Tara Sadhana for the Anthropomorphic Newborn

Three Bodhisattvas Witness World Compassion Harmonizing by Vi An Diep

Praising Tara by her divine actions of dispelling conflicts and bad dreams

Homage to you who are honoured by the kings of the hosts of gods,
And the gods and the kinnaras.
Through all your joyful and shining pervasive armour
All conflicts and bad dreams are dispelled.

Last stanza from “Offering the Mandala” 

Thus, O Sublime object of refuge,
Please quickly protect all living beings
From fears such as sickness, spirits, obstacles,
Untimely death, bad dreams, and ill omens.


Colophon: This sadhana has been compiled from traditional sources by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche in response to requests made by students of Tara Centre, and translated under his compassionate guidance. September 1989.

Excerpts from Great Compassionate Mother. Geshe Kelsang Gyatso Rinpoche. Tharpa Publications. 1990, 1993. 

______

It's a very ordinary day. It feels like afternoon to early evening. I feel the constant presence of an animal. My albino rabbit, named Salt in life, visited me. His head is in my hands. I pet him. I let him out in the yard. It was snowing heavily, and he, white as the snow, only appears through his beady, red eyes. Then, I notice a child running through the snow. The child came into the house and laid its head next to my lap, and proceeded to nudge into my hand to pet him. It's a boy, a mute boy. He looks at me with colorless eyes. I figured, how wonderful Salt shape-shifted into a young boy. Salt, now a boy, would hop out into the snow around the trees just like a rabbit. Immediately, he shifts back to a rabbit who hops out of my vision. 

A very silvery, glowing white cat with stripes. Upon recognizing the face of this cat, it was evident that it was my deceased cat. All the features of my cat were displayed. His charm and energy radiates. My hands are warm as I pet him. Suddenly, I cradle him in my arms, looking behind my shoulder, I see my husband smiling and laughing. I am speaking to Max, now as a child. He is an infant with the same eyes as a cat, but with the face of a child, staring back at me with such love and affirmation. I speak in English and say, "I want you to learn Chinese because I am your mother. I would like you to preserve my lineage through learning Chinese." My husband, the love of my life, is laughing in the background. In synchronicity my husband and young son speak in English. My husband says laughingly, "he already knows how to speak Chinese." The child says, "Mother, I already know how to speak Chinese." In my surprise I notice my cat turned child changed to four to six months old. Beyond a brick stone ledge, dawn approaches as a beautiful golden sunrise. His dirty blonde hair glistens. His eyes, expressing inquisitive curiosity and a loving recognition, are deep emerald green and brown. Sitting on that ledge, I taught him to say, "eyes (gnan)" in Cantonese. He stuttered, but was able to repeat, the word for eyes in Cantonese. "Gnan" he says. My husband smiles as if to say, why are you trying to teach him what he already intrinsically knows from you, his mother. The child chuckles and says, "eyes, ears, mouth and nose (gnan, yee, hoaw, bae)" I was shocked with such gladness and immense pure unconditional love for this being before me. "Ma" he would exclaim. I already know. He became a toddler and hopped off the sandstone ledge. His head rested next to my thigh as I stroked his beautiful dirty blonde hair, glistening in such glorious light. 

He, in another dream, the third of the sequence, shifts back to a silvery glowing, white, very happy cat. 

________

as her son climbs the dismembered mountain,

trembling with rocks of tragic failure

rolling down to kill my boulder of trash

damming the flood of human night

- excerpt from "My New Bride"