Gyalwang Karmapa gives the White Tara Initiation

January 09, 2009, report by Jo Gibson, photos taken by Karma Norbu, Pema Orser Dorje

Before conferring the initiation, the Gyalwang Karmapa gave a general introduction to Vajrayana practice, an explanation of the history of the White Tara initiation, and a description of the benefits of White Tara practice.

His Holiness explained that the Tara initiation was often seen as a long-life empowerment but that it was also a kriya yoga tantra, and as such, was a Vajrayana practice which needed the basis and support of the Buddhist preliminaries, refuge, generating bodhichitta, and some realization of emptiness. Such a practice should arise out of loving kindness towards all sentient beings and the courage and strong aspiration to seek enlightenment in order to benefit all sentient beings.

He described how in the Vajrayana system, even though the three kayas were the result of enlightenment, practitioners, from the beginner level onwards, visualize and try to experience their results – the qualities of the buddha in our mind. Using the analogy of building a house – before you began to build, you needed to have some idea of the house that you wanted, then you needed a good plan and you had to build strong foundations. Without these it would be impossible to build a high quality house. Similarly the qualities and activities of the Buddha have to be visualized and possibly experienced, practitioners visualize transforming the five-aggregate body into a buddha form.

According to the Mahayana, the accumulation of wisdom results in the transformation into the dharmakaya and the rupakaya is attained through the accumulation of virtue, but there are no instructions on how to practise this result right from the beginning. In Vajrayana, when a practitioner visualizes the deity, concentrating on the enlightened form, they are able to gather both accumulations of merit – working towards the positive way of being which is an enlightened being, they are able to accumulate merit, and when they are confident in understanding emptiness and that forms the basis of their visualization of the deity or buddha, then the emptiness appears, thus accumulating wisdom. So with one mind they are accumulating both wisdom and merit – with the same practice.

Although the practice of Tara was a kriya yoga tantra– it could also have connections with annutara yoga tantra. The time of death there were the different stages of dissolution, such as the different appearances and lights, becoming more and more subtle, until, finally the most subtle was the clear light. If, at that time, we were able to recognize the clear light, we could become enlightened. To understand the clear light we meditate on emptiness. To actualize it we practise deity yoga. So what we practise now will help then. The most important thing, however, was the foundation of the practice. Without the foundation of refuge, it was not a Dharma practice. Without bodhichitta, it was not a practise aimed at enlightenment, because there was no motivation to become enlightened. The visualization had to be based on emptiness, otherwise it did not counteract samsara. His Holiness told the story of a Yamantaka practitioner who was born as an evil spirit warned that was what could happen when people didn’t practise properly.
For beginners, if as a result of the practice, you felt a positive change in your thinking or perhaps a feeling of compassion rising in you, that was a positive result; there was no need to look for major results .

His Holiness then told the story of Tara and her vow to appear in female form until she reached enlightenment. Because she had helped liberate hundreds of thousands of sentient beings and millions of maras, she was called Tara [Tib. Drolma] which means The Liberator. Tara’s activity is swift and profound, clearing away obstacles and dangers to those who pray to her. There are peaceful and wrathful Taras, and Taras for different purposes - White Tara for those who want to live long, Yangchenma for those who want to be learned. In India and Tibet every single Buddhist temple has a symbol of Tara.

In Tibet, Tara was one of the four main deities of the Khadampa masters, and as the Kagyu is the merging of the two rivers of Mahamudra and Khadampa in the person of Gampopa, who received both lineages, there has always been a very strong connection between Kagyu and Tara.

Within the tradition there are both kriya yoga and annutara yoga tantras for White Tara, and four main lineages. The one His Holiness gave was a kriya yoga tantra in Gampopa’s lineage, but it was wrong to see these lineages as separate. All four come together.

His Holiness then illustrated the benefits of practising White Tara with two examples. There was once a Khadampa master who had a dream. First the sun set, then it rose in the west and set in the east, which was considered a very bad omen. He asked his lama about the dream and was told that it showed he was about to die, but the lama advised him to lengthen his life by practising White Tara. After practising for eleven months, he had a vision of Tara, and lived until he was sixty. Once more he prayed to her, and she appeared to him. She told him to make an image of her and he would live another ten years, so he painted a thangka and lived until he was seventy. When he was seventy, he petitioned her again, and she told him to make another image, so this time he made a Tara statue, and lived until he was eighty. Tara appeared again and told him if he made another image he would live a further fifteen years,so he painted her image in his meditation cave and finally died at the age of ninety-five.

Gampopa, himself, when he was forty-three, was told he would die in three years time. Then a Khadampa Geshe predicted he would work for the benefit of sentient beings, so Gampopa told him that he didn’t have much time left. The Khadampa Geshe gave him instructions in the Tara practice. Gampopa went on to live until he was eighty years old, and did indeed benefit many sentient beings.

Hence, the practice of White Tara could lengthen life. However, Gyalwang Karmapa cautioned, it was better if those who were collecting negative deeds did not live too long. Sometimes we really wanted to do good, but ended up acting negatively. The root problem was the mind poisons and negative mental states [nyonmong (Tib) or kleshas (Skt)]. When a difficulty arose, so did these negative mental states, and our good intentions disappeared; we had no alternative, we had to do something about them. Depending on our level of attainment, we could either fight them or take them into the path as a friend. It was good if we could at least rid ourselves of the negative side of the mind poisons, for example, with attachment and aversion, we should try to rid ourselves of what we don’t need. A certain amount of attachment was part of our relationship with family, children and friends, but if it became too much it brought suffering. We needed to take the middle way.

The final section before the initiation was directed at the Trulkus, Einpoches and Lamas present.

His Holiness requested the Lamas and Rinpoches to live long, but warned them not to be too proud. He reminded them that for a Trulku to purify his birth he go into strict retreat in a bricked up cave for twelve years. He told a story of a group of monks who were discussing a Trulku. They were convinced that this was the genuine Trulku because he remembered his cup and mala and other material things. The only problem was that he had forgotten everything about dharma!

Sometimes trulkus could be unruly – that did not mean they were not the genuine reincarnation. Once there was a very badly-behaved Trulku, who almost killed people, until the day he visited the place where, in his previous incarnation, he had made the prayer: When I come here, may I remember my past life. He immediately remembered his former life and was transformed. Trulkus had the opportunity and the responsibility to uphold the dharma and work for the benefit of sentient beings.