.
This Tārā one imagines that from her palm and the soles of her feet, these billions of vajras fly out in all directions to quell the harms. It says they go to the seven levels beneath the earth to destroy all the Nagas, demigods, the lords of death and so on. So in various Tantric texts they talk about the seven levels below the earth. I have never actually received an explanation of what all the seven levels are but it’s referring to various kinds of spirit beings and so on that live under the earth. Here it mentions particularly the Nagas which are like the snakes who have all sorts of powers according to Mahāyāna Buddhism, especially as it’s practiced in the Tibetan tradition.
Nagas are particularly associated with controlling the weather. So there are pujas that one can do to keep the Nagas happy, and they’ll bring rain as a result. They’re also associated with all sorts of diseases. If you hurt, if you upset them, they will give you diseases, especially very difficult to cure diseases. And particularly skin diseases.
It’s one of them. Think I’ve mentioned this before, but basically represented as cobras in Indian mythology and in Buddhist mythology traditions. In Nepal the Nepalese believe every house in Nepal or maybe not in Nepal, but in the Kathmandu Valley has a snake living there. So they do these pujas for the Nagas there. Many yeah.
And, yes, in the Kathmandu I’m just getting carried away. In in in the in Kathmandu, there are many water tanks where traditionally people washed and bathed, you know, washed their clothes, bathed their bodies, and everything. And all of these water tanks have these statues of Nagas coming out. I love those. I like Nagas.
I don’t know if they like me, but gotta be careful. So it is believed that you have to be particularly careful around very, very old trees. It’s almost guaranteed if there’s a very, very old tree, it’s got at least a naga living in it. So you don’t want to chop it down or pollute the area around it because otherwise you can be in serious trouble. Many years ago when I lived at oh, sorry.
We’ll get we’ll get on to this. Years ago when I was at the Lama Yeshe Monastery, there’s a row of incredibly beautiful cypress trees. Cypress? Trees in the entrance way. They’re probably at least a hundred years old, probably even much older.
And at one stage, two of the monks, the tallest monk, Thubten Gyatso, and the shortest monk, who was a French Canadian monk, chopped down all the dead limbs of these trees. Soon after or during it, the young monk started getting these incredible difficulties in his knees. He was a very young athletic monk and he started getting all this trouble in his knees. Very strange. And our resident lama, Geshe Jampa Tegchog, said the Nagas got back at him for chopping their trees up a bit.
They also tend to hang around, especially if it’s an isolated old tree, like somewhere just one big old tree by itself, be very careful. Also, it’s just an isolated clump of big rocks, such as Uluru, but it doesn’t have to be as big as that, but it is likely that there are Nagas there, so one should be careful. The Nagas maybe didn’t understand that. Maybe they liked that just as it was. Yeah, but that’s different.
I said very, very old trees. Not just a tree that’s twenty years, but really, really old trees. Because Nagas live a very long time. Yeah. Anyway, I definitely believe that.
I have no doubt believing that because I’ve, yeah, no. I’ve never had personal experience of these things fortunately, but when you live in Nepal, especially if you live around Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s monastery, all sorts of you see all sorts of things happen and are spoken about, you know. So, yeah, very interesting. What else do Nagas do? They can also help you.
You know, if you keep them happy, they can look after you, do good things, they say. Oh, yeah. Well, there’s pujas to do, but, you know, mainly by not offending them. One imagines that these countless vajras, huge ones, little ones, coming out of the hands and feet of Tārā, going to the seven levels beneath the earth to destroy all harmful Nagas. And again, destroying doesn’t mean really killing them or anything, but subduing their negative tendencies.
Because these beings harm other sentient beings by causing sickness and so on. The fire and countless vajras destroy their negative minds that have the wish to harm others. So Tārā pacifies their thoughts of harming others and also subdues whatever powers they have to cause such problems. So Tārā is able to render them harmless. So one could imagine sending these vajras to any person who’s kind of developing a really, really negative mind towards you.
If you know someone who’s kind of really got a very negative attitude towards you rather than getting angry with them, which is our natural tendency, then we could do this visualization where we see all these vajras flying out from Tārā, not chopping this person to pieces and killing them and causing them misery, but imagining it destroying their negative minds. So the commentary says, when we are harmed by these nonhuman beings, such as nagas or spirits, but it also can include, as I said, harmful human beings. We should rely on Tārā in this wrathful aspect and make request to her. Visualize that from the blue syllable in both her palms and soles of her feet, fire and vajras are emanated and enter into us and those who are harming us. When we receive these blessings, all the negative emotions, especially the thought of harming others in our own mind and in the minds of those beings harming us, are completely pacified and purified.
Both our minds and the minds of those who are harming us become very pure and clear. So this is what we imagine. So the more we can imagine that, focus on it, train in this way, it can begin to work. Lama Lhundup, who is the source of this commentary, says if we do this practice when we are experiencing such harm, it is extremely beneficial. So this completes the whole section on praising Tārā with reference to her sambhogakaya aspect.
So now the next, I think just the this one verse, the next verse is praising Tārā in relation to her dharmakaya aspect. Yes. Verse oh, hold it. Yes. Yes.
Number fifteen. Oh, hold it. What’s happened here? Sorry. Just let me oh, okay.
So I’ve got that wrong. So it should be fifteen is praising her by way of the dharmakaya, and then verses sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty one are praising by way of her enlightened activities. Sorry about that. Can you correct that in your outlines? So remember, what is the dharmakaya?
The dharmakaya is the enlightened mind of a Buddha. So the enlightened mind is characterized by being free of all faults in such a way that they can never return, possessing all good qualities, the total range of every good quality, and these are fully functioning all the time in such a way that they can never decline. They are fully operative all the time. And the dharmakaya also has the quality of being completely omniscient, knowing all things all the time. And that omniscience knows both the ultimate truth of all things all the time and the conventional truth of all things at all times.
And it is unique in it is only the enlightened mind, the dharmakaya, is able to know the ultimate truth and the conventional truth simultaneously at the same time. Even a tenth level bodhisattva is only able to experience the ultimate truth, emptiness, in meditative absorption. In that state, the Bodhisattva isn’t aware of the conventional truth of things. When they are meditating on emptiness, that’s all they know. So when they come out of that, they become aware of the conventional truth of sentient beings and their suffering, etcetera, etcetera.
But only so only a Buddha, only the enlightened mind, the dharmakaya, has this continuous unified awareness of the conventional and ultimate truth of everything and everyone. And as I’ve mentioned before there are different views of the Dharmakāya that that one that the enlightened minds of put it this way. Right now it is definite, there’s no debate in Buddhism that our deluded minds are separate. We have you know, our minds have the same nature, but each of our mental continuums is a separate, discrete entity. Your mind is not mine.
It doesn’t become my mind. They are separate. But there is one argument that says at the point of enlightenment all minds become one. So that there is only one dharmakaya and the other argument is that there are separate dharmakayas, that each of these separate deluded minds goes on to achieve a separate pure enlightened state so that there are many, many dharmakayas. So if you debate with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, if you take the stance that there are many dharmakayas, Lama Zopa Rinpoche will argue that there’s only one.
So then if you adopt the view that there’s only one, he will say that there are many. But mainly, actually, if you check Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s view, his actual view is that there is only one. That there is just the one enlightened mind, the dharmakaya. That when we achieve enlightenment, somehow our separate minds sort of become one with that one enlightened mind. So for example, in the for those people who know something about the Lama Chöpa practice, the puja to the field of merit, is depicted in this gold framed picture up here, which you probably can’t see.
It has as its central figure, Lama Tsongkhapa and then surrounding Lama Tsongkhapa on all sides up and above and all around are all the different holy beings, the deities, the Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, Arhats, dakas and dakinis, the protectors, all the different kinds of the Indian lineage masters, the Tibetan lineage masters of the tradition. So all these different beings. But what Lama Zopa Rinpoche explains is that what we should understand is that all of those beings, and they all have their different aspects, are just manifestations of the one enlightened mind, the dharmakaya. And in the teachings on Guru devotion, it talks about the there’s the conventional Guru. Conventional Guru, is that the term?
The relative Guru, who is the human being that one relates to in this life, who one connects to. And then there is the ultimate Guru, the ultimate Guru. And what does that refer to? That is the Dharmakāya. The ultimate Guru is the real Guru who is leading us to enlightenment is the Dharmakāya, the enlightened mind.
That enlightened mind manifests for the benefit of bodhisattvas in the sambhogakaya form. For us, that enlightened mind, the dharmakaya manifests as the human guru, the relative guru. So one way that dharmakaya manifests is as Tārā. Tārā is a manifestation of the dharmakaya. Tārā possesses the dharmakaya.
She is the dharmakaya as well. One can think of her in that way. So this verse fifteen is praising Tārā with reference to her dharmakaya aspect. And so this is the Tārā of supreme peacefulness. She has a white holy body, holding a white flask that cleanses beings of all their negative karma and obscurations.
So the verse says, homage to you. Remember, is to pay homage. Also, it has the meaning of to prostrate, the same thing, to prostrate, to pay homage. So homage to you, Tārā, o happy, virtuous, and peaceful one, the very object of practice passed beyond sorrow. You are perfectly endowed with Svāhā and om, overcoming completely all the great evils.
So in this verse, we are paying homage to Tārā, the happy, virtuous, peaceful one. So the commentary explains that she is happy because she has no suffering. She is completely free of all suffering because she has eliminated all the causes of suffering. She is the virtuous one because she doesn’t accumulate the causes of suffering, which is nonvirtue. And she is the peaceful one because she does not have any more afflictions.
She’s completely free of the afflictions, which are the objects to be abandoned. She’s completely free of all afflictions in her holy mind. She’s got rid of the afflictions to liberation and also the obscurations to omniscience. And she has passed beyond sorrow, so this is referring to the state that is characterized by the complete abandonment of the two obscurations: to liberation and to omniscience. She is always in meditative poise within the sphere of peace.
The commentary says, due to the power of the wisdom of meditative equipoise that Tārā always remains in because this is a feature of the Buddha, the Buddha is always in a state of meditative equipoise, but uniquely for a Buddha, while in that state of meditative equipoise, the Buddha is able to function, be aware of everything and function, act to benefit others. Due to the power of the wisdom of meditative equipoise, she always remains within the sphere of peace, the state characterized by the abandonment of the two obscurations. Due to the power of that wisdom, the mantra of Tārā is manifested. And that’s what is meant by you are perfectly endowed with Svāhā and om. So this is the first well, the last and first word of the mantra, om tare tuttare ture Svāhā.
So one should think of the mantras of the deities as the manifestation of the mind of that deity. I mentioned when we were going through the connecting with the Buddha’s little course, which some of you did, in a commentary that one lama gave on Chenrezig and Chenrezig’s mantra, that that lama made the comment that we should which I found very, very interesting and inspiring and something, I’m not quite sure what, mind blowing, is to think that the mantra of the deity actually is the deity. That that is very interesting to get your mind around that. The deity, the enlightened mind, manifests as the deity. So by saying the mantra, your mind is connecting with the enlightened mind.
Saying Tārā’s mantra is unifying one’s mind with Tārā’s mind. So the more, what? The better we say the mantra, in other words, the more our mind comes in contact with Tārā’s mind or the more our own inner Tārā qualities start to manifest. So while visualizing Tārā, we recite Tārā’s mantra with faith. And if we do this, even the negative karma, such as the five uninterrupted heinous actions, these are killing one’s father, killing one’s mother, wounding a Buddha, killing an Arhat, and causing a schism amongst the community of Dharma practitioners.
These are said to be the five extreme negative karmas or the five uninterrupted negative karmas. They’re said to be uninterrupted because if we engage in any one of those actions and we don’t purify it, when we die, we are immediately reborn in the hell realms uninterrupted. There’s no interruption. Because, for example, all of probably shouldn’t say all of us in this life have created negative karma, possibly even the negative karma that can lead to rebirth in the lower realms. But it doesn’t mean that when we die, any of that negative karma will ripen at the end of this life to give us a lower rebirth.
But if we engage in any one of those five negative actions, definitely it will ripen at the end of the life it was created in to bring immediately a horrible rebirth. It’s uninterrupted and even they say, those karmas are so heavy that some result, heavy result, occurs in this life, such as possibly going mad or things like that. Not necessarily but that’s possible. While on this point, if we engage in a negative action, like a serious negative action in this life, and there is no effect in this life, that’s really a bad sign. Because it means the karmic result in future lives is going to be really gruesome.
But if we start to experience some bad results in this life, it’s a good sign that we are actually getting rid of some of the karmic result now. So the more obscured we are, the less likely we are to experience the suffering results of our negative karma in this life, but we’re going to really get hit with it in future lives. There’s a really scary story about once upon a time, there were three monks who were invited to a lay person’s house to do a puja, something like that, which is a traditional thing. This story is from Tibet. So in Tibet, devout Buddhist families often invite Buddhist monks to come to their place and do pujas to bless the family, the house, you know, for success and all sorts of things.
And people who are well off often bring a monk like once a week, once a month. Even very wealthy families have their own monk that they keep at home and look after. And the tradition is the monk does the prayer, or a bunch of monks do the prayers and the family makes maybe a small offering but also feeds the monk, give them a nice meal, make maybe a little offering as well. Monk trots off. So in this story, these three monks, one was a Lama, a realized being and his two disciples came, did this puja, were offered a meal and they were eating the meal.
As the Lama and so the two monks were happily gobbling up their food and happy and whatever. But the Lama who had some realizations as he was eating the meal started to feel really, really horrible and strange. You know, really not just ordinary weird, but something really, really yeah. Something very serious that was going wrong. So he stopped eating, I think.
Me and storytelling is really about what happened next. I think anyway, I think he was a very realized being, so I think he had a vision of some deity. It might have been Tārā or maybe he asked his Lama, who was clairvoyant. I can’t remember the detail now. But this more advanced being said to this semi advanced being what has happened is that the people who have invited you to do the puja in order to be able to buy the food to feed you and sponsor the puja, they sold a copy of a Prajñāpāramitā text and used the money to buy this food.
That is considered also extremely negative karma to treat dharma books in an ordinary way and for example to sell them and live off them. You are allowed to buy them but to sell them, which I have to quickly say, we sell dharma books here but the money is kept very very carefully separate. Is never used for ordinary things. Never. It is only used to buy other specifically dharma things.
This is because Lama Zopa Rinpoche really is very careful about that insists in all the centers. Anyway, so the highly realized person said, The fact that you are experiencing this suffering now is because your mind is more purified and the karmic result is being experienced now. But these two other monks who are so deluded, they’re gonna really suffer in their next life. And, of course, they didn’t even know. This is what freaks me about this story.
They never consciously engaged in a negative action. They just, you know, unknowingly ate this food that was bought from selling the Prajñāpāramitā. Why am I telling that story? The karma is very strong. Oh yeah, so yeah.
I was trying to say that some karmic results can be experienced in this life, start to be experienced in this life, which is actually good rather than nothing happening in this life. The more obscured, the more deluded our mind is we will be less sensitive to these things and not experience the suffering in this life. But someone who is really seriously practicing the Dharma and therefore purifying their mind, they will become more sensitive to this and so experience this suffering. So yeah. Because oh, sorry.
But just very quickly, you know, in this world, we can see many people who do horrific things, but their life is just terrific. And one can think, well, karma doesn’t work. But actually, from a deeper understanding of karma, these people, this means because their mind is so obscured, all their good karma is ripening, and yet in the next life, it’s just going to be hell. Whereas people who do good things in this life but have all sorts of horrible things happening to them, actually it’s quite good. It’s a good sign that their negative karma is ripening and that they are likely to have much better rebirths with far fewer obstacles and problems.
Anyway? No, no, no. The people who sold it, they were also going to have a horrible rebirth. But the fact that the three of them ate this food which was bought in this way is also considered negative karma. I know, I know, but this is an example if you study the law of cause and effect, there are four factors, one of which is the most important of which is the motivation.
But there’s also the object. And in some cases the object is so karmically potent, even if you do something good or bad in relation to it, without knowing, it works. Like the story, the the opposite of the fly going around the stupa. Fly didn’t know it was a stupa. Fly didn’t consciously circumambulate it, but because it actually went around the stupa and the stupa is a very karmically potent object, fly created the cause to be reborn as a human being, to meet the Dharma et cetera, et cetera.
Eating food bought with Dharma money is so heavy that even if you don’t know it, no intention, it has an effect. My teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, I’ve seen this happen. Kathmandu has many shops selling Thangkas, Thangkas holy paintings. It was a huge enterprise and there was a particular shop where Rinpoche actually buys many Thangkas and says to students it’s very good to go there because the Thangkas are well painted. But he says when you go and the custom is that when you go to these shops, you sit down and they offer you cups of tea or water.
Rinpoche says, never accept the tea or water because well, I don’t know about the water, but never accept the cup of tea because, you know, they’ve made the money from selling Thangkas, which is really heavy karma. And Rinpoche himself, I remember when I was Rinpoche’s attendant, this man who was a wealthy thangka shop owner came to visit him and offered a big bowl of fruit. And Rinpoche was very kind and friendly to the man and very sweet as Rinpoche always is. Soon as the man left, he called me and said, take this bowl of fruit, take this bowl of fruit and throw it away as far as you can so no one eats it. But it’s good to have images.
And there was a system in Tibet and some people still do this, artists, where it’s okay to sponsor a Thangka being made. And you, in this case, while the holy object is being like a statue or a Thangka is being made, you look after the person and you feed them, etcetera. So that’s okay. That’s karmically, perfectly okay. But to commercially do it just for money as the main thing, this is not correct.
Okay. Which I have. Oh, just good old Vajrasattva. Rely on Vajrasattva, I suppose. We’re not getting very far with Yes.
You’re pretty hopeless. Really I thought anyway, let’s don’t ring the bell. Let me just finish this one Tārā. So here’s your answer, which is while visualizing Tārā, we recite Tārā’s mantra with faith. So even the negative karma such as the five uninterrupted heinous actions, abandoning the Dharma, which is also super negative, together with the causes of those actions, which are the negative emotions such as anger and attachment, and all the very powerful afflictions together with their suffering will be completely purified without any remainder.
So if saying Tārā’s mantra can purify the five extreme negative actions, it can purify that. So Tārā’s mantra is very, very powerful. This is one thing I think we often forget or don’t understand that we associate, and probably I emphasized this a lot too much when I was doing this, that the mantras are about developing a specific quality like Om Mani Padme Hum, particularly to develop compassion. But also reciting mantras is incredibly purifying. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche says also reciting Om Mani Padme Hum can purify any kind of negative karma.
Again, depending on one’s motivation, way you do it, how much refuge etcetera. And so on. But if all the factors come together, then Om Mani Padme Hum can purify and here it’s saying same with Tārā. Her mantra can purify if it can purify these extreme negative actions, then it can purify more or less anything else. This verse is praising Tārā through her dharmakaya aspect or what is called the truth body.
Tārā’s holy mind is always abiding in meditative equipoise within the sphere of peace. While abiding in that sphere of peace, she is able to perform activities benefiting all sentient beings spontaneously and effortlessly. Sentient beings cannot do that because when they are absorbed in meditative equipoise such as the great Bodhisattvas, they are unable to do anything else. Only a Buddha can do the two things simultaneously. Okay.
So we’ll stop there. Take a break. So now we’re on to the praising Tārā in reference to her enlightened activities. So the first of these praises is praising Tārā through the enlightened actions of both her peaceful and wrathful mantras. So Tārā sixteen is Tārā who rises from the ocean of intrinsic awareness.
So she is red in color or golden in color. Oh, gold. Red. Goldish red. Reddish gold holding a red yellow flask that increases wisdom.
So she is the one victorious over contentious arguments with others, increases one’s intelligence. So the Tibetan says, And the translation says, homage to you Tārā surrounded by the joyous ones. You completely subdue the bodies of all enemies. Your speech is adorned with ten syllables, and you rescue all through the knowledge letter hum. So this is praising Tārā for how she turns the wheel of dharma in order to benefit the minds of all her disciples by destroying outer and inner enemies in their mental continuum.
So we have the inner enemy of anger, and because of that, we have outer enemies. Like that, we have all sorts of inner enemies, our own delusions, our self-cherishing, and so on. And because of those and because of acting on them, the karmic result is to have all sorts of difficult people to deal with, difficult situations to deal with, climate change, global warming, difficult governments. There are all the outer enemies and problems because of our inner confusion and problems. So the ten syllables refers, of course, to Tārā’s mantra because that’s made up of ten syllables.
So there are both so as I mentioned, each of the twenty one Taras has a mantra associated with her, and there are also peaceful and wrathful mantras. So the peaceful mantra of Tārā is the, you know, the main one, Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svāhā. And one imagines that with the central Tārā, we imagine that there is the seed syllable Tam, which I showed you last week, which is the main seed syllable of Tārā. That’s that one there. And just oh, now I’ve lost everything.
So this part here is a ta. That’s a ta and that is an ah, ta and then this here well, actually, technically, the circle has the sound. So you have ta, ah, so that’s the seed syllable of Tārā. So then you imagine that on her standing upright in the center of a tiny moon disc at her heart, and then around the edge of the moon disc are the syllables of the mantra Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svāhā. So the wrathful mantra of Tārā, particularly this Tārā, the sixteenth one, is Om Nama Tare Namohari Hum Hari Svāhā.
And I’m sure you want me to repeat that. Om Nama Tare Namohari Hum Hari Svāhā. Om Nama Tare Namohari Hum Hari Svāhā. And you imagine that that surrounds the syllable at her heart. So when you do the peaceful practice, you imagine the tam and Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svāhā.
When you do the wrathful mantra, you imagine that can disappear, and then there’s the Hum at on the moon disc and the wrathful mantra Om Nama Tare Namohari Hum Hari Svāhā. So we can imagine that as we’re reciting those mantras, light rays emanate from the mantra garlands and liberating us from all kinds of difficult people, enemies, obstacles and so on. So when we want to engage in the practice of pacification, when we’re trying to pacify diseases, sicknesses, or spirit harms that we may be experiencing, then we visualize the peaceful Tārā with the Tam at her heart surrounded by the peaceful mantra. And as we recite that mantra, we visualize that we receive Tārā’s blessings and all the problems are pacified peacefully. So you imagine light rays going out from all those syllables.
And at times when we need to engage in wrathful activities, when there are obstacles from humans and nonhumans harming the teachings of Buddha or harming the long lives of Gurus or harming ourselves, then we visualize Tārā with a syllable hum at the heart surrounded by the wrathful mantra, pacifying all these obstacles. Okay. So then number seventeen is the Tārā who causes the three realms to tremble. So she is oh gosh. She is also a red yellow color holding a yellow flask that subdues magic mantras, harmful magic mantras.
So the praise says, oh, okay. No. Sorry. I’ve jumped. So this is praising Tārā with reference to how she shakes the three realms.
Right. Okay. So the verse says, So that translates, homage to you Tārā stamping your feet and proclaiming ture. Your seed syllable itself in the aspect of hum causes Meru, Mandara, and Vindhya mountains and all the three worlds to tremble and shake. So stamping your feet and proclaiming Ture.
Ture here means the swift one and is referring to Tārā. She is wrathfully stamping her two holy feet. So your seed syllable itself in the aspect of hum refers to how this aspect of Tārā is generated. So normally, when someone engages in deity practice, we generate ourselves as the deity and then we can also visualize the deity in front of us. But this can only be done if you have the proper initiations.
You can never visualize yourself as the deity if you haven’t received the proper initiation, so you shouldn’t do that really. But it is okay. It is permissible without the initiation to visualize Tārā in front of you or any deity, you can visualize them in front of you. But, of course, if you’ve got the initiation, it’s better to do what is called the self generation, and it’s much more powerful. So, for example, with the previous Tārā, the peaceful, wrathful one, for those without initiation, you imagine Tārā in front of you with the tam and the syllables or the wrathful and the other wrathful mantra and light going out subduing things.
But if you’ve got the initiation, you can visualize yourself as Tārā with those different syllables and different mantras. Right? But you have to wait to get the initiation to do it that way. The way this is done, Lama Lhundup is explaining this here, so I’m just reading from this commentary because this commentary is available to everyone. As I said before, I’ve always been reluctant to give little commentaries on this because I was never sure whether people have to receive the initiation to receive the commentary or not.
But it seems that the lamas give this commentary even if people don’t have the initiation. So because really if someone doesn’t have an initiation, you’re not supposed to talk about tantric things to them. It’s breaking samaya. But these days a lot of tantric things are discussed, explained openly, and the lamas say it’s in some cases, it’s good to do that because there are so many wrong views, misunderstandings about tantra, what it’s about. So it’s better to counteract all that rubbish by saying things that normally were kept secret, even sort of simple things.
Because one thing the Tibetan lamas say is that generally, in our practice of Dharma, especially with tantra, it should be kept secret. You don’t go around telling people that I’ve got this initiation and I do this practice and blah blah blah. You keep it secret. And ideally, one should keep all one’s practices to oneself because somehow it makes it more powerful. If you go around blabbing to people all the things you do, it somehow weakens them and also can open oneself up to harmful influences that can then weaken one, you know, interfere with one’s practice.
So it’s much better to I mean you don’t get neurotic about this and don’t say anything to anyone if they ask you but you don’t go around blabbing about I do this and I meditate on that, had this wonderful experience. Especially if you do have experiences, it’s best generally not to talk about them. I don’t talk about them because I haven’t had any yet at all. But anyway, I would blab like crazy if I had one to talk about. But generally it’s not good to do that.
Anyway, anyway, so, in order to arise as the deity or even to visualize the deity in front to make it really effective, what one needs to do is firstly, as Lama Lhundup here expresses it, one is purified into the state of emptiness. So in other words, it’s important to meditate on emptiness to realize nothing inherently exists, especially if one’s trying to generate oneself as the deity. So we have to realize that I don’t inherently exist. I do exist, but I don’t inherently exist. I certainly don’t inherently exist as this thing with this body.
Because if we you know, the more we grasp that I am this thing, how can you become Tārā? To be able to visualize oneself as Tārā or even to really have a sense of Tārā in front, the more one understands emptiness, the more effective and powerful it becomes. Because from that state of emptiness, the deity manifests. And this is why Lama Zopa Rinpoche says, what makes Tantra special is the three principal paths of renunciation, wisdom, and bodhicitta. In other words, without those, tantra doesn’t really work.
It just becomes like a game. It’s just fancy entertainment. It will have some effect on the mind, but it won’t really achieve what it’s meant to achieve. So for it to achieve what it’s meant to achieve, we have to be able to understand emptiness. At least that.
And if we’ve actually got some genuine experience of emptiness, that is the real basis to be able to arise as the deity, to be able to visualize oneself as the deity. Visualizing oneself as the deity is affecting all the subtle energies, our subtle mind and body, subtle body, the wind, the wind system that helps us to actually eventually take on the rainbow body of a Buddha such that yeah. And as I said at the beginning, the very reason to practice Tantra not because it’s magical or it’s special, but because it’s the way to quickly end the suffering of others. So for it to work properly one really has to have the bodhicitta motivation. And of course the very basis of bodhicitta and realization of emptiness is renunciation.
One can’t really develop bodhicitta and an understanding of emptiness or certainly an experience of emptiness without having first put this life and saṃsāra in its box, in its place by renouncing it, realizing it’s a load of garbage. Even the nice frilly bits are not half what they’re cracked up to be. From the state of emptiness then one visualizes the seed syllable of the deity and then you imagine that that seed syllable then transforms into the Deity. So in this case out of emptiness arises the syllable hum then from the syllable appears Tārā in her wrathful aspect. So we make prostrations and pay homage to this Tārā who possesses the power to shake the three worlds.
So the three worlds can refer to the desire realm, form realm, formless realm. But also it can refer to the three worlds which are realms under the earth, on the earth and above the earth. And it talks about shaking Mount Meru. So Mount Meru we talked about which is the center of the universe. It’s sometimes also called Sumeru.
Mount Meru, Sumeru, same. And then there’s these other mountains Mandara and Vindhya. So all the Lamas who give commentaries on these praises, and there are a number of commentaries now available in English such as the one I’m using from Lama Lhundup. They in turn almost entirely rely on a commentary given on these twenty one praises that was composed by the first Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub. All the commentaries are basically the same because each Lama is relying on this one commentary.
Of course if the original commentary doesn’t comment on something then all the other Lamas don’t. So no one really explains what these other mountains are. But I did look up and I couldn’t find Mandara but Vindhya is a range of mountains in the center of India which divide basically northern India from southern India. And in old times these were considered to be very huge mountains. So I think basically one can understand that it’s just referring you know, there are you know, Mount Meru is like the biggest mountain.
It’s, you know, this enormous the center of the universe. But even on the southern continent, there are these huge mountains such as Vindhya. Tārā’s power, the power, her enlightened mind has the power to shake these mountains. So if she can do that, she can do anything. So Tārā possesses the power to shake even the three worlds and all the beings that live within them.
And Lama Lhundup makes the comment, I guess the reason why Tārā shakes the three worlds and the different mountains is to weaken the thought of all the beings living there, the negative beings and their power to harm others. So by shaking these mountains, she’s able to render all the, you know, the harmful Nagas and so on powerless and harmless. All of this again really depends maybe I’ll stop here. Oh, yes. I’ve got to stop here.
Again, as I said at the very beginning, on faith. Faith moves mountains. Right? Faith moves mountains. Faith can protect us from many harms.
And and we can’t you can’t just how do I have faith in anything. The more we see the qualities in something, the more we will have faith in it. So there has to be something that from the very beginning we feel connected to and it awakens something in us and we feel, oh, this being, this is something very special and wonderful. So, maybe we feel like this about Tārā and so we have some faith. And so by thinking more about Tārā and seeing that she really is an enlightened being and an enlightened being has this enlightened mind, although it doesn’t control the world like the theistic views of a creator that just manipulates everything, the enlightened mind is immensely powerful and can do a lot.
Yeah. So the more we have faith in that, then that faith becomes our protection. Just like, you know, if a doctor gives you a sugar pill and says this is the miracle cure for whatever problem you’ve got. If you have faith in the doctor and the pill, it will work even though there’s no curative qualities to the sugar pill whatsoever. On the other hand, the doctor can give you a pill that actually works, but you have no faith in it and no faith in the doctor, so it doesn’t work because everything depends on our mind.
On that point, I’ll stop raving and we have to we have to do the praises, right, a little bit to finish off. To make the praise as effective as possible, we try and visualize Tārā, mother Tārā in front of us, seated on the beautiful lotus and moon seat, adorned with the silk-like lower garment and all the different jeweled ornaments. And at her heart, a moon disc and the syllable Tam and the mantra surrounding that. And imagining anticlockwise starting from directly in front of her, the twenty one Taras. So as we recite the praises, we imagine that light rays and nectar emanate from the holy bodies of all of these Taras going out to ourselves, to all sentient beings, freeing us of all confusion, agitation, all negativities of every kind, all their causes.
And at the same time imagining that all the good qualities, this light and nectar comes into us and all other beings awakening all our good qualities, all our positive potentials. Firstly we will do one time the Tibetan, so starting on page four, and then this time a couple of times in English. Try and do it a little quickly. So now we’ll just do one time in English. So starting on page fourteen.
[Recitation of Twenty-One Taras praises in English]
Homage to you Tārā swift and heroic, whose eyes flash like instant lightning. Born from the blooming lotus face of Protector of the Three Worlds. Homage to you Tārā, whose face combines a hundred full autumn moons gathered and is ablaze with the laughing light of thousands of stars. Homage to you Tārā born from the blue and gold lotus, water lily blooming, flowers adorning, giving charity, austerity, peace, meditation her sphere. Homage to you Tārā, crowning the thus-gone Tathagatas, acting triumph without limit, attained by the conquerors’ children having reached every perfection.
Homage to you Tārā, filling with tuttare and hum desire direction and space, trampling with your feet the seven worlds, able to draw forth all beings. Homage to you Tārā, worshiped by the Lords Indra and Brahma and Agni, venerated by the assemblies of Bhuta spirits, corpse raisers, Gandharvas, Yakshas. Homage to you Tārā, whose trat and phat sounds destroying foes’ magic diagrams. With your right foot pressing inward and left extended in blazing a raging fire blaze. Homage to you Tārā, the great dreadful one, destroying Mara’s champions, with the flower lotus visage, frowning of all enemies destroyer.
Homage to you Tārā, with fingers adorning your heart with the three jewel mudrā. The masses of directions excited, all directions your own wheel adorns. Homage to you Tārā so joyous, radiant, crown emitting garlands of light, laughing with tutara, subjugating maras and the worlds. Homage to you Tārā, able to summon all the guardians’ assembly, shaking, frowning with the letter hum, saving from every misfortune. Homage to you Tārā, crescent moon, ornament, all of them wondrously shining, and Amitābha in her hair, light from always radiating.
Homage to you Tārā, in the center of garlands blazing like the fire of an aeon. Right leg extended, left in gathered, surrounded by joy destroying troops of enemies. Homage to you Tārā, she strikes the ground with her palm and with her foot tramples it, frowning with the syllable hum, subduing the seven levels. Homage to you Tārā, happy, virtuous and peaceful. She is the object of practice passed beyond sorrow.
She is endowed with om and svaha, overcoming the great evil. Homage to you Tārā, surrounded with joys, foes bodies subduing. Speech with the ten syllables adorned, knowledge mantra embodiment, hum delivers. Homage to you Tārā, with tutare the stamper, hum syllable form which is the seed. Meru, Mandara and Vindhya shaking, three worlds complete subduing.
Homage to you Tārā holding in her hand the hare-marked moon of the gods’ lake form. With twice saying tara and the syllable phat, completely dispelling poisons, all without exception. Homage to you Tārā whom gods and the kings, the gods and the kinnaras do honor. Every armour with joyful splendor, she dispels bad dreams and conflicts. Homage to you Tārā, whose two eyes bright with radiance of sun and full moon.
With twice saying hara and tuttare, powerful, she dispels the dreadful contagion. Homage to you Tārā, the one of a waiting by the virtue of three natures. Destroys hosts of spirits, yakṣas, and raises corpses, supreme ture. These praises with their root mantras, the reverberations. Think that each of the twenty one Taras blissfully, happily dissolves into light and that light then absorbs into the central figure of Mother Tārā.
Then Mother Tārā, seated on the lotus and moon seat, comes to the crown of our head, turning to face the same direction as ourselves. She then dissolves into blissful emerald green light, and that light pours down into us through the crown of our head, blessing our mind. So then we can dedicate the merits. Remember on the second line instead of saying Lama Sangye, we can say Padma Norbu Ārya Tārā. May the precious body mind not yet born arise and grow.
May that born have no decline but increase forevermore. The object of refuge of myself and of all transmigratory beings in all our lifetimes is the embodiment of the Three Jewels, the all encompassing three refuges in one, the guru, the wish granting jewel, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, the master Padmasambhava, the Dharma king Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen, the Abbot Shāntarakshita, and the numberless holy beings who preserved and spread the Buddhadharma in Tibet, and the Tibetan people who practiced and served Buddhism so faithfully for a thousand years, as well as those who along with many others died sacrificing their lives for Tibet and his holiness. May all their positive wishes be fulfilled immediately. Due to their limitless kindness, the sun of Tibetan Buddhism has now risen in the west, which was a dark land. But now that I have met with the Dharma, I have received the perfect human body enabling me to lead a meaningful life.
Our refuge and savior, the supreme one, his holiness, the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan people have been so kind to us. Remembering this, we make the following dedicating prayers. May all his holiness, the Dalai Lama’s wishes be successful immediately. May the snow land of Tibet achieve pure freedom and develop the Buddhadharma even more than before in Tibet. And may all mother transmigratory beings achieve enlightenment quickly.
Lord of Dharma, who in accordance with the various dispositions of those to be subdued, makes clear in the light of your well spoken advice, the sacred Ganden tradition, essence of Buddha’s teachings, o foremost and holy to you who are supreme, o Lama, please live long. Okay. So thank you very much. So next week will be our last week on this.