Heart Sutra
Green Tara mantra from: http://www.wildmind.org/mantras/figures/greentara
Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā / Om Tare Tuttare Ture Svaha Tara, whose name means "star" or "she who ferries across," is a Bodhisattva of compassion who manifests in female form. In Tibetan, Tara is known as "Dölma" (Sgrol-ma), or "She Who Saves." In particular she represents compassion in action, since she’s in the process of stepping from her lotus throne in order to help sentient beings. The syllable Om has no conceptual meaning, and is sound representing the entire universe, past present and future. You can read more about Om on the page discussing the Om shanti shanti shanti mantra. Symbolic translation The central part of Tara’s mantra is a loving play on her name. According to Sangharakshita, a traditional explanation of the mantra is that the variations of her name represent three progressive stages of salvation. 1. Tāre represents salvation from mundane dangers and suffering. Tara is seem as a savioress who can give aid from material threats such as floods, crime, wild animals, and traffic accidents. Tara is therefore said to protect against ordinary worldly dangers. Tara is a bodhisattva embodying compassion in the female form of a young goddess. 2. Tuttāre represents deliverance into the spiritual path conceived in terms of individual salvation. In traditional terms, this is the path of the Arhant, which leads to individual liberation from suffering. This is seen in Mahayana Buddhism as a kind of enlightenment in which compassion does not figure strongly. Tara therefore offers individual protection from the spiritual dangers of greed, hatred, and delusion: the three factors that cause us individual suffering. 3. Lastly, ture represents the culmination of the spiritual path in terms of deliverance into the altruistic path of universal salvation – the Bodhisattva path. In the Bodhisattva path we aspire for personal enlightenment, but we also connect compassionately with the sufferings of others, and strive to liberate them at the same time as we seek enlightenment ourselves. Tara therefore delivers us from a narrow conception of the spiritual life. She saves us from the notion that spiritual progress is about narrowly liberating ourselves from our own suffering, and instead leads us to see that true spiritual progress involves having compassion for others. By the time we have been liberated from mundane dangers, liberated from a narrow conception of the spiritual path, and led to a realization of compassion, we have effectively become Tara. In Buddhist practice the “deities” represent our own inner potential. We are all potentially Tara. We can all become Tara. Svaha, according to Monier Monier-William’s Sanskrit Dictionary, means: "Hail!", "Hail to!" or "May a blessing rest on!" We could see this final blessing as symbolizing the recognition that we are, ultimately, Tara. Her mantra can therefore be rendered as something like "OM! Hail to Tara (in her three roles as a savioress)!" although this may one of those occasions when the mantra is best left untranslated, because the words have no “meaning” in the normal sense of the word. Instead they are more like a play on her name, like variations in a piece of music by Bach or like improvisations in a piece of jazz music. Click here for the chant in RealAudio. |
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