GREEN TARA : THE PROTECTRESS
The Goddess Green Tara is a gentle female embodiment of universal compassion. Green Tara is the embodiment of the activity of all Buddha. Green Tara represents the virtuous, enlightened, and miraculous activity of all Buddha. Tara belongs to the Karma family of unobstructed compassionate activity. She is known as the Swift One, due to her immediate response to those who request her aid. Furthermore she is known as the great liberator, specializing in overcoming obstacles in whatever form they manifest in our lives. No deity in the Buddhist pantheon is more popular than Tara . She is especially known for her power to overcome the most difficult situations, giving protection against dangers and all kinds of fear. She offers us a hand to lift us up to a mountain of enlightenment qualities. She reaches out her hand in the gesture of granting protection, freeing one from fear, obstacles, and difficulties. With her right foot stepping forward, she is alert, determined, and ready to actively help all who call upon her. Green Tara is known as the 'Swift One' or the 'Swift Liberator' due to her immediate response to those who request her aid. Green Tara's compassion for the welfare of all living beings is said to be even stronger than a mother's love for her children. She is the one who helps us cross over the ocean of suffering and guides us upon the path of enlightenment.
Green Tara (In Sanskrit: "Syamatârâ", In Tibetan: "Sgrol Ma Ljang Gu") is the embodiment of the activity of all Buddha. She offers us a hand to lift us up to a mountain of enlightenment qualities. Tara belongs to the Karma family of unobstructed compassionate activity. She is known as the Swift One, due to her immediate response to those who request her aid. Furthermore she is known as the great liberator, specializing in overcoming obstacles in whatever form they manifest in our lives. No deity in the Buddhist pantheon is more popular than Tara . She is especially known for her power to overcome the most difficult situations, giving protection against dangers and all kinds of fear.
The Goddess Green Tara is a gentle female embodiment of universal compassion. Green Tara represents the virtuous, enlightened, and miraculous activity of all Buddha. She reaches out her hand in the gesture of granting protection, freeing one from fear, obstacles, and difficulties. With her right foot stepping forward, she is alert, determined, and ready to actively help all who call upon her. Green Tara is known as the 'Swift One' or the 'Swift Liberator' due to her immediate response to those who request her aid. Green Tara's compassion for the welfare of all living beings is said to be even stronger than a mother's love for her children. She is the one who helps us cross over the ocean of suffering and guides us upon the path of enlightenment.
The feminine energies of the Buddhist pantheon are epitomized in the radiant forms of the goddess Tara, whose loving kindness radiates outward to lead all beings from worldly and spiritual peril. Green Tara's color represents a blending of white, yellow, and blue - colors which symbolize, respectively, the functions of pacifying, increasing, and destroying. In her role as saviors, Green Tara is said to protect beings from the "eight great terrors" (Aashtamahabhaya). In the liturgical text Protection from the Eight Perils, the seventh - century Buddhist scholar Chandragomin expressed his unremitting devotion to this omnipresent goddess: Entering upon the road, I see you, hands and feet reddened with the blood of slain elephants; upon the road I think of you, a lion trampled beneath your feet, and thus I pass into the thick - grown impassable forest. Those who do not stop for an instant on their path of killing, wandering with the raring sound of a host of bees flying at a cheek fragrant with intoxicating liquor: O Tara, even they are conquered and bow down before you. A fire blazing as high as if the firmament were kindled by the wind's great power at the dissolution of the world: even that will be calmed should a city but call out your name. Entering upon the road linking and bending through mountains, through ravines and valleys, I see you; and wandering the road I think of Tara, greater than the strength of serpents, and thus is their poison conquered and turned back upon them. Entering upon the road where robbers bear aloft their weapons. I think of them trampled beneath the feet of Tara , and with that power I go swiftly and joyfully to my home. A man wise in daily prayer, bound captive in prison by all the lords of this earth need but think of the feet of Tara and instantly bursts his bonds in a hundred pieces. Though the seas rise clamorously upward as high as the Abode of Brahma, your body, the terror of sea monsters, is as a boat in the midst thereof; by thinking of Tara I lose all fear. A vampire, his body brown - haired, dark as colyrium, bound by his very sinews to hunger and thirst, delighting in the slaughter of men: even he is conquered by the thought of your lotus feet. As a mother, Green Tara, shelters all beings in her loving embrace. Green Tara is our spiritual insurance against all harm and ill will.
The main intention of Green Tara is to avoid negative karma and to free oneself from old karmic bondages, reaching enlightenment for one and for the sake of all sentient beings as quick as possible. Her seed-syllable (basic sound) is Dtam and her short mantra is OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA. Besides Karmadrikh and Vishvapani (two male bodhisattva-forms of Buddha Amoghasiddhi) she is the most popular bodhisattva (enlightened being) of the air – element or 'Karma-Family' (Buddha Amoghasiddhi). In older times this element (family) was also named Sword (Khadga), Wisdom (Prajna) or Double – Cepter (Vishva) family.
The air-element (color green) tries to unite and interact between all other elements and realms (from gods to demons to ghosts to animals etc.). Thereby it is the basis and basic spirit of all Mandalas (circle of unity). All Buddhist Mandalas are seated on a so-called 'Vishva' or 'Double – Dorje', symbolizing the unity and interaction between the elements (see animated logo beside). The vishva and the sword of wisdom-activity (khadga) are the main symbols of the 'Karma-Family'. The seed-syllable of the air-element in general is the green HA. The direction is the North and the realms are the manifold worlds of the powerful demi – gods and titans.
In many aspects the characteristics of the Buddhist understanding of the air-element and the understanding from the viewpoint of Western astrology are identical. In Western astrology the air-element is symbolized by the quick thinking, spontaneous, harmony-seeking and magical powerful zodiac signs Libra, Aquarius and Gemini and there planetary equivalents Venus, Uranus and Mercury. The esoteric wisdom aspect of Venus could be seen as a Green Tara archetype. Some results of taking Green Tara as a main object of meditation are: spontaneity, quick thinking, quick acting, magical perfections, fearlessness and the wisdom – based wish to help others as good and effective as possible. |
