So walking home after I dropped my daughter off, I did 108 mantras of Tara. I've been reading Wooten's book. I took Vessantra's Meeting The Buddhas off my shelf to reread the Tara section. I read out the 21 Praises of Tara today. I've been looking at my poster (above is a close up). I'm guessing that is Amitabha on Tara's head, the red Buddha, the focus of the most popular form of Buddhism, the Pure Land tradition, reaching out for other power.
Love, compassion, and compassion in action. I love the mythology of Tibetan Buddhism, the messiness and yet the rightness, colors, directions. I love the gestalt of it all, and the specifics.
Avalokita shattered when he took his foot off the pedal of saving all beings, and despaired. I've been shattered quite a few times in my life. His tears form the pond, lake, ocean in which Tara is born.
In the visualization, you picture those requiring assistance of compassion in front of Tara. I'm thinking about my parents as hurricane Ian, a category 4 hurricane, bears down on them. I think about my growing daughter's fears and joys. I think about my stepfather's bad back, my mother. I think about my sons, my exes, all the loves I've had, all my friends, active and lost. I think of all my neutrals and enemy. I love the connection to my favorite practice the brahma viharas: Metta, compassion, sympathetic joy, equanimity. Equanimity comes out of insight, hard practice.
Links:
8400 Another translation of 21 praises
Sky Dancer Press another translation of 21 praises
Drukmo Gyal - Green Tara (Music video of mantra on YouTube)
Green Tara Empowerment Bestowed by H.E. Garchen Rinpoche// April 26 2020 YouTube
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