Welcome to our twelfth online suggested practise for the week. We are now broadcasting a live teaching each Monday evening. If you would like to participate please contact us using the contact form on the homepage.

1.0)  If you feel so inclined, begin by reciting the usual prayers (please follow below links for text). Alternatively, try to think or articulate a wish for all beings to achieve liberation from suffering, etc .

Four Thoughts: contemplating each in turn – http://northantsbuddhists.com/the-four-thoughts/

Refuge Prayer: twice in Tibetan, once in English – http://northantsbuddhists.com/the-refuge-prayer/


Green Tara

om Tara Tuttare Ture Soha – means “I prostrate to the Liberator, Mother of all the Victorious Ones.

2.1) Meditating on Tara helps us awaken our buddhanature. Through continued meditation practice on her, we can establish a relationship in which we are able to trust and rely on her. It is like getting to know a new friend — we have to invite her over to our home many times until we get to know her. The more we are able to open to her, the more she is able to benefit us.

Like all Vajrayana practices, Tara visualization can be very elaborate. Here is a basic version you can do that contains all the essential steps of deity practice:
Let the mind settle, resting in natural open awareness. Then take refuge in the awakened ones and generate the supreme motivation to awaken yourself for the benefit of all sentient beings. Think that everything dissolves into emptiness/openness. Then visualize that in the sky in front of you, from her seed syllable TAM, Green Tara instantly appears, sitting on a full open lotus and moon seat. She is blue-green, the color of a mountain lake. She is arrayed in silks and jewels, symbolizing the six transcendent perfections and full awakening.

Radiate light from your heart center. Imagine that it purifies the phenomenal world, makes offerings to the enlightened ones, and invites Tara’s actual wisdom awareness to be present with you. Visualize that this happens by numerous small forms of Tara raining down into the form you have visualized. Think that the Tara you have imagined becomes inseparable from her actual wisdom awareness.

Think that everything dissolves into emptiness/openness. Then visualize that in the sky in front of you, from her seed syllable TAM, Green Tara instantly appears, sitting on a full open lotus and moon seat. She is blue-green, the color of a mountain lake. She is arrayed in silks and jewels, symbolizing the six transcendent perfections and full awakening.

Radiate light from your heart center. Imagine that it purifies the phenomenal world, makes offerings to the enlightened ones, and invites Tara’s actual wisdom awareness to be present with you. Visualize that this happens by numerous small forms of Tara raining down into the form you have visualized. Think that the Tara you have imagined becomes inseparable from her actual wisdom awareness.

When you have finished repeating the mantra, gradually dissolve the visualization until there is just a drop of turquoise light left in your heart area, the essence of your buddhanature. Then this dissolves into space, like a rainbow disappearing into the sky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwW5WGm-7Z4

 

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2.2)  Prajnaparamitra the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra, the Mantra that dispels Obstacles: (Session 2 of 6)

Written in Sanskrit the Mantra is “Tayatha Om Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha”
The literal English translation is “Go, Go, Perfectly Go, Perfectly & Completely Go to the paths to Enlightenment.

The Buddha used the metaphor of a bird needing 2 wings to fly & we samsaric beings needing the 2 wings of compassion & wisdom to attain enlightment, this can be achieved through the practises of Tara & Prajnaparamitra.

The abbreviated Essence of Wisdom Sutra is : Homage to the perfection of wisdom, the Blessed Mother.
Thus I have heard. At one time the Blessed one was dwelling in Rajagriha on Massed Vultures Mountain together with a great assembly of monks & a great assembly of Bodhisattvas. At that time the Blessed one was absorbed in the concentration of the countless aspects of phenomena, called ‘profound Illumination’.

At that time also the Superior Avolokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva, the Great Being, was looking perfectly at the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom, looking perfectly at the profound perfection of wisdom , looking perfectly at the emptiness of inherent existence of the 5 aggregates.

Then through the power of Buddha, the Venerable Shariputra said to the Superior Avolokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva, the Great being, ‘How should a son or daughter of the lineage train who wishes to engage in the practise of the profound perfection of wisdom’.
Avolokiteshvara replied, ‘Shariputra, whatever son or daughter of the lineage train who wishes to engage in the practise of the profound perfection of wisdom should look perfectly like this: subsequently looking perfectly & ,correctly at the emptiness of inherent existence also of the 5 aggregates ’.

‘Form is empty; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form also is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and conciosness are empty’.

‘Shariputra, like this all phenomena are merely empty, having no characteristics. They have no defilement & no separation from defilement. They have no defilement & no separation from defilement. They have no decrease & no increase.
‘Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the equal to the unequalled mantra, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, since it is not false. Should be known as the truth. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is proclaimed.

Tayatha Om Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Soha

These words are very subtle & difficult to understand but by meditating on them & reciting the mantra we can create the causes for a happy life & benefit all those around us.

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