A 1987 teaching by Lama Zopa Rinpoche opens us to the profound meaning and benefits of practicing Tara’s powerful mantra.

Lama Zopa walks us through the mantra in a long discussion on Tara, which we have excerpted and shortened below:

• In short, om tare tuttare ture soha means “I prostrate to the Liberator, Mother of all the Victorious Ones.”
• The Tara mantra is om tare tuttare ture soha. To explain the meaning of tare tuttare ture: tare means liberating from samsara.
• Tare shows that Mother Tara liberates living beings from samsara, true suffering, or problems. You can relate this to the suffering of human beings: birth, old age, sickness, and death; meeting undesirable objects and experiencing aversion; not finding desirable objects or finding them but gaining no satisfaction… All these are the problems of true suffering. If you rely upon Tara by taking refuge in her and doing Tara practices—such as the recitation of mantra or praises — with tare, Tara liberates you from all these true sufferings.
• The second word, tuttare, liberates you from the eight fears. There are eight fears related to external dangers from fire, water, air, earth, and such things as thieves and dangerous animals. However, the main dangers come from ignorance, attachment, anger, pride, jealousy, miserliness, doubt, and wrong views. These eight disturbing thoughts in your mind are the main dangers… This second word, tuttare, liberates you from the eight fears, and frees you from the true cause of suffering: karma and all-arising disturbing thoughts.
• The third word, ture, liberates you from disease. Now, of the Four Noble Truths, ture shows the cessation of suffering, which is the ultimate Dharma. In terms of liberating from disease, our actual disease is ignorance not knowing the absolute nature of the I, and all the disturbing thoughts that arise from this ignorance… By liberating us from disease, ture actually liberates us from the true cause, disturbing thoughts, and also the true sufferings.
• The rough meaning of these three words, tare tuttare ture is: “To you, the embodiment of all the Holy’s actions, I always prostrate — whether I am in happy or unhappy circumstances — with my body, speech, and mind.”

The final word soha means establishing the root of the path within your heart. In other words, by taking refuge in Tara and doing Tara practice, you receive the blessings of Tara in your own heart. This gives you space to establish the root of the path, signified by tare tuttare ture, in your heart. By establishing the path of the three capable beings within your heart, you purify all impurities of your body, speech, and mind and achieve Tara’s pure vajra holy body, holy speech, and holy mind signified by om. Your body, speech, and mind are transformed into Tara’s holy body, holy speech, and holy mind. This is the rough meaning of om tare tuttare ture soha.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, 2019

Source article: Written by Yowangdu, November 11, 2017

https://www.yowangdu.com/tibetan-buddhism/green-tara-mantra.html