Tara Practice

By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche

A short Tara practice composed by Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Scribe/date unknown. Lightly edited by Sandra Smith.

See also Tara the Liberator, Rinpoche's commentary on Tara practice, or listen online to an audio recording of the Praises to the Twenty-One Taras. A range of Tara practice materials is also available from FPMT's Foundation Store, including the ebook Praises to the Twenty-one Taras.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche painting Tara, Kopan Monastery, Nepal, 1976. Photo: Peter Iseli.
Tara Practice  

Mother Tara who liberates from samsara,
Who liberates from the eight fears.
TURE liberates from sickness,
To the liberating mother I prostrate and praise!

Then chant the mantra: 

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SVAHA

Guru Mother Tara is filled with loving kindness and compassion towards you and all living beings; and is looking at you all the time.

Nectar beams emitted from her heart enter your body and mind, and purify you. Just as a glass bottle is filled with milk, your body is filled with nectar, purifying all your karma, where all the suffering, sickness and spirit harm come from. Those sufferings collected from beginningless rebirth are completely removed.

Your body becomes in the nature of white light, clear, like crystal, and your mind becomes totally pure. Chant the mantra with this visualization.

Recite half a mala for yourself and half a mala for your family and all sentient beings in the same way. Everybody becomes in the nature of white light, with a calm, clean, clear mind; they become pure. You can do 25 mantras or half or a complete mala.

Think that you receive all the qualities of Tara’s holy body, speech and mind. Particularly think that there is omniscience and great compassion in your heart. Take responsibility for liberating all living beings from the oceans of samsara and bringing them to full enlightenment by yourself alone. Think that you receive perfect power to benefit sentient beings, for you and your family.

At the end, recite this extremely powerful prayer for success, not only for mundane success, but for spiritual success, to cease the causes of suffering—delusion and karma—and to attain the path of enlightenment. Recite this prayer, and if you have some wish that you want to succeed, recite it a few times.

OM I prostrate to Tara, exalted mother gone beyond,
Homage mother liberator TURE qualified mother,
Mother with TUTTARE dispelling all fears,
To SVAHA letters I extremely bow down.