Tara Statue With Head Looking Down

Tara Statue With Head Looking Down

Date of Advice:
March 2015
Date Posted:
August 2015

A student was planning to replicate a Tara statue in Rinpoche’s room at Kopan Monastery, Nepal, using it as a basis for making more statues. Rinpoche sent the following letter. 

My very dear, wish-fulfilling one,
By now you must have reached halfway to the enlightenment. The Twenty-one Taras statue in my room is made according to one artist who learned painting from a dream. The art is very nice, he definitely knew it well. The problem is that the statue looks down, which is regarded as dangerous. The statue was made a long time ago for the success of the Maitreya Project.

I had other statues made for success now at the nunnery, and they were for preparation for the success. But I forgot about them for so many years. The statues were lost temporarily, but I got them again. Now they are in my room on the altar until the Maitreya statue happens.

One very high lama in Tibet said the statue’s head should not be looking down, otherwise it’s very dangerous, for the center or the family that owns it—they can lose wealth etc, and even the artist can lose. So he advised that. The Tibetan man came to see me in my room and he told me how bad it is to have the head looking down.

I had never heard this before, so I asked the artist to make new one. He said it was expensive and suggested putting wood under the front of the statue so the head doesn’t look down. So we corrected it that way. The nun must know this. So the statue can be copied from these ones, but not with the head pointing down.

With much love and prayers...