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White Tara retreat 2010-2011

Who is White Tara?

Ven. Thubten Chodron

December 4, 2010

Sravasti Abbey

Audio file: 01 W Tara 12-4-10_Who Is White Tara.mp3Transcribed by Olivia B, Jon O, Joanne B, Lisa P, Ven Tarpa

Today, we will start the talks for the new retreat from afar, and I thought what to do is to talk

about White Tara; to make it a series. Then, we will go through the sadhana and talk about

different parts of the sadhanabecause that will help everybody who is doing the retreat fromafar and everybody who is doing the retreat here.

Who is White Tara?

Let us talk a little bit about White Tara to start with. All the Buddhas have the same realizations;you cant differentiate them. From the side of a Buddha, they dont have the same feeling of I

that we deluded beings do. The minds of all the Buddhas know the same thing; they have thesame realizations and so on. Because we cant communicate with the Buddhas mind directly,the Buddhas appear in different physical forms and the physical forms represent certain aspects

of a Buddhas omniscient mind.

Enlightened ActivityTaras aspectthere are a few different things it represents. One is that she represents the

enlightened activity of the Buddha, the trinley of the Buddha. That is the way in which the

Buddhas interact with sentient beings to help ripen our mind. Tara represents that kind of activityof interacting with sentient beings to help ripen their minds. This is one way to think of Tara.

Quick WisdomLama Yeshe used to say, Women have quick wisdom. Tara represents also wisdom, but quickwisdom; it is not deluded wisdom. Actually, wisdom cant be deluded; thats an oxymoron. You

know how sometimes we think were acting from a space of wisdom, but its actually a space of

ignorance? Have you ever done that? Like: I know this is the right thing to do. My motivation

is good and Im acting completely right, and then, we find out later our mind was completely

under the influence of ridiculous ways of thinkingthat we thought were wisdom at the

moment. Taras quick wisdom is not that; Taras quick wisdom is actual wisdom.

Long Life

Also, she represents a long life, and the ability to extend our lifetime not simply because we

dont want to die. Weve died infinite times in previous lives; we dont need to be afraid of it.We need to be concerned with what happens after death: where we are reborn. Dying? Wevelived through it many times. When you think about it, weve died infinite times in samsara.

Weve lived through it! To extend our lifespan so we have more time to practice the Dharma

that is the purpose of it. If we dont practice the Dharma, then it really doesnt matter whether wehave a long life or a short life. However, if we practice the Dharma, then having a long life is

very, very useful.

7/30/2019 Ven. Thubten Chodron - Who is White Tara

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Those were the specialties of Tara; a way to relate to her.

Purification and RestorationAlso, the white color of her body usually represents cleansing. We can think, especially in the

visualization - it is very much a purification visualization. Were purifying things that could

shorten our lifespan: things such as degeneration of the elements of the body, or the life forcebeing stolen, or broken ethical restraints, broken precepts, broken commitments.

Youll remember, in initiation, that we invoke Taras blessings in the form of her implements,

small deities, the mantra, and the letters om ah hum. Rinpoche said that that represented restoring

the energy of our broken commitments and ethical restraints. Those broken precepts candegenerate our lifespan, so we want to restore them. We invoke all of that energy, and this

beautiful white energy from Tara is coming down into us, purifying everything that needs to be

purified, including negative karma. This is also restoring the lifespan, any kind of rebalancing

the elements in our body, or restoring any lost energy of any of the elements in our body, andalso restoring the vows, our ethical restraints, and our commitments. That is just one way to

think about Tara to start with.