White Tara

Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Mama Ayuḥ Punya Jñānā Puṣtiṃ Kuru Svāhā.

White Tara has made her appearance a number of times over the last month or so, in different ways. I don't know why, and what follows is just the result of me bringing this image to mind and turning it around for a while.

White Tara is an interesting figure in many ways. In a sense, she's the introverted big sister of Green Tara. While Green Tara is the enlightened compassion which reaches out, an active force in the world, White Tara does not reach out in any obvious way (Green Tara is always depicted as about to step down from her mediation seat, but White Tara does not). She reaches inwards instead. There's more of a wisdom aspect in her. She holds the compassion that is wise, or maybe even the wisdom that is compassionate.

What are the reasons I say that? She is white, which is the colour of purity, of the unstained wisdom of the Buddhas. She has seven eyes. Apart from her two ordinary eyes, there are eyes in the palms of her hands and on the soles of her feet, and there's an eye in her forehead too. These eyes signifies that the acts performed by her in body and mind are mindful, guided by wisdom, while motivated by a keen interest and concern for the well-being of all beings.

With her right hand, out of her compassionate nature, she forms the varada mudra of giving or of bestowing blessings. With her left hand, she forms the abhaya mudra of bestowing fearlessness while at the same time holding three blue lotuses in different stages of development. Although the mudras are the same as those of Green Tara, White Tara is said to specifically bestow the blessings of long life, merit, and wisdom. This together with the lotuses in three stages of development creates, at least in my mind, a sense of someone willing to help with one's spiritual development in a very pragmatic way.

White Tara is sometimes called the Mother Of all Buddhas, just like Pranjaparamita, the goddess of the Perfection of Wisdom. She is the mother of all Buddhas in the sense that she combines wisdom and compassion, and in doing so she combines the introverted qualities with the extraverted, outreaching aspect of the enlightened mind. She is, in short, complete, able to stand on her own. She embodies a complete path to Enlightenment.

The sense I have of White Tara and Green Tara is that they move on either side of Tara, the Saviouress. One on the wisdom side, the other on the side of compassion, each one in their own way reaching out to the people whose minds are more inclined to one or the other.


[The photos in this post are by me of paintings of White Tara and Green Tara by Aloka; Padmaloka retreat centre, Norfolk, UK]