[00:00:14] Speaker A: Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast.
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[00:00:48] Speaker B: This is episode 338, a return to conversation with Chandra Ischin.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: And it's so happy. So welcome, everybody.
Here we are. And we are in west, east coast by the miracle of Zoom. And I am so thrilled to be back again with the beloved embodiment of Tara, Chandra Easton, who should be western because she's in the west, but she's eastern.
And we're going to go back this. And we have. We could do. We could do 17. We could do 21 different podcasts. So just take a. Take a break, those of you who are impatient.
She has done this most brilliant work called embodying Tara, which is her life's work from birth, I might add. Although she would probably not want to claim that, I would claim that on her behalf. And she's doing that work. And she has written this brilliant book where she brings it to life by introducing us to the different forms of the savioress, not protect us, not savior us. Because these asian people, why were they so peaceful?
Why would they allow themselves for hundreds of years to be beaten up by the barbarian Europeans in their conquests of colonial conquests everywhere? Because they have Jesus, many jesuses, female as well as male, telling them to be cool. And so they're not perfect. But at least today, they were more gentle than our european ancestors.
And we need to learn about that ourselves, because we have no one else to conquer now except ourselves.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:03:31] Speaker A: She is very good at instructing. About that. So, Chandra, how are you today?
[00:03:38] Speaker D: Today I am very good. And I'm so happy to be with you again.
[00:03:43] Speaker C: I just love you.
[00:03:44] Speaker D: I love your podcast, your writing, your scholarship.
[00:03:47] Speaker C: I've been a fan for very lazy.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: 30 years not getting any of them done. In fact, I have an excuse. I tell people, well, I am retired, but I'm much too busy ever to get anything done.
Well, lucky for us, a little bit the case. But I am getting this done by talking to you. And now, what do you want to tell us about today? And everyone should know, she has written this beautiful book, and you should rush out and get it because. And it's not a book you just read and throw it away. It's something you keep by your bedside. You call on Tara, you think about you get a poster of one of the sculptures where she saves you from the eight dangers if you fall on her with faith. I know one lady who was almost in a bus accident where the bus was drifting into. Across. Into the other lane of the oncoming traffic. And she recited. And she's convinced this lady, I haven't seen her in years, she substantially was telling everybody that she went Untari. So I went shooting back into its proper lane. And she's convinced that Tara did it. And saving you from a bus accident was not in the original sculptures, but it's virtually some of the things that happened.
I like to think that was correct. And Tara can do that. But then she called on Tara with knowledge and faith, which is what we're looking at today.
[00:05:17] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Okay, so I just wanted to introduce you a little more. And now what shall we. Who. Which tarot are we going to look at today?
[00:05:26] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:05:28] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, here we are in the United States.
[00:05:30] Speaker D: We're in September, early September, and we're approaching this very important election.
[00:05:35] Speaker C: And so when we were talking about or discussing via email what we might talk about, I suggested that we focus on one of the Taras who is particularly devoted to. Focused on the justice.
[00:05:53] Speaker D: I call her the Justice Tara.
[00:05:55] Speaker C: And her name is Tara Aparajita.
[00:05:59] Speaker E: Aparajita.
[00:06:01] Speaker C: She's the 8th tara in this 21.
[00:06:04] Speaker D: Tara pantheon found within the nyngma tradition.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: Now, there's some overlap within the Suryagupta.
[00:06:10] Speaker D: Or the Atisha lineages sometimes, and other times there are differences.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: So sometimes people get confused about that, in case your audience is wondering.
[00:06:19] Speaker D: But in the Nygma, more of the dharma cycle of the elders tradition and revealed by Jigme Lingpa.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: Is the 8th dara. Her name is Tara Aparajita. And in Tibetan, it's drama gen migial.
Yeah.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: What does that mean in English? What does that mean?
[00:06:43] Speaker D: Right, Jean Miguel? Good question.
Jean Miguel basically means the heroine who.
[00:06:50] Speaker C: Is invincible by other, like, is invincible by others.
[00:06:54] Speaker D: Basically. She cannot be overpowered by others.
[00:06:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: So I call her the invincible Tara.
[00:07:02] Speaker A: We need her.
[00:07:04] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. And she really. What the praises, the classic hymn to the 21 taras from the 11th century CE, revealed by Surya Gupta, you know.
[00:07:19] Speaker D: Said to be the words of the Buddha coming through him praising Tara, the.
[00:07:24] Speaker C: Mother, you know, this male saint.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: He'S really interesting. When did he live?
[00:07:34] Speaker D: Yeah, he was in the 17 hundreds.
[00:07:36] Speaker C: I don't recall his exact dates, but.
[00:07:40] Speaker D: He was in the 17 hundreds.
[00:07:42] Speaker C: He was really the one of the most, if not, well, one of the most important dharma or treasure revealers in the nyngma, this elders tradition of Tibetan.
[00:07:56] Speaker D: Buddhism, really since.
[00:08:00] Speaker C: Longchampa.
[00:08:01] Speaker D: Longchenrabjam, right.
[00:08:02] Speaker C: So he went into a cave and did three year retreat like it was.
[00:08:08] Speaker D: Very common in tibetan buddhist practice. And he had visions of Longchampa, where this great earlier 13th century, I believe.
[00:08:17] Speaker C: 13Th, 14th century, Zog chen, great perfection.
[00:08:22] Speaker D: Master, came to him and gave him.
[00:08:25] Speaker C: Teachings and in a sense helped him.
[00:08:28] Speaker D: Kind of update and systematize these very profound Zogchen teachings that perhaps were not so easily practiced or understood or codified. And so jingme lingpa, known for revealing.
[00:08:42] Speaker C: What'S called the longchen nying dig, the.
[00:08:45] Speaker D: Heart essence of the vast expanse, a.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: Cycle of teachings which take people from.
[00:08:51] Speaker D: All the way from the nundro, you.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: Know, the classic contemplations.
Okay, we can talk about the prostrations, which always turns people off. I try to avoid talking about the hundred thousand frustrations, but although I had a lot of benefit from that.
Yeah.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: So you have the nundra, which means the preliminary, or that which goes before. So these preliminary practices, which a lot.
[00:09:17] Speaker C: Of folks who are into Tibetan Buddhism may have done or thinking about doing or maybe avoiding doing.
And of course you have Vajra sattva and Bodhichitta, and taking refuge and contemplating.
[00:09:32] Speaker D: The forethoughts that turn the mind towards the dharma. All of those classic mind training teachings are found within that.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: But then he also, in these long chan ningen cycle of jingmei lingpa, teaches on Zog Chen. Right. Trekchu and Tugel, the breakthrough and leap.
[00:09:48] Speaker D: Over phases of Zog Chen practice and everything in between. And within this cycle that he revealed.
[00:09:54] Speaker C: Of the Longchen Yingtig heart essence of.
[00:09:57] Speaker D: The vast expanse treasure that he revealed.
[00:10:00] Speaker C: As a download through his mind from Longchampa were what's called the queen of.
[00:10:08] Speaker D: Great bliss teachings of the de Cheng.
[00:10:13] Speaker C: And it's here that the mother Tara.
[00:10:17] Speaker D: Or the queen of great bliss, which is another form of yeshe sogyl, by.
[00:10:21] Speaker C: The way, manifests as.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: One of the consorts of Tadna sambhava.
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you. Right, right. I can't assume that everybody knows who she is even though she's like, you know, the most or one of the most famous female teachers, master 8th century yoginis.
[00:10:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: And so they sort of. She is kind of in an esoteric.
[00:10:48] Speaker D: Form we meditated upon as the queen of great bliss.
[00:10:53] Speaker C: Like a dakini. Right, Skygoer Chandrama.
But then from her heart manifests the.
[00:11:03] Speaker D: Different 21 tatas at different stages.
[00:11:06] Speaker C: You can meditate on each tara as.
[00:11:09] Speaker D: You imagine yourself as the queen of great bliss doing deity yoga. Right? The deity practice. You imagine yourself as the queen of great bliss, and then from your heart.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Emanates one of the tatas.
[00:11:21] Speaker D: So, like, we could imagine right now.
[00:11:23] Speaker C: That we are this dakini, white in color, dancing in space, wild and wise and fearless.
[00:11:29] Speaker D: Right? And that from our heart, can do that too.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Yes, and men can do it too.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: Non binary gender non conforming without necessarily having an operation, just mentally.
[00:11:42] Speaker C: Thank goodness. Let's avoid the hospitals altogether as much as possible. At least I say that because I was just telling Tencent Thurman about a, you know, challenging surgery I just had. So that's why I'm like, let's just stay out of the surgery. Yeah. If we can imagine it, you know, we can. The gender is just more of a social construct or a dualistic construct anyway.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Identify yourself imaginatively and respectfully as the queen of bliss. Space indivisible. And then. And then what? You radiate, all right?
[00:12:21] Speaker D: And then from our heart chakra, the.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: Center of your sternum is kind of.
[00:12:25] Speaker D: Potent, kind of seat of the soul, you could say.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: The home base of your Buddha nature or your essence of.
[00:12:34] Speaker D: Essential nature of mind, right?
[00:12:36] Speaker C: So from that potential infinite capacity that you have within you bursts from your heart a Tara.
[00:12:45] Speaker D: So today, if we were doing the 8th Tara practice, which we sort of are, right, because we're talking about the.
[00:12:51] Speaker C: Justice Tara, the paracithita, the invincible heroine.
[00:12:56] Speaker D: We would want to manifest her. And so we'd imagine her a dark red in color, taking form from our heart, shooting out from our heart and.
[00:13:06] Speaker C: Taking form in the sky in front and above us.
[00:13:10] Speaker D: And then we would recite her.
[00:13:12] Speaker C: We would sing praises and, you know.
[00:13:15] Speaker D: Make prayers to her and beseech her to help all beings, save all beings.
[00:13:19] Speaker C: From, in particular, her commitment, her theme.
[00:13:24] Speaker D: Is to obliterate injustice.
Obliterate all forms of injustice.
Kind of like confusion, delusion, both inner.
[00:13:34] Speaker C: And outer, that causes injustice.
[00:13:38] Speaker D: So whether it's ego clinging, ego fixation.
[00:13:41] Speaker C: Greed, and all the five poisons in Buddhism that we talk about in terms of misperception or misnowing, I like how you translate that, Doctor Thurman, rather than ignorance.
[00:13:53] Speaker D: I was just reading your book on wisdom is bliss.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: Yeah, and love how you talk about that. That's one of them, right?
[00:14:02] Speaker D: So she overcomes that kind of misnowing.
[00:14:04] Speaker C: Or misperception of our true nature. She helps heal that because it's from that poison or Klesha, that mental affliction.
[00:14:15] Speaker D: That a lot of our other problems.
[00:14:17] Speaker C: Come from, right, greed or violence or territorialism or injustice.
[00:14:25] Speaker D: So we would meditate on her, see her as this. She's fierce, too.
[00:14:30] Speaker C: She's not a peaceful Tara.
[00:14:33] Speaker D: She's very fierce. And remember, she's invincible by all. Jeanne, Miguel, Pommel, she's the heroine who.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: Is invincible from or by everyone, whatever the right grammar is. And she, her.
[00:14:50] Speaker D: And then we would recite her mantra and imagine her enlightened activities emanating out from her, from her heart, from her.
[00:14:58] Speaker C: Body to all beings, pacifying injustice in.
[00:15:03] Speaker D: All corners, all aspects of the world.
[00:15:05] Speaker C: Places that are going through war, famine, greed, violence, abuse, but also healing internal aspects of misperception and the ways that we suffer.
But really, if you're going through, like, lawsuits or any form of, like, legal.
[00:15:26] Speaker D: Issues.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: Conflict, aggression, she's your gal.
She's your tara.
[00:15:36] Speaker A: Can you lead us to recite the mantra a little bit?
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, her mantra. And if you do have the book.
[00:15:44] Speaker D: Or you get the book, it would be on page 113. That's the first page of the 8th Taras chapter.
And the Tara mantra here for her is based on the classic ten syllable.
[00:15:59] Speaker E: Tara mantra, om tare svah.
[00:16:04] Speaker D: That's Taras universal access mantra, I like to say. And you could say that mantra for.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Any of them, by the way. Like, if you can't remember a specific tara mantra, doesn't matter.
[00:16:15] Speaker D: Go right to the ten syllable mantra.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: And just imagine her enlightened activities manifesting.
[00:16:20] Speaker D: Now, having said that, we also have these 21 different mantras for each of the 21 different taras.
[00:16:28] Speaker C: And so the 8th tara mantra is.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: Like, all of them. There's a few extra words inserted right before the svah.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: Hold on a second. I'm doing, sweetie. I'll be there in a minute. I'm not. In a minute. In a little while. Okay? Okay, bye.
[00:16:47] Speaker C: That's your tata calling she's calling in.
So in any case, so there are a few words in before the normal svah ten syllable mantra to make it.
[00:16:59] Speaker D: A little longer to highlight her power.
[00:17:03] Speaker C: So this tara's mantra is om tare.
[00:17:06] Speaker E: Tutare ture daha pacha hong, part svaha.
[00:17:13] Speaker A: I love the way you say that. And I heard you chanting that on your website. Actually, I checked it out. And good pause between daha and bachalo. And you chanted more slowly, I noticed, which I really liked. I'm just now having a kind of insight about that. Because when you said obliterate the other, in this case, the justice Tara. Right. Sometimes justice has to stop crime, stop criminals. And that's the daha, which means to burn.
[00:17:47] Speaker C: That's right.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: To consume. But Pacha means to cook.
[00:17:52] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: I really like, you know, to ripen and to cook.
I just thought of this. I didn't think of it. I don't know if you have the same. Same idea. Maybe I'm wrong, but what I think is that the daha is obliterating. But then the usual buddhist thing about dealing with demons, even with bad guys, is to consider them, once stopped in their destructiveness, material to be developed into something good, like fierce protector.
[00:18:23] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: So vaja, then, means you take what's left after burning down the bad behavior, and you ripen it into something worthwhile, like as a using even the. You know, these often criminals have a lot of initiative to go and rob the bank. You know, they have some courage.
They do daring things, although they get. They luckily can get caught. So they deprive the other people, you know, or. Or take over a country and turn it into a fascist dictatorship, like a Hitler type of figure. And that's why you want to stop that. But then you just don't want to leave it with this. You can't. Buddhists never think you can get rid of anybody.
[00:19:05] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: So therefore, even the bad guy has to, like, be maybe in the next life sometimes, maybe in the between state, Tara has to pursue and, like, put him back into kindergarten, necessary and ripen.
[00:19:25] Speaker C: And that's beautiful.
[00:19:28] Speaker A: It never casts away someone totally, you know? So this is like seeing the russian enemies of the Ukrainians as themselves being liberated by Ukrainians, demanding to live free. Free. Freely.
[00:19:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:43] Speaker A: I think that's happening now. That they went in to actually help some Russians in russian territory who were misled by propaganda into thinking they were Ukrainians, had done something awful. And meanwhile, they're just defending their freedom. Right. So I really love that she has daha, Pacha. And I also love how you say she's fierce. And I don't like people in the Tibet world who go on about wrathful. Yeah, I don't like that.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: I don't like it either.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: That means that they. That they really are angry with somebody, whereas they're just taking the energy away from anger, and they're using it to overwhelm someone who is actually hating other people. Do you know what I mean? They're putting that back in them to calm. Quiet them down. And they're not really angry, but they should show a form that's fierce, hopefully to preempt the angry and the hating ones. You know, the destroying ones, the killing ones, you know. Right.
[00:20:41] Speaker D: I love.
[00:20:41] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:20:42] Speaker D: I love that you. A couple of things about that.
[00:20:44] Speaker C: I love that you just use the word overwhelm because this Tara is a red tara.
[00:20:51] Speaker D: Right. She's red.
[00:20:52] Speaker C: She's a dark red, which signifies she's a fierce padma tata.
[00:20:59] Speaker D: Right.
[00:21:00] Speaker C: Wangdu is the inlined activity of Padma.
[00:21:04] Speaker D: Wang du means to magnetize. Right. But it can also mean to overwhelm.
[00:21:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:12] Speaker D: Because Wang means power. Du means to gather.
[00:21:15] Speaker C: So you can kind of like bring.
[00:21:17] Speaker D: You have the power to gather together.
[00:21:19] Speaker C: And sometimes, I like to say, overwhelm people with your splendor, with your power of love, compassion. To obliterate injustice.
[00:21:29] Speaker A: Exactly. I love it. Now, another wonderful thing. So that's really wonderful. So do you want to, should we meditate with the people who are attending? Would you get them to think, maybe get them to feel fierce and powerful.
[00:21:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:21:47] Speaker A: And sort of dominate a bad situation.
Not destroy, but dominate and ripen it to something good.
[00:21:56] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Maybe chanting. We'll think that way.
[00:22:01] Speaker C: Yes, yes.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Big red, fierce female.
[00:22:05] Speaker D: Yes. Let's become her. Because this is all about embodiment.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: Right.
[00:22:09] Speaker D: Deity practice in my book is called embodying Tara.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Right. So it's all about embodying. So at first, I explained this first.
[00:22:16] Speaker D: Step of imagining this tata in front. We can go right back to that.
[00:22:20] Speaker C: So. And then we'll take another step into embodiment with the mantra visitation.
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Your book is so good. You know, the people are just going nuts about the wish thing. You know, that thing, the secret, that book that was so famous.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: About how people just have to imagine something they want and then they'll get it, but they don't give any method, whereas someone who you are from the tibetan science of how to cultivate them, the imagination, make it more, really do it, an art of how to imagine in a more effective way.
You know, visualization practice. Even if you. And if you can also avoid carrying that over where, like, if someone is being abused by an old boyfriend or something, they could, in meditation, think, send a vibe that I'm not scared, and you're this, like that. But then they shouldn't run out and say that to the guy because he might beat them.
[00:23:23] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: So it's like working in their own mind, and then that feeling of strength to be able to sometimes maybe run away instead.
[00:23:33] Speaker D: Right. Have the strength to know when to.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Say enough, you know? And I think that that's also the wisdom of the Padma family.
[00:23:40] Speaker D: Is that all discerning wisdom.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: Right, right, right.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Fills in people who love that secret idea, which made people feel a little bit liberated, that they could imagine things more positively and that would bring them positivity. You actually showing how to actually do it and use an ancient tradition that was highly developed by millions of people for thousands of years.
I think it really is exciting. I think. But please go ahead. Can you lead us and meditate a little?
[00:24:10] Speaker D: Yeah. How long do you want to do this?
[00:24:12] Speaker C: Long or short?
[00:24:13] Speaker D: Just give me parameters.
[00:24:15] Speaker A: So you're the guru here, not me.
[00:24:18] Speaker E: What?
[00:24:19] Speaker A: Egging you on? You're the guru.
[00:24:21] Speaker D: I'm not a guru. You're the guru.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: Here.
[00:24:26] Speaker C: That is the guru. Okay, how about our instinct is the guru right now?
[00:24:33] Speaker D: Okay.
[00:24:34] Speaker C: Yeah. It won't be too long?
[00:24:35] Speaker D: Oh, maybe.
[00:24:36] Speaker C: Yeah, a little bit.
Okay.
[00:24:39] Speaker D: So let's close our eyes and take some deep breaths and come home.
[00:24:42] Speaker C: Come home to our belly.
[00:24:46] Speaker D: The breath in the belly.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: Just feeling what it's like to be in this body and this moment.
[00:24:59] Speaker D: With the breath.
[00:25:07] Speaker C: We arouse our motivation before any practice. Just remembering that we're always. That we come to practice to be.
[00:25:14] Speaker D: A benefit in some way, large or small, seen or unseen.
[00:25:20] Speaker C: This bodhichitta motivation for practice, this spirit of awakening, this compassionate art of awakening bodhichitta motivation.
[00:25:35] Speaker D: May we help in some.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Way to pacify and incinerate and burn up and then ripen.
[00:25:43] Speaker D: Burn up the injustice and then ripen.
[00:25:45] Speaker C: The justice within us and the world.
So now.
[00:25:56] Speaker D: Let'S go right into embodiment. So I've already described her to you a bit.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: She's this red, but she's more maroon because she has this dark hue and.
[00:26:07] Speaker D: That signifies this ferocity, but in the most kind of feisty, joyful, compassionate, fierce.
[00:26:13] Speaker C: Way, like Thurman said, not wrathful, but fierce.
Compassion, commitment.
[00:26:24] Speaker D: And though this red color is luminous, like a ruby red.
And so let's imagine, as we sound.
[00:26:33] Speaker C: One sound, it's a t, a m thumb.
[00:26:37] Speaker D: Her seed.
[00:26:38] Speaker C: It's like her seed syllable bija mantra. And as we sound thumb, we will.
[00:26:47] Speaker D: Feel our normal body of flesh and bone start to transform from the inside.
[00:26:52] Speaker C: Out into this body of Dada aparajita.
[00:26:57] Speaker D: A dark red maroon color, a body.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: Of light, of luminosity, hollow like a.
[00:27:05] Speaker D: Balloon, vibrating, effervescent light.
[00:27:10] Speaker C: And I'll guide you through this.
[00:27:11] Speaker D: So let's just start now with a nice, deep inhalation.
[00:27:18] Speaker C: And if you can, wherever you are.
[00:27:19] Speaker D: Sound out loud with me.
[00:27:40] Speaker C: And feel yourself now perhaps opening into a more.
[00:27:45] Speaker D: Subtle dimension of who you already are.
[00:27:47] Speaker C: This feeling of a being of light, of Buddha nature, manifesting two legs to arms with.
[00:28:01] Speaker D: You actually have seven eyes, three eyes, two normal eyes, and the third is your wisdom eye. The third eye gazing into space, awake.
[00:28:13] Speaker C: Flashing like lightning you can imagine, or actually do it with your eyes open.
And then the other eyes are on the palms of each hand. So one eye on each palm, and then one eye on each sole of your feet. These eyes, seven eyes of Tara, see.
[00:28:35] Speaker D: Into all the dimensions, all beings witnessing the suffering and this commitment to help.
[00:28:42] Speaker C: Beings be saved from suffering.
[00:28:49] Speaker D: And you have this fierce, powerful, compassionate.
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Commitment to help obliterate, or you'd say incinerate and then water the seeds of justice.
[00:29:03] Speaker D: So incinerate injustice and then ripen justice in the world.
[00:29:10] Speaker C: And as we recite her mantra, feeling.
[00:29:13] Speaker D: This embodiment as much as possible, really.
[00:29:16] Speaker C: Taking our seat.
[00:29:21] Speaker D: Feeling yourself seated on.
[00:29:22] Speaker C: A lotus flower, and atop that is.
[00:29:27] Speaker D: A moon disc, maybe you feel like you're weightless, as if you were on the moon, a little lighter.
[00:29:34] Speaker C: And then we'll recite our mantra.
[00:29:38] Speaker E: Om tari tutare ture dahapacha.
[00:29:43] Speaker D: Omg svah.
And the Hong and the pet are means enlightened mind.
And then part means to cut through duality, cut through delusion. So those are seed syllables too.
But more important is to feel the vibration of the mantra within you. And as you recite it, imagine that rainbow light wisdom. Rainbow light swirls out from your heart center and starts to move through space.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: And bringing justice, freedom from suffering, freedom.
[00:30:21] Speaker D: From aggression, violence, injustice to all beings everywhere. You can imagine specific places or people or countries, the whole universe and beyond.
[00:30:35] Speaker C: The sky is the limit, and beyond.
So we'll recite for a little while together.
[00:30:44] Speaker E: Om dari dutch.
Om dari duture dahapacha home part svdh om dare dutch.
Om dare dahapacha home pat svute dahapacha home part sva om dari dutch.
Om tari tutchahum pat svam om dari dahapach.
Om dari dutari duri dahapache. Om dare dutch.
Om dare dahapacha home pat om dare I dahapachahompat sv dahapacha om dari dutch.
Om dari dutchenhe svaca homepat svac.
Om tari tutari dahapach.
Om tarijdehe dahapacha. Om prat sv.
Om dari dutch.
Om dari dutch.
Om dari duture dahapacha home path sva.
[00:34:17] Speaker C: And so now, with one final blast.
[00:34:20] Speaker D: Of rainbow light, imagine that all of dara aparajita's enlightened activities. All injustice is completely pacified, obliterated.
[00:34:32] Speaker C: Like.
[00:34:32] Speaker D: Rainbow light, blanketing the world and beyond.
Bringing justice and liberation from injustice, but also liberation from delusion, confusion, ignorance, not.
[00:34:44] Speaker C: Knowing who we really are.
[00:34:47] Speaker D: And we all manifest as tadas in rainbow myriad of colors, as enlightened beings filling infinite space.
[00:35:03] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:35:05] Speaker C: Let me finish because we've got to bring you home.
[00:35:08] Speaker D: Okay? And then now the world and its.
[00:35:10] Speaker C: Inhabitants dissolve into space, into light.
[00:35:16] Speaker D: And then that light dissolves into you, your heart, as tada parajita, filling you with bliss.
And then you, as Tada Parajita, dissolve from the crown of your head and the soles of your feet converging, slowly dissolving into that heart chakra within you.
Until then, that space, that orb of light. You could feel an orb of luminous light dissolving into radiant emptiness and rest in awareness for a few moments. Just rest.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: Unbound.
[00:36:13] Speaker D: Rest in your natural state.
This is the ultimate nature of Tara, the great mother.
The womb of totality.
[00:36:35] Speaker C: Bliss, emptiness, awareness, rest.
And then now slowly begin to come back.
[00:36:51] Speaker D: Come back as yourself, but feel as if Tara Parajita were still living within you.
[00:36:57] Speaker C: Like beneath your skin.
[00:36:59] Speaker D: Red luminous Tara, enlightened, being integrated into every cell of your body. As you come back into the space, you can open your eyes, look around, see the world through the eyes of Tara, move about your day, and even.
[00:37:17] Speaker C: Chant that mantra as a way to feel that you're embodying Tara throughout your day.
[00:37:22] Speaker D: When you feel totally hopeless, when you're.
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Reading or looking at the news or.
[00:37:27] Speaker D: In the world, in your family, wherever you are in your workspace. Maybe you could remember this mantra and.
[00:37:33] Speaker C: Recite it instead of spiraling down into.
[00:37:38] Speaker D: The doom scrolling of the mind.
[00:37:40] Speaker C: Replace it with the mantra.
[00:37:42] Speaker D: Right.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Wonderful. Yeah, totally wonderful. Really?
Really?
[00:37:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:55] Speaker A: Maybe you can add another time when you feel your body as hollow, you can feel internal from the gut to the heart center orgasmic bliss as fueling the rainbow libraries.
And don't be shy and bring up the orgasmic bliss.
Yeah, very important, I think.
[00:38:22] Speaker D: Very important.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Doesn't have to be. It can be all internal. It doesn't have to involve a partner necessarily.
[00:38:31] Speaker C: Could you talk more about that?
[00:38:33] Speaker D: Maybe. Maybe enhance life energy.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: In other words, of course, that is the life energy.
[00:38:38] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: They say bliss, freedom, indivisible. Well, they always say bliss, void, indivisible. So they make it sound like it's just like dark nothing. But actually, this openness is freedom. Freedom is a similar negation to emptiness or voidness means it's free of any kind of constriction, any kind of thing. And so the basic openness of the human life form, the basic openness of every cell in everybody's body, which makes the microbiome, the 23,000 different billion different beings who have different genes than human beings that occupy the microbiome, that relate to the brain, that are like the gut brain. It connects to the brain brain and releases all the hormones of positive internal energies.
And they all function well because they like each other. They're actual beings that sort of all link up and hook up together.
And this is a great thing about your ingma tradition, which I also love. And I'm also. I'm actually, I was. I am ordained as I. By the way, I'm happy. I was ordained as a.
Oh, no, no. What does he call it?
[00:40:00] Speaker C: Nakva.
[00:40:01] Speaker D: I saw that Nakva doctor Nida.
[00:40:04] Speaker A: And he has a group of, you know, with the red and white robe and I got all the equipment.
[00:40:10] Speaker C: I saw that.
[00:40:11] Speaker D: Congratulations.
[00:40:12] Speaker A: California. I was ordained as a. What does he call them?
[00:40:16] Speaker D: Nagba.
[00:40:18] Speaker A: That's right. Nakbar. Nakmung. And then ngmong. That's right. I'm sorry. I'm just old and I can't remember where it's. When I. Wrong.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I know. You know any name?
[00:40:25] Speaker A: I can't remember.
[00:40:26] Speaker C: No, I know. You know, I saw that. I'm so happy with.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: By the way, Jing Melinba, I located him. Man played it. He was a close practitioning colleague of the fifth Dalai Lama. Was he his student, actually, because fit Alam was older and your fit Allama was total nygma oriented, you know. Which is why, though, certain weirdos were annoyed about him, you know?
[00:40:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: It's too bad shooting weirdos, you know?
[00:40:56] Speaker C: Oh, gosh. Yeah.
[00:40:57] Speaker A: He was like, he loved the Nima thing. And then, and then he. He built for him the Min jer ling fifth dollar. He made huge donation from government.
[00:41:06] Speaker D: That's right.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: Monastery, the retreat place, those two monasteries.
Because he wanted the Zogzhen people to have more monastic backing. Because that was the way you had a kind of support in the lay family, couldn't match the monastic backing. So fifth Alama wanted them to have also that kind of seat, you know, those guys, although they were often lay people. But he wanted some, you know, some preliminary ones to do that. And then where the reason he is a figure in the novel I'm about to release with my dear friend Annie Bien, the poetical writer. And on the six Dalai Lama, he was teacher of six Dalai Lama, really, who refused to be a monk, who was wanting to be a ling Akbar, who was, and also of Desi Sangeeto, the, who discovered the 6th and who was kind of weird. He was kind of like a spiritual son of the fifth. He was like spiritual father of the 6th. And he shared with the 6th his love of the ningma thing also, you know, and the whole different, you know, coming kind of down from the monastic palace of the Potala, going around lhasa and having some fun.
And, you know, then this relates to, you know, the zog word in Tibetan, which means to complete.
Yeah. Translate as perfection. And. Yeah, too many westerners think it means your complete is to just take off in space.
[00:42:37] Speaker D: Right.
[00:42:38] Speaker A: But actually it doesn't translate nishpana or sampana in Sanskrit. Anything that means to complete or, or sampat, you know, which means a perfection. It doesn't translate that. It translates mahasandi and sandhi means connection.
Connection. So when you go in that central tiny little drop of pure indestructible drop where, which merges with clear light, which is the great pointing out, that is the key heart thing of the, of the, you know, dough. Chen, what happens instead of going into the microcosm and through the microcosm, you go into connecting with all life.
[00:43:25] Speaker C: That's right. That's right.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: Being a blessing to it all and feeling its blessing, since it's where our life itself is. Blessing.
[00:43:35] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:43:35] Speaker A: We are a product we produce and we are the product of blessing. All of us bliss. Blessing. Blessing. Blessing.
[00:43:43] Speaker C: Blessing. Oh, did you just make that up, John?
[00:43:45] Speaker A: The spot.
So that's all. So that's, I mean, we want to make, when you, when you chant that, that meditation is so powerful, I suddenly realized that, you know, you, you could do a course we, if you don't want to do it yourself, we'll do it on Menlo with you. Could do, we could do 18 different conversations, 21 different conversations on each one of these with you chanting and leading and doing that rainbow light. I think it's beautiful, but let's do it. I saw you doing, on your website, I think you were doing.
[00:44:21] Speaker E: Melody.
[00:44:23] Speaker A: By the way, Tibetans, they go pay.
Yeah, Tibetans from Lhasa dialect. I'm not, don't do that. And eastern dependence and Ladakhis don't. But lots of dialect, they kind of don't bother with the final consonant, you know, pat, they just, when they see a da at the end or da, they go pe. And pe is okay, too. But, and especially a retroflex t, which involves a curling the tongue kind of implosive as well as explosive, you know, it has that sound, you know, and I love that you do that. I think that's a little bit breaking from what's following exactly tibetan pronunciation, going back to indian part, you know, part.
[00:45:12] Speaker C: I asked Kempote one dungeon, he said.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: When he said, you know, the Amdo people further away from Lasa, you know, and Ladakh in the other direction, they sort of pronounce all the letters, you know, more think they're real hill, you know, hillbillies. They're hicks, you know, lots of people. Anyway, that's one of, now another thing before, but before, I just want to lose. But another thing is that this wonderful aparajita, aparajita long r because female. And so you have a beautiful thing under each taehyde where you honor the fact that 21 tarot are only standing up. Standing in for million. 21 million all over the whole planet.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't give the number, but I.
[00:46:07] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, it's in the meditation, you.
[00:46:09] Speaker C: Mean, or the book.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: In other words, infinite buddhist vision. The buddhist vision that the world that the life energy is connected with enlightening, savior being.
[00:46:22] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Like there was one little hoop in one little place who sort of helps a few people and then everybody else got trampled. It isn't at all like that. It's like they're like everywhere. So you honored that by under each tower of the, of the famous 21 you found some living beings recently living and currently still living.
These two happen to be recently living very recently. But I think you should tell us about that. And in each, each one, you have all Nobel Prize winner females and going because this is what we have to do, the, we chauvinist males, we have to realize that we would have destroyed ourselves and the whole planet a long time ago.
They are preserving it and keeping it going. And as Hillary kind of, sometimes a little grumpily, but generously says, like a good Wesley girls, Wesley Wellesley, girl scout that she is, she says, cleaning up their messes, you know, having to clean up your messes. You know, she knows very well about that because she has bill masks to clean up all the time and she has done so. And my point is, it's the idea that there are many beings and we can find Tara in every woman. There should be a vow over the male chauvinist to do so.
[00:47:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:47:55] Speaker A: So tell us about who are your apparatus candidates?
[00:47:59] Speaker D: Well, there are so many and well, the candidate, we have the candidate.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Ones in the book first, maybe. Okay.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: The ones in the book first. I mean, and I just want to preface this by, you know, we went to print, and so the tatas that I chose, the real life women or gender nonconforming transgender women, I chose to.
[00:48:21] Speaker D: Be in the book. Of course, it's frozen in time because.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: The book had to go to print.
[00:48:25] Speaker D: But it's ever evolving.
[00:48:26] Speaker C: I'm always asking my students and people.
[00:48:28] Speaker D: To say, send me in new suggestions.
[00:48:30] Speaker C: For people, even if it's your grandmother.
[00:48:34] Speaker D: They don't all have to be Nobel Prize winners.
[00:48:36] Speaker C: I also want to get out of that mindset of it having to be.
[00:48:40] Speaker D: Some extraordinary person who we will never.
[00:48:42] Speaker C: Be, because it's also embodiment like, how.
[00:48:46] Speaker D: Can I be her? You know?
[00:48:47] Speaker C: Like.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Like, extraordinary person, you know, Mark Epstein, I'll never forget, you know, my friend. Famous friend. The famous psychiatrist and Buddhist. Buddhist shrink.
[00:48:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Like, he's great.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: Had an epiphany one day about his own wife, who is a well known sculptress, but it wasn't because of that. But he realized that she was a miracle worker, you know, when they, as a family know. And then when he realized that she could turn a tuna fish set. Tuna fish sandwiches, into a beautiful baby.
[00:49:26] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: Like, who can do that?
[00:49:29] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: That's extraordinary. Who can do that?
[00:49:33] Speaker C: We know. Body offering some genes.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: It's not some. You know, Ma Watson and Crick are not sitting there sending out jeans to do that. Richard Dawkins is not sending out a selfish gene to go do that. Every woman is doing that. Who does that. And ones who don't do that can do it in other ways.
[00:49:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yes, yes. Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely.
[00:49:57] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:49:57] Speaker C: And even, you know, all of us can be Tara, as you said earlier on the call, it's like, this is not just for women.
[00:50:04] Speaker D: This is, you know, I honestly.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: That'S a little bit more fierce one. Basmikuro.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: Anyway, what does that mean.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: To ashes.
[00:50:24] Speaker C: You know, to ashes. Right.
[00:50:26] Speaker D: Incinerate.
[00:50:26] Speaker C: That's why.
[00:50:27] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:50:27] Speaker A: Healing. But that's a healing, healing thing. Burning up the pain, you know?
[00:50:32] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah, you are certainly.
[00:50:35] Speaker C: I want that one.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: Why not? That's the whole point, you know, is that women are bullied into being lesser unless they do something that men think is extraordinary, but actually, every single one of them is extraordinary.
[00:50:49] Speaker C: Yes, yes. Yeah.
[00:50:51] Speaker D: I had a student who we were learning about ChuD and the body offering.
[00:50:55] Speaker C: She was asking, what does this mean? Or even the mandala offering from the ChuD or severance tradition is more of like, you know, the wandering yogin tradition. So they don't have a lot of jewels and gems to offer in a.
[00:51:08] Speaker D: Kind of traditional mandala offering ceremony.
[00:51:11] Speaker C: So they imagine, we imagine our body as the sacred mandala, and the two eyes are the sun and the moon and the arms are the four continents and the spine is the Mount Meru and all of this. Right. And she said, she's sort of newer to this concept, an old yogi and teacher and experienced practitioner. But she said, could I? Because we were talking about the body.
[00:51:35] Speaker D: Offering and what that meant to offer.
[00:51:37] Speaker C: Your body as nectar to feed all beings. Yeah. As the ultimate generosity.
And she said, but isn't it, don't we kind of do that when we grow a baby and we nurse a baby? And I said, yes, that's another way of understanding the body offering and generosity.
[00:52:01] Speaker A: I was thinking of my breasts because I was visualizing myself as a big, hefty, red, fierce looking female.
And I was realizing that that sort of ecstasy of nursing comes from inner orgasmic energy. And the body expressed that way. Why males are so jealous of women nursing, actually, they get terribly jealous. You know, they wanted.
[00:52:28] Speaker C: They wanted. And there's this cloistering that the baby gets. Yeah, right.
[00:52:33] Speaker A: But actually, that means that every cell in the female body is able to give itself in that way. So that makes them all complete miracle. And Tara reveals that, I think, yeah, yeah. I'm an ignorant chauvinist, man. I don't believe I'm not.
[00:52:47] Speaker D: You're not chauvinist?
[00:52:48] Speaker A: Oh, my.
[00:52:48] Speaker C: I mean, I don't know what Naina would say, but you don't seem chauvinist.
[00:52:51] Speaker A: She would never pretend to let me pretend to be fully healed and cured of the chauvinism. It's harder to do, but I try and envision it. So please tell us about Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
[00:53:05] Speaker D: Well, we all know about her, but she really committed her whole life, most of her life, to justice. Right?
[00:53:11] Speaker C: She, especially gender justice and civil liberties. So I really thought she could be a great example of somebody who embodies.
[00:53:23] Speaker D: This real life justice is Tara.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: I want her to haunt those other people, those men in that place who are supreme court and their weird projections, you know?
[00:53:36] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:53:37] Speaker A: We have to ask Ruth to postpone her recon reincarnation in some heaven, that she deserves to stay as a ghost and haunt them and maybe do they have any conscience left about their absolute irrational nonsense?
[00:53:52] Speaker C: I know it's really tragic what's going on.
[00:53:54] Speaker A: I'm not just talking to Trump. I'm talking Roberts stopping people voting, refusing to honor the Civil Rights act of 1965 and gutting it so that they can block voting, which is what they're trying to do now. They've given up trying to win those other people.
[00:54:12] Speaker C: Exactly. This is so important. This is why I wanted to.
[00:54:16] Speaker D: I want everybody to focus on justice.
[00:54:18] Speaker C: Tara, if I.
[00:54:19] Speaker D: They're into Tatara practice and Buddhism and.
[00:54:21] Speaker C: Like, doing mantra and prayer, supplement your activism with some eight Tata mantra, please, because talk about voting rights, you know.
[00:54:32] Speaker D: Not just gender justice, of course, gender justice, civil rights, all of this.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: But right now, voting rights, and then.
[00:54:38] Speaker D: Also people supporting people who are working for justice.
[00:54:41] Speaker C: Like, you know, I mean, when I was looking at watching Michelle Obama give her speech at the DNC, for example.
[00:54:47] Speaker D: Holy cow.
[00:54:48] Speaker C: And we know she's amazing. And then Kamala Harris, so Kamala Harris, Kamala Devi she Kamala, which means lotus, by the way. And I was just looking up more about the Taras and their different meanings. And, you know, there's a lot of overlap with the hindu tantric goddess worship or Hinduism and buddhist huntric practices. And one.
[00:55:21] Speaker D: So the 6th TaRa, who's related to the 8th, they're all about justice, and they're fierce, and they're red.
[00:55:26] Speaker C: They're like sisters.
And the 6th taras name is MAhabhairava.
[00:55:32] Speaker D: Right? And so mahabhairava, or you could say Bhairavi. It's just same to indicate the feminine gender. Right?
[00:55:39] Speaker C: So she's the great fierce one. I call her the awe inspiring one because she inspires awe, not terror, not like horror, but like, ah.
And so MAhabhairava. Bhairava is the. Is the fifth of what are called.
[00:56:00] Speaker D: The ten Mahavidyas in the Hindu tradition.
[00:56:04] Speaker C: And so here's an overlap of a Tara.
I'm going back to the 6th Tata, by the way, you're gonna have to get the book and read taras in chapter six. She is also associated with the hindu goddess Bhairavi, who's the fifth of the.
[00:56:22] Speaker D: MahavidyaS, the great mothers, the ten great.
[00:56:25] Speaker C: Mothers within the hindu tradition. Fast forward to the 10th of the mothers in the Mahavidya tradition of Hinduism, and you have her name as Kamala, and I didn't even know that. So I've told Tenzinllah that I wanted to bring this up, that the 10th Mahavidya within the hindu tradition, her name is Kamala, and she is associated with the fierce aspect of Lakshmi, who's about abundance, auspiciousness.
[00:56:59] Speaker D: And so there's so many reasons why.
[00:57:02] Speaker C: Kamala is here right now for a reason. I really feel like the United States, we need this kind of shakti, we need this kind of energy funneling through. Now, whether or not Kamala is perfect or not, I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about, like, some kind of wisdom stream coming from mother India.
[00:57:21] Speaker D: Medicine, nectar is coming through in some way, seen and unseen.
[00:57:25] Speaker A: You know, Joe Biden just yesterday in Philadelphia or wherever, somewhere in Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, he said best thing he did all four years as a president was choosing Kamala, Davy Kamala Harris as his vice president. That was the best decision he made because that's great. He made some that were not so good, of course, but he did basically good work. But he did a lot of work, a few that were not quite right. But the point is, you know, did the best he could, but that was his best decision. He said, I think that's true.
[00:57:57] Speaker C: I love that.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: I mean, look at Justice Ginsburg. She was really strongly pushing the era, the equal rights amendment for women, which then they passed. They hired some jerk woman to pretend ruined the kitchen, you know, and they would ruin women and blah, blah. And they. Because they didn't want to pay the salaries, you know, billionaires, and they didn't want to pay the women who do such essential work. They didn't want to get paid to for it, which they should, of course, you know, and so it still failed, even though she did all that great work as a supreme court justice. And now we have the chance to finish the job.
[00:58:36] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:58:36] Speaker A: Finally have the chance. And I've been noticing some really nice things on the, on the tube where they put in Jordan Ferraro, and then they show Hillary, and now they show Kamala. And now it's. Now we're going to have landslides. Landslide. Because the males have gone so wacky with all the weird, demonic crap that they're doing. It's just, I mean, they're not even trying to please anybody, to do anything for anybody. And what she said is so beautiful. Did you hear her yesterday? She said, leadership has been defined as strong by how much you can beat other people down.
[00:59:13] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:14] Speaker A: The bully that gives the pain to people, you know, bullying, you know, that they're women that experience from childhood.
[00:59:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:59:21] Speaker A: And she says, now we should define leadership as how you can lift them up. That's the strength of leadership. How you other people up.
[00:59:30] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: That's the pacha side of the daha. Pacha.
[00:59:33] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:59:34] Speaker A: Ripening the cooking, you know, actually making something delicious out of even a bad guy. After. After educating reeducation, we're going to eat.
[00:59:45] Speaker C: It, and he eat them and turn them into nectar.
We're going to transform the poison into medicine.
[00:59:53] Speaker A: That's the only way, of course. But usually not necessarily like Mahakala. And these kind of beings, you know, they keep them. They don't. They keep them. They hold them steady, keep them alive, and then help them to understand what's better for themselves, even, you know, which is never hateful and destructive, and beat other beings down because that makes them more and more miserable as that's beating themselves down. People can learn that, actually.
[01:00:22] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: But sometimes you have to restrain them so that they don't kill the teacher before they do, which is a little bit of a concern.
[01:00:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:00:34] Speaker A: So. So anyway. Yes, so you have. You have her. I love that. And then which ones do you have for the 6th? One for the.
[01:00:41] Speaker C: Oh, well, okay, so there are. I love them all in different ways, but the six I really love, because.
Do you know who she is?
[01:00:54] Speaker A: Yeah, because of that awful thing that.
[01:00:57] Speaker C: They do over there, that female genital mutilation. Yeah. So the 6th Tara the great, awe inspiring Tara. So she's also like the 8th. She's dark red fierce. Her name in Sanskrit is Tara mahabhairava. Her tibetan name is Droma Jiggenmo, the great, fierce one or terrifying one. But I like awe inspiring because you see why I'm trying to go with that? It's more of a positive slant rather than totally fearful. Because sometimes people are like, oh, these fierce deities. I can't handle it anymore. I'm like, but how can we embody that sharp wisdom?
[01:01:42] Speaker A: The word sublime, you know, sublime would be terrifying if you're very, very egotistical. But if you're able to open a little bit to something fierce seeming, then it actually breaks you through your blocks, your own blocks, and you can gain bliss from that. So that's where all becomes. Where terror turns into bliss. But it needs. It needs to confront terror to get there. And that sort of thing. That's the word sublime. Affected.
[01:02:10] Speaker C: I love the word sublime.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: Thing that could frighten someone who's very, very tight and egotistical. Sublime.
[01:02:19] Speaker C: Right, right. Okay, so.
[01:02:21] Speaker A: Oh, that was sublime, but like, it was a cup of tea. But sublime is specially reserved in aesthetics for what could be grisly. But then if you can be exalted by the. I feel open.
[01:02:31] Speaker D: Right?
[01:02:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. So she.
[01:02:34] Speaker D: Her superpower, I like to say, her.
[01:02:36] Speaker C: Enlightened activity is to destroy all negativity, particularly negativity born of confusion, misperception, memory loss, amnesia and mental illness.
[01:02:50] Speaker D: So I thought this was really interesting.
[01:02:51] Speaker C: Lamit Soltram, when I was talking to her about this, when she turns to me, she's like, isn't it great? We have Atara for amnesia, for like, memory loss as we get older. I was like, yeah, that's so great. But as I was trying to find the real life Tara, I thought, oh, I don't want to just focus on that.
What can I find? And when I found, when I was reading about Nawal el Sadawi, this wonderful egyptian humanitarian psychiatrist, remember, mental illness was one of her healing of superpowers, right? So when I found her, I was.
[01:03:23] Speaker D: So intrigued and inspired by her, I couldn't get enough of her.
[01:03:26] Speaker C: I highly recommend people read about her, read her books, her plays, and read her short biography in my book, too, to get you started, because this Tara, let me set it up a little bit. It'll make more sense why I chose her. So this tata, as I said, she.
[01:03:47] Speaker D: Helps to destroy or heal.
[01:03:49] Speaker C: We could say confusion, memory loss, misperception, amnesia, mental illness.
[01:03:56] Speaker D: And then let's look at her symbol, which is on the next page, 94.
[01:04:00] Speaker C: If you've got the book.
[01:04:01] Speaker D: It's her ritual dagger, which is called.
[01:04:03] Speaker C: A purba in Tibetan or kila in Sanskrit, and it has a lot of meanings.
It's a ritual dagger which helps to stake down ceremonial sites, to kind of stake down negative energies so that we can go deep within our shamanic journey. Right. And no negativity, we'll come in and disrupt our healing process. But it also sometimes is associated with the world tree, a colossal tree that.
[01:04:34] Speaker D: Connects the heavens to the terrestrial world and the underworld. So in this sense, Tara Mahabhairava uses.
[01:04:42] Speaker C: Her ritual dagger to connect heaven and earth, to stake down the wisdom of all the ages.
[01:04:49] Speaker A: That's the word. It's actually more than a dagger, actually a stake.
[01:04:53] Speaker C: It's a stake, yeah. Used from the nomadic.
[01:04:55] Speaker D: Right.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: The vampire slayer is manifesting the Mahabharata.
You know, just stake through the heart of the vampire, the person who.
[01:05:09] Speaker C: I love that. That's a great. I love the pop culture associations here. It's so helpful.
So when I was popped up from.
[01:05:18] Speaker A: Everywhere, if you look for it, it.
[01:05:20] Speaker C: Really does, because it's in these oldenhouse, old cultural stories. Yeah. And so when I found Nawal el Sadawi, her really, her weapon, this wonderful egyptian feminist, humanitarian, writer, educator, psychiatrist who was born in 1931, she died in 2021.
Her weapon, quote unquote, was the mighty pen and the penniless. What does it remind you of? It looks kind of like this purba, this ritual dagger. And with her pen, with her writing, she's staking down ancient memories of when women were not subjugated, right, 5000 years plus ago, perhaps especially in Egypt when.
[01:06:08] Speaker D: Women had elevated status, were not owned.
[01:06:11] Speaker C: By men like chattel and so on.
[01:06:15] Speaker D: So she wrote about that.
[01:06:16] Speaker C: And so she brought the unmanifest or.
[01:06:20] Speaker D: The old memories down from heaven, back.
[01:06:24] Speaker C: Down to earth with her ritual dagger of the pen and wrote it down. And so she wrote books, plays, but she did so much more than that.
Let me read a little bit from this.
[01:06:39] Speaker D: She embodies the fierce fire of Tara Mahabhairava with her commitment to exposing and.
[01:06:45] Speaker C: Healing the negativity born of delusion, amnesia and mental illness, particularly seeking to heal the psychological imbalances that result from oppression and abuse.
Doctor Sadawi has published extensively on issues faced by women in Egypt.
[01:07:04] Speaker D: Refusing to shy away from the controversial.
[01:07:07] Speaker C: Topics of prostitution, domestic violence, female genital mutilation and religious fundamentalism, Sadawi asks all.
[01:07:17] Speaker D: Of us to overcome oppression by seeing and naming it.
[01:07:21] Speaker C: So in that way, she's overcoming sort.
[01:07:24] Speaker D: Of like the forgetting of the beauty way.
[01:07:26] Speaker C: You know, Kota would say there are.
[01:07:29] Speaker D: Ways of beauty, there are ways of.
[01:07:31] Speaker C: Being in the world that are not combative and patriarchal and dominating. And so she sought to bring that into our collective present day memory. And there's a lot there.
[01:07:47] Speaker D: So you can see how I tried.
[01:07:48] Speaker C: To, in a sense, kind of get.
[01:07:50] Speaker D: Creative about how I found these modern day real life. Now, they're not all modern, but a.
[01:07:56] Speaker C: Lot of the women in my book are modern but really real life women who embody certain qualities of the tatas.
[01:08:03] Speaker D: So that it helps us to see.
[01:08:05] Speaker C: How they exist maybe around us through different people, but also can exist within ourselves. Like, how can I write down my dreams and bring them into being? How can I help? Kind of remember my family history, right? Can we remember names of our grandparents parents, our grandparents grandparents?
How much of our own kind of familial but also historical memory can we maintain so that we don't forget wisdom and the gifts that have been given.
[01:08:46] Speaker D: From the past and the ancestors?
[01:08:48] Speaker C: So that gives you a sense of that.
[01:08:51] Speaker D: But I thought it was so interesting.
[01:08:53] Speaker C: How Mahabhairava, this tatara, is also linked with Kamala, the 10th Mahavidya. Is she so much, which means, you know, lotus Lakshmi. So padma, she's the Padma family devi.
[01:09:09] Speaker D: Coming into our world.
[01:09:12] Speaker A: He has a slogan that we hope to make him t shirt, somebody's going to LOtus for PotUS.
[01:09:22] Speaker C: And yeah, I've seen that. I think that's great.
[01:09:25] Speaker A: But it would be good to have the purva in the middle of the lotus. I think that would be really interesting.
[01:09:30] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. But the symbol for the 8th tara.
[01:09:34] Speaker D: The literal justice tara, is the vajra.
[01:09:36] Speaker C: Actually, which is interesting.
[01:09:39] Speaker A: The purva has a vajra on top of it.
[01:09:42] Speaker C: Well, there you go. Two for one.
[01:09:46] Speaker A: And a little higher griva head on top of the vajrade sometimes also.
[01:09:50] Speaker C: Yes. Right.
[01:09:52] Speaker A: The little Hayagriva head. Who is Padma sambhava? You know, the rude mantra of Hayagriva is padma sambhavar.
[01:09:57] Speaker C: I don't know if, you know, I didn't know that. I didn't know.
[01:10:01] Speaker A: It is the. It is the source mantra. You know, the root mantra of the. I agree that.
[01:10:08] Speaker D: Do you know what's interesting?
[01:10:09] Speaker A: Oh, it's wonderful.
[01:10:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Are we at time?
[01:10:14] Speaker A: I don't. Well, yeah, I think proximate we must be. I think it's been about what's. I forgot. I don't know.
[01:10:21] Speaker C: I was like an hour, maybe hour and 15 minutes.
[01:10:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That's what we should usually do. We should. We should do another one.
[01:10:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:10:27] Speaker A: Actually soon with a different one. But, but can, can we, can we do the Kamala thing and just at the end close with the Kamala thing because of the context, can we meditate that? We envision Kamala Devi and we don't believe all these down putting polls and the media who are withdrawing their false equivalencies and refuse to recognize a criminal versus a prosecutor.
And they act like, oh, maybe he really didn't, you know, he lost the election. He was already like, no, it's a whole criminal pretense that's going on, that. Which is why they justified in trying to block the vote because they have given up trying to win it, actually, because they know it's based on a lie that he was elected last time, which he wasn't, and he's raised all the money and he, and therefore he's only pretending to run for office and he will simply make a rebellion if, should the actual numbers come out against him. It's so confident you follow and so really be deployed. Now we have to be ready to deploy it against the sort of biggest possible national crime that is being definitely planned for.
It's not like, just so maybe they might get emotional and do something. No, they're planning for it. There's no doubt of it. Because it's ever, it's coming out more and more clearly that that's the case. So could we think about, you know, and I, the other day, I was looking at her talking and laughing and how thrilled she is. She's. It is. Her energy is a joyful energy, actually. It is joyful. And then I made some people mad, and I hope feminist won't be mad, but I could see her face on Mount Rushmore, actually. It is a very square face. It's a long face. It looks very strong. It's a very strong face. You know, it's not like a little, like, chirpy thing. It's a. It's a strong face, you know, beautiful, of course, but very, very strong. And then somebody said, oh, they would never put another person. And, well, she's part indian. I defined myself kind of indian.
The point is that there is a priest in Tamil Nadu and her grandparents village and they're making prayers there. Although they say, we know that we're not going to make a big fuss because they won't make a big fuss about us because she's also representing the blacks, you know, from Jamaica, you know.
[01:13:06] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:13:07] Speaker A: From Africa. That lineage, you know.
[01:13:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:13:09] Speaker A: So then ours is the minor contribution, but we're still praying and had big poster, giant, like. Like a road poster, you know, of her. That's why they already had that up, you know. And of course, doing day and night pujas in this little, small village, you know. I don't know if you saw that.
[01:13:26] Speaker C: I did. I love it. I was wondering.
[01:13:30] Speaker A: He is not making a big fuss about it, which they should. And the thing is that we should make a fuss. We should channel this Tara justice Tara, backed up by Vairavitara, ready to go in case the other ones get out of hand, you know, with the stake, you know, putting the stake in that. The vampires really get out of hand when they lose because they're going to lose by landslide. And the landslide will be good because the landslide gives a margin where they really would have to do naked violence only, you know.
[01:14:04] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Fake law cases and things like they've been doing. So I'm just saying the joyful thing about joyful ferocity.
[01:14:13] Speaker C: Yes.
[01:14:14] Speaker A: By the women of this nation righted behind Kamala. And they're finding their own Kamala finding.
And learn that mantra and say it a lot and speak up in the coffee shops and speak up at the bus stop and speak up bravely. And I think we'll see the landslide. What do you think?
[01:14:54] Speaker C: I think so, too. And I wanted to say that a lot of people have a hard time.
[01:14:58] Speaker D: Memorizing or learning these mantras.
[01:15:00] Speaker C: So we've with Nina Rao, who you know and love. I know. And Genevieve Walker. We've written a melodies for all these 21 tara mantras. And there's a melody for this Tara eight mantra. I've gave it to you. Maybe we can post it on the notes of this podcast so it helps people learn them with the melody. Right? Like Kirtan. And so check it out.
[01:15:26] Speaker A: Once she's elected and once we get past a little bit of a mini revolution they're going to try, we then will still be more obstacles and we need to keep behind Justice Tara Tuchel till we get era deratified. We clean up the Supreme Court mess, get the money out of the elections. You know, there's a lot of work to do, abortion rights, voting act again, etcetera. So this, we should, this should all continue. So what I was going to propose and anyway, let's dedicate the merit. And then I want to propose, so don't sign off. But let's dedicate merit. Let's close this. We're going to do more of these. And I wanted to something to do that even after November. Yes, this is may we dedicate the merit to all beings becoming equal to taras already saved and saving others, saving themselves and others. And that's where we're going to put the merit of this little podcast that we did together, if that suits you. If you want to chant something or say something.
[01:16:29] Speaker C: Oh, I love it.
[01:16:30] Speaker D: No.
[01:16:30] Speaker A: Perfect dedication.
Another one.
[01:16:34] Speaker C: It's perfect. May it be so. Malala.
[01:16:55] Speaker B: The Bob Thurman podcast is produced through Creative Commons. No derivatives license. Please be sure to, like, share and repost on your favorite social media platforms. And it's brought to you in part through the generous support of the Tibet House Us Menla membership community and listeners like you.
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tashi Delek. And thanks for tuning in.
