The Dynamic Action Hero of Buddhism – An Exploration of Mother Tara 

 

A BUDDHA CAST – A Podcast with Josephine Nolan and Dave Lang

The mission of these podcasts is to make Buddha Weekly’s in-depth features accessible and to demystify Buddhism from different traditions.

 

Contents of Podcast

1. Opening contrast – The serene Buddha vs. the dynamic Mother Tara
2. Introducing the Karma Mother – Tara as the embodiment of enlightened activity
3. The first responder metaphor – Universal compassion that knows no boundaries
4. The laughter that defeats demons – The story of Mara and the power of fearless joy
5. Why laughter works – The Buddhist philosophy of emptiness and illusion
6. The 21 Taras – The spectrum of specialized forms
7. Breaking down the colors – Green, White, Yellow, Red, and Wrathful Taras
8. The key and the lock – Gelek Rinpoche’s explanation of individualized manifestation
9. From worldly to ultimate – Introducing Chittamani Tara and Highest Yoga Tantra
10. The safety protocol – Why empowerment is required for advanced practice
11. Tara in the real world – The caravan story and the man who complained
12. The turquoise pure land – Yerlod Kurpa and Delog Dewadroma’s vision
13. Accessibility for all – The mantra and the phone call metaphor
14. Final reflection – Bringing it all together
15. The earth itself – Tara as Mother Earth and the closing thought
16. Sources: At the end of the transcript are all the sources referred to in this podcast by Eric and Josephine.

The Serene Buddha vs. The Dynamic Mother Tara

So close your eyes for just a second and just picture a Buddha.

Okay.

For most of us, there’s a really specific image that immediately comes to mind, right? You picture a figure sitting perfectly still.

Right. Cross-legged on a lotus.

Exactly. Eyes half closed in this state of deep, undisturbed meditation. It’s this image of ultimate serenity.

Like a perfectly calm, mirror-like pond.

Yeah, exactly that. And it’s a beautiful visual, but it is also completely static. It feels entirely removed from the exhausting chaos of the daily world you and I live in.

Oh, totally.

But then you look at traditional depictions of Mother Tara, and suddenly that image of static, quiet peace is just completely shattered.

Yeah, because she is not just sitting there.

No. One of her legs is folded in meditation, sure. But her right leg is outstretched. Her foot is resting on a lower lotus petal, angled as if she is literally about to leap up.

It is a completely different energetic signature.

Right. She’s positioned to step right out of the painting and into the messiness of our reality. When you look at her, you aren’t looking at withdrawal from the world. You are looking at imminent intervention.

The Mission of This Deep Dive

Imminent intervention. I love that. And that dynamic energy is exactly what we’re exploring in today’s deep dives.

We really are. Because we have a stack of incredibly rich sources today.

Yeah. We’re looking at teachings from revered Tibetan masters. Like His Holiness Sakya Trichen, Gelek Rinpoche, and Bokar Rinpoche, right alongside traditional sutras and historical accounts.

It’s a lot of profound material.

It is. And our mission today is to demystify Mother Tara, a figure who is universally adored in Mahayana Buddhism.

We want to uncover why she isn’t just a serene object of meditation, but rather a dynamic action hero of the Buddhist pantheon. And crucially, how her principles of wisdom, compassion, and activity apply directly to your own daily life.

Why “Action Hero” Isn’t an Oxymoron

Okay, let’s unpack this, because calling a Buddha an action hero feels like a bit of an oxymoron.

It really does.

Yeah, we’re taught that enlightenment is all about letting go, right? Not rushing into the fray.

It does seem counterintuitive if you only view Buddhism through the lens of quiet detachment. But to understand Tara, we have to look at how Vajrayana Buddhism, which is the esoteric tradition of Tibet, how it actually structures reality.

Okay. Wow, me.

So, in this framework, Tara is known as the Karma Mother.

The Karma Mother?

Right. Now, when we hear the word karma in the West, we usually think of a cosmic point system.

Yeah, or fate. What goes around comes around.

Exactly. But karma literally translates to activity. It just means action. So she represents the actual manifested activity of all the Buddhas.

Oh, wow. So she is the doing, not just the being.

The Fusion of Wisdom and Compassion

Yes. To get to the mechanics of it, Vajrayana tradition uses gendered symbolism to map out the enlightened mind.

Okay.

A male Buddha typically represents compassion. They refer to this as skillful means, which is basically the method of helping others.

Got it. And the female Buddha?

A female Buddha represents wisdom, specifically the profound realization of emptiness or the ultimate nature of reality.

Right.

And Tara is the ultimate practical fusion of both of those things, because think about it, wisdom without compassion is inert. It just sits there.

Right. And compassion without wisdom is misguided.

Oh, that makes so much sense.

Yeah. So Tara takes that profound empty wisdom, she marries it to active compassion, and she functions as a dynamic force right here in our mundane suffering world.

Tara: The Spiritual First Responder

It kind of makes me think of her as a spiritual first responder.

Yeah, that’s a great way to put it.

Yeah. She isn’t observing our problems from a serene vantage point in the clouds. She’s the one in the ambulance.

Yes.

She’s on the front lines of human suffering, just ready to jump in the moment you call for help.

What’s fascinating here is how universally that ambulance is dispatched.

What do you mean?

Well, according to His Holiness Sakya Trizin, you don’t even have to be a Buddhist to receive Tara’s help.

Really?

Yeah. He explains that her compassion is so boundless that she sees all sentient beings, and that means every single one of us, regardless of belief or background, or even species. She sees us as her only child.

Her Only Child: The Mother’s Love

Her only child? Wow. That is an incredibly intense degree of focus.

It is. Think about the fierce, unconditional, hyper-focused, protective love a mother has for an only child.

Yeah. Every instinct is geared toward their welfare.

Right. She is ready to do absolutely anything to keep them safe, and Tara extends that exact same concentrated motherly love to you without any discrimination whatsoever.

Which is a beautiful thought, really, it is. But it begs a major logistical question for me.

Okay. What’s that?

If she’s this ultimate first responder, rushing into the burning buildings of our lives, how does she actually fight off the negativity?

Mm-hmm.

If I’m an action hero, I’m bringing a weapon.

Naturally.

But looking through our sources today, her method of fighting isn’t exactly what you would expect.

Not at all. She doesn’t carry a sword. She doesn’t wield thunderbolts.

So what does she do?

The Story of the Maras: Laughter as a Weapon

There’s this profound story recounted by the great teacher, Bokar Rinpoche, that perfectly illustrates the actual mechanism of her power.

Okay, let’s hear it.

It takes us back to the night before Shakyamuni Buddha reached awakening. He was sitting under the Bodhi tree, on the verge of enlightenment, when he was just assailed by these hordes of demons known as the Maras.

Right, the Maras. And in Buddhist psychology, these Maras aren’t necessarily little guys with pitchforks.

Exactly. They represent our deepest fears, our illusions, and the internal poisons that basically block realization.

So it’s the ultimate battle between light and dark.

Yes. And if Tara is the action hero of the Buddhas, you would expect her to show up with a cosmic army to defend him.

A hundred percent.

But she doesn’t. Tara appeared before this terrifying demonic horde, and she didn’t strike them down with violence.

Then what did she do?

According to the text, she simply let out eight great laughters.

Wait. She laughed.

She laughed.

Mm-hmm.

And the sheer power of this laughter caused the demons to fall to the ground, completely stripped of their power to do harm.

Why Laughter Defeats Evil

Okay, I have to push back on this.

I figured you might.

Because on a practical level, it sounds a bit absurd. Think about it. If you were facing a massive life crisis, overwhelming fear, a health scare, or, I don’t know, financial ruin, and someone just starts laughing.

You’d probably be furious.

I would be absolutely livid. Laughter seems like a bizarre weapon against literal paralyzing fear. Why on earth would laughing defeat evil?

Because we have to understand what that laughter actually is on an energetic level.

Okay, explain that to me.

In this framework, those demons represent the eight great fears and the internal poisons that generate our suffering. We’re talking about things like envy, anger, pride, and ignorance.

Right, the internal stuff.

Yeah. And Tara’s laughter represents mudita, which translates to fearless, sympathetic joy.

Fearless joy. But how does joy dismantle a threat?

The Illusion of the Enemy

It comes down to how reality is constructed in Buddhist philosophy. When we fight our fears with anger or panic or resistance, we are actually validating them.

Oh, I see.

We are saying to the fear, “You are real, you are solid, and you have power over me.” By fighting the demons on their terms, you literally feed them energy.

Wow. Okay.

So Tara’s laughter completely shifts the paradigm. She isn’t mocking the demons. Her laughter is the sound of supreme wisdom, realizing that the demons have no inherent reality in the first place.

Oh, wow, okay. It’s like waking up from a terrifying nightmare where there’s a monster in your room.

Yeah.

And you turn on the light, and you realize it’s just a coat hanging on a chair.

Exactly. You don’t attack the coat with a baseball bat.

Yeah.

You laugh with relief because the threat was never real to begin with.

That is a perfect analogy. She overcomes the poison of envy and the terror of the demons by radiating this frequency of joy and wisdom that the demons simply cannot exist within.

That’s wild.

Right. In the face of absolute fearless joy, negativity just cannot hold its shape. The illusion shatters.

That completely reframes the idea of a spiritual battle. She doesn’t defeat the enemy. She renders the enemy irrelevant.

Exactly.

The 21 Taras: A Spectrum of Compassion

But human fears and daily problems are incredibly diverse.

Oh, absolutely.

A moment of realization under a bodhi tree is one thing, but dealing with a chronic illness or a really toxic workplace is another. A single laugh doesn’t seem like it would cover the sheer variety of human misery.

And the tradition recognizes that completely. Because our suffering is so multifaceted, her response cannot be one size fits all.

It has to adapt.

Right. She has to adapt to the specific nature of your crisis.

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Yeah.

Because the sources dive into this concept called the 21 Taras, and it just blew my mind that it isn’t just one monolithic figure.

No, it’s a whole spectrum.

Right. She fractures or emanates into a multitude of specific forms to address incredibly specific human problems.

The 21 Taras represent a highly specialized matrix of compassionate activity.

Mm-hmm.

And it is worth noting that different traditional lineages visualize them in slightly different ways.

Depending on what was needed at the time.

Exactly, based on the needs of the practitioners in different eras.

Different Lineages, Different Visualizations

For instance, in the lineage passed down by the 11th century master Atisha, you visualize the 21 Taras all holding colored vases, or bhumpas, filled with specific healing nectars.

Got it, vases with nectar.

But if you look at the Nyingma Terma lineage—

Wait, Nyingma Terma, what does that mean again?

Oh, that relies on hidden treasure teachings that were discovered by mystics over centuries.

Ah, right, the hidden treasures.

Yeah. So in that system, the visual changes. They hold lotuses, and resting on top of those lotuses are unique implements, like an endless knot or a vajra, to symbolize very specific actions.

Okay, so the implements change, but the core mechanism remains the same.

I kept trying to conceptualize this while reading, and it honestly feels like passing pure white light through a prism.

Yes. That’s it exactly. The underlying source is the exact same enlightened energy, but it refracts into 21 specific wavelengths or colors, so it can perfectly match the frequency of whatever trauma you’re facing.

The prism metaphor is highly accurate. Each color in the 21 Taras corresponds to a very specific psychological and karmic intervention.

Breaking Down the Colors

Let’s break down those wavelengths because this is so cool.

Let’s do it.

So Green Tara is the all-rounder.

Right. She embodies all activities, which is why she’s the primary figure people turn to for immediate help.

But then the spectrum splits. You have White Tara, whose specific energy is for pacifying.

Mm.

If you are dealing with a severe illness or a totally chaotic mind, visualizing white energy physically and psychologically calms the nervous system and removes negative karma.

Exactly. And then you have Yellow Tara, whose frequency is all about accumulating and enriching.

Enriching, right. She is called upon to overcome poverty, to increase life force, and basically bring auspiciousness into your environment.

Nice. And then there’s Red Tara, whose activity is magnetizing.

Right. She influences the environment and sentient beings positively. She pulls what is helpful into your orbit.

Which leaves the intense ones, the black or dark blue Taras.

Oh, yes. The wrathful forms. These are the ones you call when pacifying and enriching just aren’t going to cut it, right?

Exactly. They are fierce energetic expressions designed to destroy massive internal blockages, crush external obstacles, and just burn up debilitating fears.

It is an incredibly comprehensive system.

It really is.

The Key and the Lock

But this raises an important question. From a logical standpoint, how can one single entity be a peaceful white healer offering nectar and a terrifying black destroyer wielding fire simultaneously?

Yeah. Is she just one person changing outfits depending on the prayer, or are these entirely different entities?

The late revered teacher, Gelek Rinpoche, offered a brilliant explanation for the mechanism behind this.

What did he say?

He taught that fundamentally, we are the creators of our own reality. As he put it, each and every one of us created our own world.

Our own subjective experience.

Exactly. We carry our highly individualized karmic worlds into the collective space. And because your mind, your specific traumas, and your worldview are entirely unique to you, Tara manifests in the exact form suitable to the unique world you have constructed.

Okay. So if the world I’ve built right now is consumed by the chaos of a health crisis, the frequency of Tara that can actually step into my reality is White Tara, the healer.

Right.

But if my world is under attack by malicious forces, or I’m just paralyzed by deep internal self-sabotage, the only frequency that can penetrate that specific reality is the wrathful Black Tara.

You’ve got it. She is ultimately one unified source of enlightened activity, the mother of all Buddhas.

Mm-hmm.

But she acts like a key. The metal of the key is all the same, but the shape adapts perfectly to the specific lock of your individual suffering.

That makes profound psychological sense.

It does.

Beyond Worldly Problems: The Call for Enlightenment

But up to this point, we’ve been talking almost exclusively about worldly problems.

True. Illness, poverty, immediate fear.

Right. The 21 Taras seem designed to help us basically survive the day to day.

Mm.

But what happens when a practitioner isn’t just looking for help paying the bills or fighting off a cold, but is actually seeking ultimate spiritual transformation?

Right, because simply getting through the day isn’t the final goal of Buddhism. Complete enlightenment is.

That is a crucial distinction. When a practitioner is ready to move beyond just seeking worldly comfort and wants to actively dismantle their ego to achieve full enlightenment, well, the accessible worldly forms of Tara are no longer enough.

So what happens then?

This demands a massive shift in the practice.

Chittamani Tara: The Highest Yoga Tantra

And this brings us to her most esoteric manifestation, which is Chittamani Tara.

The mind jewel Tara.

Exactly. This form belongs to what is known as Highest Yoga Tantra.

Which sounds intense.

It is. In the Gelug lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, Highest Yoga Tantra is the absolute zenith of practice.

And unlike the 21 Taras, where anyone can just call out for help, this is highly restricted.

For sure, they have. It requires strict instruction, years of foundational practice, and direct empowerment from a qualified lineage teacher. You cannot just casually decide one day to practice Chittamani Tara.

Which feels like a contradiction, doesn’t it?

How so?

Well, we just established that she is the universally accessible mother who sees everyone as her only child. Why would her ultimate form suddenly be locked behind strict rules and empowerments?

The Danger of Advanced Practice

Because of the inherent danger of the mechanism involved.

Danger?

Yeah. The basic practices of Tara are about receiving blessings from an external source. But Highest Yoga Tantra is about realizing that you are the source.

Oh, wow.

The sources trace this specific practice back to the 19th century yogi, Takpu Dorje Chang. He received it as a direct revelation from Tara.

Oh, so she taught it to him directly?

Yes. Gelek Rinpoche described the transmission beautifully, saying she taught it directly like a mother teaching her own son.

That’s amazing. Does she look different in this form?

Visually, she looks incredibly similar to Green Tara, with the outstretched right leg. But there is a very subtle visual cue that’s different.

Right. The standard Green Tara usually holds one blue night lotus, called an uptala flower, blooming over her left shoulder.

Exactly. But Chittamani Tara holds two fully blooming blue uptala flowers, one over each shoulder.

And that tiny shift means everything.

It really does. That subtle visual distinction signals a vastly different internal technology.

Rewiring Your Internal Circuitry

If we connect this to the bigger picture, the Chittamani Tara practice doesn’t involve asking a deity in the sky to fix your life.

Right.

It involves deep, highly complex meditations on your own subtle energy body. You systematically rewire your internal circuitry by visualizing a profound mandala-like, a geometric universe of Taras literally residing inside your own physical form.

That is intense.

It is. You dissolve your ordinary sense of self and generate yourself as the deity. And if you attempt to dismantle the ego at that level without a guide, you risk severe psychological destabilization.

So the restriction isn’t about elitism.

Not at all.

It’s a safety protocol. It proves that Tara basically scales with the practitioner.

Yes, perfectly said. If you are drowning, she throws you a life preserver in the form of a simple mantra. But if you want to learn how to swim across the entire ocean of existence yourself, she provides a rigorously structured, highly advanced training program.

She scales from a comforting mother to a complex, demanding guide for complete enlightenment.

Tara in the Real World: The Caravan Story

That is an incredible spectrum of activity. But I want to bring it back from the intense, esoteric world of internal mandalas to the immediate reality of life.

Ground it a bit.

Exactly.

Mm-hmm.

If you aren’t an advanced yogi sitting in a cave, how does Tara’s presence actually manifest in the real world when you call on her? Because the sources contain some fascinating historical accounts of this.

They do, and they’re remarkably grounded. Bokar Rinpoche shared a very tangible account from 1958.

Okay.

He was part of a caravan traveling through a highly dangerous, remote region of Tibet. They were carrying crucial supplies, but the trail was notoriously stalked by violent bandits.

So definitely no internal demons of pride or ignorance this time.

Yeah. We’re talking literal men with weapons aiming to do harm.

A very physical, immediate threat.

And what did they do?

Their response was entirely spiritual. The entire caravan prayed constantly to Tara, specifically chanting the praises of the 21 Taras as they moved through this perilous landscape. And against all odds, they navigated the entire journey safely, never once encountering the bandits.

For Bokar Rinpoche, this wasn’t a stroke of good luck. It was the direct protective physical activity of Tara altering their circumstances.

The Man Who Complained

That reminds me of this poignant Tibetan folktale we found in the research. It just perfectly captures her ever-present nature.

Oh, the man who complained.

Yes. There’s this story of a man who felt totally abandoned by the universe. He was suffering deeply, and he actually complained to Tara out loud, accusing her of leaving him when he needed her most.

And her reply to him in the story is honestly one of the most profound statements in all of our source material.

Tell them what she said.

She simply said, “How could I ever leave who I am?”

“How could I ever leave who I am?” That gives me chills.

Right. Because at the absolute deepest level, she isn’t a distant goddess swooping in from the clouds. She is the inherent indestructible potential for compassionate action that already exists within our own Buddha nature.

We are made of the same stuff.

Exactly.

The Turquoise Pure Land

And that profound interconnectedness really culminates in the concept of her ultimate destination.

Mm. Her pure land.

Yes. Yerlod Kurpa, the turquoise pure land.

The turquoise pure land.

In Buddhist cosmology, highly realized beings can manifest pure realms. These are environments that are completely free from the karmic suffering of our world, and they’re designed entirely to facilitate spiritual awakening.

And Tara’s realm is described as this breathtaking natural paradise.

It is.

We actually have a visceral description of it from a famous female Tibetan mystic named Delog Dewadroma, who actually visited this pure land in a visionary state.

Oh, her account is amazing.

It is. And what I found so fascinating is that she didn’t describe opulent golden palaces or jewel-encrusted thrones in the sky.

No mansions.

No. She described a natural haven, a place of cooling rays and blooming lotuses providing soothing shelter.

It sounds like the ultimate sanctuary for an exhausted, overstimulated mind.

It’s the ultimate environmental expression of her pacifying, nurturing nature. It is a place where the landscape itself heals the trauma of existence, allowing the mind to just finally rest and realize its true nature.

How to Connect with Tara Right Now

So what does this all mean? If you’re listening to this deep dive right now, maybe you’re sitting in traffic, or you’re overwhelmed by a crisis at work, or dealing with family drama, how do you actually tap into this turquoise pure land energy without flying to Tibet to find a master?

Well, that’s the million-dollar question.

Right. Because we just talked about highest yoga tantra requiring strict empowerments.

Mm-hmm.

Do you need a special initiation just to get through a really bad Tuesday?

Not at all. That is the true beauty of the Karma Mother.

The lineage masters are entirely clear on this point. You need absolutely no special permission, initiations, or empowerments to call on her for daily help.

None.

None. You don’t even have to identify as a Buddhist. You just have to reach out.

So the life preserver really is available to everyone.

Simply calling her name with sincerity is enough.

The Mantra: Picking Up the Phone

Or you can use her very famous 10-syllable mantra, which is chanted by millions of people across the globe every single day.

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha.

Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha. Just reciting those syllables is said to immediately invoke her motherly, protective, active energy.

That’s so accessible.

It is. You don’t need to visualize complex mandalas for this to work. It’s literally like picking up the phone and dialing that first responder.

She is always on the line, and she always answers the frequency of that call.

The Journey Unpacked

It has been such an incredible journey unpacking these sources today.

It really has.

We started with the assumption of the serene, static Buddha, and we found Tara, the ultimate action hero.

A mother who fights the demons of our ego, not with violence, but with the fearless paradigm-shifting power of sympathetic joy and laughter.

A being who refracts her energy into 21 color-coded forms, acting as the perfect key for the unique lock of your specific suffering.

And yet, she’s a figure profound enough to serve as a rigorous guide through the most complex, esoteric, tantric practices ever devised.

She truly is everything all at once.

She is the limitless scaling expression of enlightened activity.

One Final Thought: Mother Earth Herself

But before we finish, there is one final lingering thought drawn from our sources that we haven’t touched on yet.

Oh.

And it brings this entire concept quite literally down to earth.

Okay, I’m listening.

We’ve talked a lot about her celestial forms, her colorful emanations, and visionary journeys to her turquoise pure land. But in the ancient Buddhist texts, she has one more vital, often overlooked identity.

What is it?

She is simultaneously Mother Earth herself.

Wait, really?

Yeah. Under the name Vasudhara, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, she’s identified as the very earth that we stand on.

Whoa.

Think back to that story of Shakyamuni Buddha under the Bodhi tree. When he was challenged by the demons right before he achieved full enlightenment, he famously reached down and touched the ground, calling the earth to witness his right to awaken.

Right. The earth witness mudra.

Exactly. And according to the texts, the earth that answered him, the earth that silently bore witness and supported his massive transformation, that was Tara.

Wow. That completely changes how you interact with the physical world.

It really does. So the next time you step outside, take a moment to look down. Consider that the solid ground beneath your feet, silently and tirelessly supporting your every single step, might just be another manifestation of Mother Tara’s boundless, compassionate activity.

SOURCES CITED or DISCUSSED in the PODCAST

• 21 Mother Taras: Atisha Lineage & Mantras https://buddhaweekly.com/21-taras-atisha/
• The 21 Taras in the Narjuna, Atisha and Nyingma Lineages https://buddhaweekly.com/21-taras-in-the-narjuna-atisha-and-nyingma-lineages-a-profound-powerful-precise-pleasing-daily-practice/
• Decoding the 21 Tara Activity Mantras https://buddhaweekly.com/decoding-the-21-tara-activity-mantras-which-tara-mantra-is-best-for-your-situatio/
• Tara Teaching from His Holiness the Sakya Trichen: Interview Q&A https://buddhaweekly.com/tara-teaching-from-his-holiness-the-sakya-trichen-interview-q-a-do-you-have-a-tara-question-chances-are-his-holiness-already-answered/
• The Tara Principle: Wisdom, Compassion and Activity https://buddhaweekly.com/tara-principle-wisdom-compassion-and-activity-the-practical-karma-mother-active-in-our-daily-real-world-lives/
• Unlimited Tara: Pandita Candrakirti’s 8 Forms & the 21, 108, 1008 Forms https://buddhaweekly.com/unlimited-tara-mother-of-all-buddhas-pandita-candrakirtis-8-forms-the-21-108-1008-forms/
• 🌟 Aspects, Syllables & Symbolic Iconography
• Vasudhārā: Goddess of Wealth & Mother Earth Witness to Buddha’s Enlightenment https://buddhaweekly.com/stream-of-gems-vasudhara-the-buddhist-tara-goddess-of-wealth-and-prosperity-mother-earth-who-witnessed-buddhas-enlightenment/
• Black Tara: Destroyer of Enemies and Evil, Protector from All Negativities http://buddhaweekly.com/black-tara-destroyer-of-enemies-and-evil-who-protects-from-all-negativities-and-obstacles-internal-or-external/
• Marichi: Goddess of Golden Light, Destroyer of Obstacles (21st Tara) https://buddhaweekly.com/marichi-buddhist-goddess-of-golden-light-destroyer-of-demons-evil-and-obstacles-21st-tara-video-short-documentary/
• Palden Lhamo: Terrifying Female Protector Aspect of Tara https://buddhaweekly.com/get-away-like-ripley-movie-aliens-palden-lhamo-terrifying-enlightened-emanation-tara-drives-off-inner-outer-demons-obstacles/
• Overcoming the Poison of Envy (Irshya) with Tara’s Sympathetic Joy (Mudita) https://buddhaweekly.com/overcoming-jealous-with-joy-and-tara/
• Tara’s Eight Great Laughters: Transforming the Eight Demons and Fears https://buddhaweekly.com/taras-play-mind-and-her-eight-great-laughters-transforming-the-eight-demons-and-fears-relying-on-the-mother-of-the-buddhas/
• 🏔️ Sacred Pure Lands, Rescues & Advanced practices
• Limitless Tara, Beyond the Green: Wisdom Mother & Action Hero https://buddhaweekly.com/limitless-tara-beyond-green-buddha-bodhisattva-savior-mother-buddhas-hindu-maa-tara-goddess-many-colors-consort-buddhas-wisdom-mother-action-hero/
• “Mind Jewel” Green Tara: Chittamani Tara Highest Yoga Tantra Practice https://buddhaweekly.com/chittamani-tara-cittamani-mind-jewel-green-tara-approachable-appealing-highest-yoga-anuttara-practice-one-main-practices-many-great-gelug-teachers/
• Tara’s Splendid Turquoise Pure Land, Yurlod Kurpa https://buddhaweekly.com/aspire-to-taras-splendid-turquoise-pure-land-for-tree-huggers-and-environmentalists-a-place-to-meditate-on-oneness-with-blissful-nature/
• Boundless Heroine Tara: Stories of Rescues & Sadhana by Marpa https://buddhaweekly.com/boundless-heroine-tara-bodhisattva-mother-saviour-friend-stories-of-rescues-and-a-sadhana-by-marpa-the-translator/
• Tara the Saviour and Vajrayogini the Sarvabuddhadakini: How Are They One? https://buddhaweekly.com/tara-the-saviour-and-vajrayogini-the-sarvabuddhadakini-how-are-they-different-and-how-are-they-the-one-the-importance-of-female-buddhas-wisdom-personified/
• Why is There Suffering in the World if the Universal Mother Kuan Yin Rescues Beings? https://buddhaweekly.com/why-wasnt-i-rescued-by-the-universal-mother-buddha-kuan-yin-pusa-tara-kannon-sarasvati-kurukulla-vajrayogini-by-any-name-and-in-any-form-she-rescues-beings-from-suffering/
• Video Documentary Feature: Tara — Swift Heroine, Mother, Saviour, Friend https://buddhaweekly.com/video-tara-swift-heroine-mother-saviour-friend-stories-of-rescues-mantra-sadhana/