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20040828GRAAWT3

B White Tara Workshop

The workshop is the White Tara practice. We are going to read through the practice as a practice. The first thing you have is taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha until enlightenment. The doorway to Buddhist practice is taking refuge. That’s why everything that comes from authentic Buddhist practice, wherever you see it, it will have the refuge there. Then the generation of the precious compassionate mind; “by practicing generosity and the other positive actions, may I attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.” That is the signature tune for the Mahayana practice. With anything that comes from Buddhism you will hear the refuge. With anything that comes from the Mahayana you will hear love and compassion. It is very much like a signature tune. Each and every one of us really knows how important love and compassion is. You know that without love and without care, what is happening in the world today? Conservative compassion is not enough. It has to be real love and compassion. A lot of people think that love and compassion means that “I don’t care about myself, I care about others.” Wonderful, great. But at the same time we miss one very important point. If you don’t care for yourself and want to do tremendous things for others, but who is the person who is going to do it? If you don’t care for yourself that becomes extremely difficult.

The bottom line is this: if you don’t know how to help yourself, do not expect to be able to help others. You won’t know what to do. If you don’t know what to do how are you going to help? Compassion is really caring. Caring begins at oneself. I care for myself and my children, my family, my circle, my friends, my fellow citizens and all human beings. It is something that moves from the personal and gets bigger and bigger – not the other way round. It really begins at the individual level. The good American saying is: “Charity begins at home”. Compassion, love, caring – of all them begin at your own heart level, yourself, your children, your family and then you expand it. Then it is the person who really cares, it has personal touch. When you think that the United Nations will take of something, it becomes impersonal. Some kind of superpower will be taking care of you. That is not even possible. So love and compassion begins at home, at our own level.

I care for myself, my tomorrow, my children, my family. It is real, true, genuine compassion that touches your heart. When something goes wrong you feel the pinch and pain and when something is right you receive the joy and happiness. It is really personal, not impersonal. That is very important. Nowadays a lot of people use love and compassion, but in a very impersonal way, in an organized manner. It is good, but as we are human beings, with human capacity, with human understanding and feeling, with a human heart, we should have compassion and love that feels the joy, the sorrow, the sadness. It must be very personal. That’s why we have the love and compassion here. Mahayana Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, does not just share ordinary love and ordinary compassion, but absolute, unlimited, unconditional love and compassion. That is known as greater compassion. When you study and pick up more you will be able to handle it. Right now, let it be compassion. Let it be love. We say we want to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, because all beings are connected with us. At one time or another, either this time or the last time we connected or we will connect in future. That is the reality.

Today we can notice that the world is getting much, much smaller. Whatever happens anywhere, even a tiny, little thing, affects everybody everywhere. Remember, a few years it was a shocking discovery by science that the movements of a butterfly in China makes a difference in the United States, climate-wise. We are really very connected. The moment we hear about a bird flu outbreak in Hongkong we start sneezing here. That’s how connected we are. Thinking, “This is my little territory and what I do has no effect on anybody, it is mine and you can’t get in here” is true to a certain extent, but we are so much interconnected now that you can’t really do that any more. That has become the reality. The truth is that all of us are somehow interconnected, even though we don’t know the other persons.

So here we are looking not for conservative compassion, but genuine, true, real compassion, real care. That is not going to be equal towards everybody in our case right now – until we really become a bodhisattva or something. Until then it is not going to be equal. My side, my family, gives me more joy. It is going to happen. It is the reality. Nothing is wrong with that. The distance will be a little distant. That’s the reality. But we have to try to develop that within us so that later we feel everybody as part of our own family. Then we begin to move from compassion to great compassion. The transformation from compassion to greater compassion is a very personal thing. No one can tell you, ‘You have become this’. This is not a promotion. It is not being uplifted by somebody. It is the interpersonal feelings you develop and that is where the level of your compassion will go.

But we begin where we are. If you try to be up there somewhere when you are actually here, it becomes an ice castle. You build something on ice and when the base melts then everything goes away. So we don’t want to build an ice castle. Our compassion should be real and perfect and genuine. It cannot be perfect at the beginning, believe me. For years it cannot be perfect. But even then make an attempt and make it good. When it is perfect your purpose of doing anything is to obtain enlightenment, not for your own sake and not for God’s sake, but for everybody’s sake.

Practicing generosity and other positive actions – anything good you do you will do for the people’s sake. And then we are becoming a better person. If I do it just for me it is not really a good practice. It becomes self-attachment or self-obsession. That is not necessarily that great, although we have to do it to a certain extent. If we don’t we will have difficulties.

Then comes:

May all beings have happiness – may they be free from suffering – may they have the joy that has never known suffering – may they be free from attachment and hatred

Here comes the interesting part:

OM SVABHAVA SHUDDAH SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDAH HAM.

That is Sanskrit and certain Sanskrit words are never translated into any other language, because that language itself has some sound value. You will see a lot of mantras in Sanskrit and people do not translate them into language. If you do the sound will change and the mantra does not remain its own thing. So even though it is absolutely Greek to us, even then we keep it here. Actually, it is the wisdom, the wisdom of emptiness. It means emptiness of inherent existence. If it is inherently, solidly existing, then it can’t change. Whatever I am, I am. Whatever you are, you are. You can’t change. That is the solid perception we have. We all do have that. But it is not a true perception. It is a false perception.

You can change because you are a human being. I can change because I am a human being. The walls can change. The monuments can change, because they are impermanent. Honestly. The monuments that we consider permanent, like the Statue of Liberty, also change. Recently, the Statue of Liberty was re-painted in New York. The shape didn’t change, but it has new color on it. All these monuments that we consider permanent do change. That’s because they were created. Anything that is created is impermanent. Something permanent cannot be created. If it is created it is impermanent. Permanence has no creation, no passing, nothing. It is solid and doesn’t change at all. But anything that is created is created due to collectiveness. So it changes. It is changeable. If it changes it is not permanent. There is no inherent existence in there, because it changes. That is the wisdom Buddha gives to us. Since it is created it is changeable. Since it is changeable it is not solid or permanent. Since it is not solid and permanent, there is no inherent existence.

When there is no inherent existence, how do we exist? We exist collectively, as a collection of part, parcel, name and label, of all them combined together, just simply there together so we exist and function. But the true wisdom is nothing solid. The lack of solidity represents emptiness like space. When you meditate, when you visualize, the moment you say OM SVABHAVA SHUDDAH SARVA DHARMA SVABHAVA SHUDDAH HAM the lack of solidness is represented in your visualization as everything being free of existence just like space. The space before you is completely open space. Within the sphere of emptiness….things appear. When everything is empty you can do everything you want to because there is space available. If there is no space available you cannot do anything, because it is blocked by certain existence. I can move my right hand here, because there is space. I can’t move my left hand there, because it is blocked by a flower. I could knock the flower over but that wouldn’t be good. In intrinsic reality nothing solidly exists. You and me, our looks, our fashion, our illness, our problem, our difficulty, our joy, our pleasure, our sorrow, all are gone in reality. That’s why it is open like space.

Because it is open everything is possible. Nagarjuna said

Ka la tong pa nyi rung wa

De la tham che rung war gyur

When there is emptiness everything is possible. So within the sphere of emptiness appears a white lotus. Above that is a moon disc and above that the love and compassion of the enlightened appears as the seed syllable TAM. You can spell that T A M, but we also have a character worked out. It is the t and above that a half moon crescent and above that a sun like circle, representing M. The circle is like a zero and zero represents emptiness. It represents M too. According to astrology, wherever emptiness is represented you make a circle, which is zero. That also represents M which stands for mother or the feminine. The feminine is the emptiness. We call that a seed syllable. It is easy to write T A M. But if you put that together into one little structure that’s called a seed syllable. That is easy for individuals to visualize and think of. It is the mantra system. TAM has three aspects of T A and M, which together becomes . If you have only T, it would just be TA, and if you have no A, you couldn’t even say TA. A is the life of all sounds: a ni ying du kun ji sho/ dön kyi yi ge dam pa yin/ ko ne jung wai kye wo je – without A no sound can be produced. Combined with the M it becomes TAM.

Light radiates from the TAM and transforms into the Noble Wish-fulfilling Tara. She sits on the lotus and moon with a luminous aura surrounding her. Youthful and radiant, her right hand gestures to the fortunate ones who seek liberation.

– and to the unfortunate ones as well. The fortunate ones are the lucky ones, they have connection. But the unfortunate ones are unlucky and don’t even have a connection, so they probably need more. So she invites all.

Her left hand indicates the Three Jewels, giving courage

and assurance to those dominated by fears.

Everybody has been tortured by fear. Believe it or not. From the baby who is a couple of months old and can’t even think to an old person 150 years old everybody is tortured by fear every minute of their lives. This is true for all of us. The young ones, the healthy ones, the sick ones, the old ones, the fortunate ones and the unfortunate ones – each and everybody has their fears that dominate their lives. We are afraid of everything, afraid of being lonely, afraid of being sick, afraid of being helpless, afraid of being poor, afraid of anything, losing loved ones. All the times we are completely dominated by fear. Tara here says, “Let me help you.” She gives us courage and assurance that we can do something, help ourselves. She even goes to the extent of saying, “Unburden yourself and rely on me.” That’s what all enlightened beings do and particularly Tara. It just gives you a little bit of what Tara looks like.

She holds an utpala flower, reminding us not to be satisfied with the worldly happiness, but to aspire to the perfect joy of liberation. The utpala flower is a hindu/Buddhist mythological flower. The description is fantastic. It gives you not just an ordinary thing. People’s problem is that we are satisfied with a little bit of joy here and there. We don’t know anything beyond that. All of those little things we are caught in, that we cannot give up, are samsaric delights or picnic spots.

I was up in Macinac Island for the last three days. The delight on that island is fugde. You see it everywhere, besides the beauty of the land. But every shop is a fudge shop. If I am satisfied with fudge and sit there eating that I am going to miss the beauty of the island, the historical beauty, the land beauty, the beauty of the water and all of them. That is exactly what Tara is telling you: do not be satisfied with fudge.

Have perfect joy, the joy of liberation. What is the joy of liberation? The problem on the spiritual path is that we know there is something other than what we have. But we don’t exactly know what it is. We are seeking something better without knowing what it is. Since we don’t know what we are seeking we don’t know how to get there. Since we don’t know how to get there we can only pray. Praying helps, I am not criticizing that but it limits the individual to only praying. It is like “I am praying for something, I wish I could get it, I pray I am going to get it.” Our limit of understanding our spiritual path really boils down to that. If that is the case it is a little bit pathetic for us, a human being with this unlimited capacity of mind, so capable of anything. We enjoy today all kinds of scientific development. For example we enjoy the controlled air temperature in this room. Out there it is sweating, terribly muggy and hot, but when you get in here it is air temperature controlled. It is our achievement. The human mind knows how to make this function. It is the human mind that manages rockets, that brought us to the moon. This is our mind. We have that capacity and capability. That is our mind. If that mind is reduced to not knowing what we are seeking, knowing there must be something there and simply praying it is pathetic. It is great for those who don’t know what to do, but it is not great for those of us who are intelligent, educated, brilliant minds. Each and every one of you have that brilliant mind. If you reduce that mind to the capacity of a less than two-year old then it is very pathetic.

I am not criticizing any tradition, any religion. I am simply showing you the quality of your mind. We are seeking enlightenment, the ultimate achievement a human being can gain spiritually. That is our goal. Why should we settle for less than best? That’s is not the American way. So then the transforms in the Noble Wishfulfilling Tara.

At her crown is a white OM,

at her throat a red AH,

at her heart is the white TAM

marked by a blue HUM.

The letter OM you see has an M in the middle of it. The English language, the Roman script is capable to produce an OM character in its script. So that is at the crown. Then the is at the throat. It has an A and a H. Combined together they produce the AH sound, which is the life of all sounds. Then at the heart is a letter HUM: .

Light radiates from the syllables, invites the wisdom beings and empowering deities. The vajrayana rules say that if you invite the wisdom beings you have to purify. The purification is done by the empowering deities. It is very simple, but if you don’t have it that becomes a problem. So then the wisdom beings unite inseparably with Tara and the empowering deities give empowerment or initiation. With the overflowing nectar a Buddha of Infinite Light appears on her crown.

The Buddha of Infinite Life is Tara’s guru, that’s why. Now the visualization here is that brilliant light emanates from the syllable TAM within her heart, reaching infinite universes and collecting back the essence of inexhaustible vitality and the powerful blessings of wisdom mind. The energy streams forth from Tara’s heart and body and I completely absorb the nectar of light, cleansing and revitalizing my body and mind.

That is your visualization and then you say the mantra. Chris is kind enough to lead us in chanting the mantra.

(Chris recites the “Prayer to the Noble Tara” up to the mantra recitation:

I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, and Tara.

May I reach enlightenment for the benefit of all. (3x)

May all beings have happiness

May they be free from suffering

May they find the joy that has never known suffering

May they be freed from attachment and hatred.

In the space before me appears a white lotus. Upon it

is a moon cushion and upon that, the love and compassion

of all the enlightened appear as the seed syllable TAM. Light radiates from the TAM and transforms into the Noble Wish-fulfilling Tara. She sits on the lotus and moon with a luminous aura surrounding her. Youthful and radiant, her right hand gestures an invitation to liberation.

Her left hand indicates the Three Jewels, giving courage

and assurance to those dominated by fears.

At her crown is a white OM,

at her throat a red AH,

at her heart is the white TAM

marked by a blue HUM.

Light radiates from the syllables, inviting the wisdom beings and empowering deities. The wisdom beings unite inseparably with Tara. The empowering deities anoint her, confer initiation, and with the overflowing nectar a Buddha of Infinite Life appears on her crown. Brilliant light emanates from the syllable TAM within her heart, reaching infinite universes and collecting back the essence of inexhaustible vitality and the powerful blessings of wisdom mind.

The energy streams forth from Tara’s heart and body, and I completely absorb this nectar of light, cleansing and revitalizing my body speech and mind.)

So when you say those things you have to learn that whatever you say you can visualize. That is a little hard, but it is not impossible. You can do it. When you do this you may not be able to read together as everybody else does, but gradually you will learn it. That’s how you do it. This is totally designed for a front generation. We generate Tara in front of us and practice. That’s exactly what it is. If you do deeper vajrayana practice then you should be able to visualize yourself in the form of Tara and do everything by yourself as Tara. But you can only do that after receiving a full initiation. You cannot do it with a short initiation like a blessing initiation that takes one or two hours. No, it has to be a full two day – initiation into any of the four tantras. As a matter of fact, vajrayana practitioners should begin with a kriya, charya or yoga tantra initiation, even before taking a maha anu yoga tantra initiation. For that reason Jewel Heart has organized the initiation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. It is a slight requirement for attending certain teachings. I think it will be great. It is not a heavy initiation, with heavy commitment. Not even the Six Session Yoga is there. Thereafter, as Tara practitioner you could meditate yourself in the form of Tara and until then, if you have not received any initiations you should only do the front generation, not the self generation.

When you have generated Tara in front of you with the three syllables you have that light natured body you have created. But inside Tara’s body you have not created intestines or a heart, kidneys. Yet it is not empty either. It is not empty like a native American tee-pee is empty. It is light natured, filled up with light. Within the light you have room to create anything. The mantra OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA is at the heart level of the Tara you have created. It is a mantra mala – it is mala-like. A mala is a rosary. The mantra mala of OM TARE TUTARE TURE SOHA is syllables one after another at Tara’s heart level.

It is light natured, radiating light and functioning and corresponding at the frequency of thought. It is the source of accomplishment, the source of focus. It is the source of concentration, the source of purification, the source of achievement or attainment for anything you want to. It is the basis on which you work.

Saying the mantra and meditating together is the unique style of vajrayana. It works fantastically different from the meditation that is known in the west now, where you simpy shut your mouth or open your mouth and simply sit there. That is not the best way. For a thousand years the Indian and Tibetan practitioners have been saying mantras and meditated together. Even in the Catholic tradition you say “Hail Mary’s” with a rosary or mala. You pray and you have replies and so on. It is a mantra you are using. So it is not unique to the eastern traditions. It is also in the western tradition. It is just not introduced in that way. There are so many great things available in the Judeo-Christian tradition, all the mystical parts of the Christian tradition.

Now I am going to give you a visualization. It is more a healing visualization, physical, mental and emotional. But we do it more physically than mentally and emotionally. Mental and emotional, every dharma practice is healing. Buddhism is nothing but Buddha’s way of healing him or herself, becoming pure and perfect. That is Buddhism. Every dharma practice is healing the individual from emotional problems, sicknesses, emotional troubles. Negative emotions such as hatred, obsession, jealousy may be healed by compassion, caring, love, faith, trust, wisdom. That is basically what dharma is all about. Let us deal with physical healing. We are human beings. We are born with this thing we call “body”. Some people call it handsome, beautiful, some call it ugly, fat like me. That’s fine, whatever it is. They are all based on certain things. It is the combination of a physical thing and a mind thing together. When it is combined together we are in life. When the physical and mental aspects are separated we are no longer alive.

For me death is the separation of the physical identity – the body that I have today – and my mind. That body is not only fully grown but decaying. It is the development of my genes. My mind is the mind that is traveling, looking for a basis and got somehow caught into the production of my genes by my parents. When they were busy, I got caught in the middle. So somehow I got stuck in there. That is the combination of mind that is formless, stuck in the physical form of genes. That gene started growing up into the body that we have today, which is based on the five elements. The earth element in our body is our bones and flesh and all of those. The water, the liquid, is the water element. In Michigan the Bureau of Motor Vehicles is the Secretary of State. They issue the driver’s license. The body is a better identity than the driver’s license. The driver’s license is based on the duplication of this body, the real identity. The driver’s license is the fake identity, but for some reason everybody buys the fake one, not the real one! (laughs)

So this identity is based on the five elements, the elements of earth, bones and flesh, water, the liquids in the body, fire, the digestive power and heat. If we don’t have that we will get too cold; we will be frozen. So it is the heat or fire element. Then the power of movement is the air elements. If we don’t have movement we don’t have circulation and we will be stuck. Finally there is the space elements. Without that everything will be mumble-jumbled together and stuck together. All our intestines and everything would be stuck together and no doctor could work on us. It would all be one solid lump. So the space really gives us the place in between.

When these elements are in their normal balanced state, we say we are well. When they are imbalanced we get sick. For example if the heat goes up we get a fever and start hallucinating. We will go crazy and dry out and die. If the water element goes to high our body will be filled up with fluid, our lungs fill up and we get pneumonia or congestive heart failure and God knows what else. If we have too much of the air element, there is too much movement. You don’t have to take speed drugs. You will speed up so much by yourself that your heart and other organs are unable to keep up with it. They are manufactured to a limit. It is like driving a car up to 120 or 130 miles. But you cannot fly with a car at 1000 miles an hour. It is not designed with withstand such speeds. It is exactly like that. If you speed up too much your heart will go boom boom boom – not 73 beats per minutes but 3000 or something. Then you can no longer maintain your life. So balancing the elements is the major thing to stay alive. Too much is not good. Too little is not harmful, but also not sufficient. Actually, that is the case with everything in our life. Too much of anything is not great, too little might not be enough. That goes for food, medicine, sex and anything else, even going to the toilet. Too much is not right, too little is not good either. You know that. The trick lies in the balancing.

Some people say, “Eat this, it is good for you.” Some people say, “Don’t eat it, it is terrible for you.” A little is not going to harm you, unless it is poisonous, and too much is not going to be good for you.

So the balancing of the elements is important. Their powers can be increased or decreased or whatever it is. We connect with the external power of the elements. We visualize light going out from Tara’s heart, reaching to all the earth element everywhere, including the mother earth. Some people may think, “I am taking the earth’s energy away”, but you are not. You are connecting and healing your own earth element within you.