tHE cREATIVE pLAY OF wISDOM
The spontaneous song of a dakini invoking the heart of Noble Tara
Starlike reflections arise in the clear mirror of the primordially pure expanse and are perfected in the equal taste of illusion. Thus, whatever occurs is devoid of both coming and abiding. While abiding in this evenness, whatever is wished for arises without effort.
Holder of an utpala, who grants refuge and liberates from samsara and nirvana, arisen from me—the mere notion of a true self—appearance and emptiness conjoined; unimpeded and all-pervading goddess who protects from every fear, your four activities are born of bliss and emptiness:
Tara, you are uncreated, unceasing, and liberate to the very limits of space itself.
Tara, without appearance or obstruction, your supreme form is great radiance.
Tara, your non-existent form appears clearly as the perfection of samsara and nirvana.
Tara, you are the naked great bliss of awareness and emptiness that pervades all.
Tara, having embraced your son of luminosity and are gathered into a single sphere.
Tara, devoid of effort, you are the effortless clarity of the four joys.
Tara, most marvellous, there is no doubt of your granting relief to the weary.
Tara, most beautiful, you are perfect in and of yourself and pervade all.
Tara, you are the dharmadhatu—mother of all sugatas.
Tara, you are a special friend to all practitioners.
Tara, you are the mother who cuts the very life-force of negative action.
Tara, you are the mother who distinguishes between happiness and sadness.
Tara, you are the motherly samaya to all who keep their vows.
Tara, you are the motherly channels of all mantrikas.
Tara, you are motherly suchness, utterly free of the two obscurations.
Tara, you are the simultaneous and spontaneous perfection of samsara and nirvana.
Tara, you are the cloud-like formations of the interdependent ten grounds and five paths.
Tara, you are the supreme mother of all buddhas—Tare-ma.
Tara, you are ever catching us with your hook of compassion.
Tara, you are ever binding us with your lasso of kindness.
Our courageous/strong mother is wisdom, primordially perfected; she holds all beings as if her only child.
Our actions and prayers will deliver the ordinary and supreme accomplishments; when the kayas and wisdoms are perfected, the two-fold benefit will be complete—
Tara, you are a wish-granting jewel, the source of all we desire.
Tara, dear mother, the confused children of the six realms and so on, all arise from you.
To see the mutual dependence between mother and child is what it means to be your child.
When things collapse on their own ground, this is what it means to be your child.
To see the unfailing law of karma and its results is what it means to be your child.
To have an attitude of disillusionment and a desire to leave samsara is what it means to be your child.
To have connate ignorance confuse you is separation from mother.
To grasp and obsess at an independent identity, an autonomous self, is separation from mother.
To embrace samsara is separation from mother.
To enact the ten virtuous deeds is what it means to be your child.
To engage the three higher trainings is what it means to be your child.
To take up the perverse is separation from mother.
To see the emptiness of things is what it means to be your child.
To see emptiness as dependent arising is what it means to be your child.
To fall into the extremes of permanence and nihilism is separation from mother.
To know the suchness of my mind is what it means to be your child.
To know the illusory nature of the relative is what it means to be your child.
To succumb to the extremist’s view of true existence is separation from mother.
To know all beings as having had the experience of being a parent, wishing to repay their kindness, etc., is what it means to be your child.
To grasp at autonomous existence, and indulge attachment and aversion, is separation from mother.
To view myself and all other beings as equals and to actively exchange my happiness for their pain, is what it means to be your child.
In particular, to have perfected wisdom and crossed to the other shore is to be comparable with you, mother Tara.
To be without vows and samaya is separation from mother.
To be completely addicted to my own goals is separation from mother.
To know the pain and sufferings of all six classes of being is what it means to be your child.
To know the concordant cause of dukkha is what it means to be your child.
To be without trust in future lives is separation from mother.
To be indifferent to the suffering of others is separation from mother.
To see my mind as the actual Sugata is what it means to be your child.
To see my aggregates and elements as deities is what it means to be your child.
To grasp at ordinariness, the flesh and blood of my aggregates, etc., is separation from mother.
To see freedom from affirmation and negation is what it means to be your child.
To see the ineffable union of clarity and emptiness is what it means to be your child.
To see the all-pervading union of awareness and emptiness is what it means to be your child.
Tara, you are the wisdom that is primordially free Samantabhadri—the very essence of all.
To see how the world and its inhabitants never really came into being is what it means to be your child.
To have impure vision, to see the ordinariness of thing, earth, stones, and so on, is separation from mother.
To believe in an origin, place or mode of abidance, and a destination of things is separation from mother.
To see through the façade of an origin, place or mode of abidance, and a destination of things is what it means to be your child.
To entertain desire and the other four destructive emotions is separation from mother.
To be rid of those emotions by seeing their innate wisdom five-fold is what it means to be your child.
To see the channels, elements, energies and mind as ordinary is separation from mother.
To see them as the spontaneous three kayas is what it means to be your child.
To have objective reality arise as suchness itself is what it means to be your child.
To isolate yourself and persist with ridiculous notions of mediation, is separation from mother.
To have the profound clarity of deity, mantra and meditation is what it means to be your child.
To meditate on ordinary, material things is separation from mother.
To be without compassion and bodhicitta is separation from mother.
To have love, compassion and liberation upon sight is to be your equal.
To have a dry, intellectual understanding of secret mantra and spout mere words is separation from mother.
To have faith and pure vision is what it means to be your child.
To put down others dharma because of attachment and aversion is separation from mother.
To remember the unfailing karmic law of cause and effect is what it means to be your child.
To give up selfish pursuits is what it means to be your child.
To be continually altruistic is what it means to be your child.
To reverse the flow of the branch winds in the central channel is what it means to be your child.
The brilliance of unified bliss and emptiness is what it means to be your child.
The sudden experience of self-arisen wisdom, the primordial expanse, causes the subtle impure karmic winds to cease and innate great bliss—the ultimate nature of the mother—to emerge with ease.
The experience of all-pervasive great bliss is gathered within an ineffable single drop—the dharmakaya, natural luminosity itself. This in turn gives rise to myriad forms of the sambogakaya—appearing without impediment or obscuration.
The environment is subsumed within bliss conjoined with emptiness—the expanse of suchness itself. Its inhabitants, spontaneous luminosity conjoined with emptiness—appearing without cessation: this is the great equating of samsara and nirvana within purity. Wonderful!
The actual guru is the genuine nature of awareness itself, from which no sentient being has ever been apart. It is revealed through the direct instructions of the guru—if not in him, to whom should we go for refuge?
The primordially pure expanse, the wisdom of Samantabhadri, is the single drop—the spontaneous union of awareness and emptiness, within which the sole father, Samantabhadra, remains with neither hope nor fear, completely free from the need to accept or reject; devoid of ground and source, coming and going.
Whatever is desired arises is the play of bodhicitta—primordially perfect, free from fragmentation and partiality. The five wisdoms perfected is the great perfection. AH.
All actions are perfect, as are all paths, qualities, and minds; perfected within great primordial purity.
Longchen Rabjam (infinite, vast expanse) is the jewel who sits in my heart; within this expanse, free from all extremes, any notion of impure simply vanishes; whatever is wished for emerges from its dynamic display—the source of enlightened activity.
All pervasive, enduring and without end, she is continually liberating the three realms—may we all come under the protection of Noble Tara and be free from confusion, disease, famine and war.
I prostrate at the feet of protector of the Land of Snows, Tenzin Gyatso: Holder of the White Lotus and Buddha in whom all buddha families are complete. Protector of us all, I pray to you; forever remain amongst us for the continual liberation of all beings.
May all beings continually hold renunciation, bodhicitta and the correct view in their hearts.
The auspicious Buddha Samantabhadra, renowned as auspicious; may there be the auspiciousness of the dharmakaya—abiding without change!
The auspicious of the five buddha families, renowned as auspicious; may there be the auspiciousness of the sambogakaya—meaningful to behold!
The auspicious nirmanakaya, guide and tamer of beings, renowned as auspicious; may there be the auspiciousness of the guru—knowing one liberates all!
By the truth of the oceanic forms of the three jewels and the three roots, may there be the realization of the unmistaken karmic law of cause and effect!
Within the non-conceptual nature of the three spheres: the mutual dependence of the prayer, its expression and object—AH.
Colophon
At the onset of the coronavirus, COVID-19, several khenpos, lamas, along with various friends from different countries all around the world, asked me to compose a method to accomplish Noble Tara; replete with mantra recitation and petitions to her exalted mind. Accordingly, I wrote down whatever came to mind.
Khandro Namsel Dorje
Boudhanath, Kathmandu, Nepal
May 4, 2020
Translation (first draft) by Sean Price, Brighton, U.K., May 17, 2020.
