Awakening with Tara: Wisdom, Compassion, and the Courage to Respond
For over a thousand years, Tara has been cherished as the embodiment of swift compassion, fearless wisdom, and liberating activity. She is the essence of enlightened feminine energy, not as a fixed identity, but as a dynamic expression of awakened mind that responds without hesitation to the suffering of the world.
In these times of deep division and mounting uncertainty, when democratic and judicial norms are strained, institutions meant to protect the vulnerable are weakened or dismantled, and the ground of shared truth feels increasingly unstable, many feel a growing sense of fear, grief, and helplessness. The treatment of those seeking refuge reveals how fragile our collective humanity can be. Economic insecurity touches more and more lives. In the face of so much unraveling, Tara does not turn away. She rises, swift, luminous, unshakable. Not as an escape from the world, but as the fierce compassion that enters it. She meets our fear with presence, our despair with resolve, and in doing so, she awakens the courage to act with wisdom and care.
Tara’s origin story is not only beautiful, it is profoundly liberating. In a distant age, she appeared as the princess Jñānacandrā, Wisdom Moon, a realized practitioner who served countless Buddhas. When advised by monks to pray for rebirth as a man in order to achieve full awakening, she replied with clarity and resolve: all designations—male, female, neither, or both—are empty of inherent essence. Awakening has no gender. With that, she vowed to attain enlightenment in female form and to continue manifesting that way until all beings are freed.
This radical vow points directly to the empty and luminous nature of all appearances, a truth revealed through many teachings, including the Eight Consciousnesses, the Two Truths, and the view of Mahamudra. Our conditioned mind creates layers of dualistic perception: self and other, male and female, sacred and ordinary. But Tara’s realization cuts through those constructs. The Eight Consciousnesses show how perception becomes distorted through habitual grasping. The Two Truths remind us that appearance and emptiness are inseparable. And Mahamudra reveals that appearances do not obscure vast awareness; they are its luminous expression, inseparable from the space in which they arise. Tara’s form, her voice, her activity, all arise from this nondual ground. In this way, she is not just a symbol of awakening but its living expression.
Tara practice is not confined to a single form. It can be intimate and direct, simply calling her name or reciting her mantra in moments of fear. It can also be richly ritualized, involving visualization, mantra recitation, offerings, and singing praises to each of her 21 forms. In every case, her presence is immediate. She responds not because she is elsewhere, but because the nature of awakened awareness is already alive within us. Tara gives us a doorway into that recognition.
In June, we’ll gather for a weeklong retreat centered on a profound Tara terma revealed by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, a master of Vajrayana and Mahamudra, known for his realization, joy, and spontaneous songs of insight. This practice is sung, and its melodies serve as a gateway—supporting the teachings to move through the voice, body, and heart in a deeply embodied way. Along with the Tara practice, we’ll also sing songs of realization, spontaneous expressions of awakened mind that help shift us from conceptual understanding into direct experience. These songs support the view of Mahamudra, allowing the natural clarity of mind to shine through.
In addition to the main Tara practice at the June Retreat, we will be learning and practicing Riwo Sang Chöd, a powerful smoke offering ritual that clears karmic obstacles, purifies clinging, and restores balance in our relationship to the seen and unseen world. Traditionally performed in the early morning alongside Tara practice, Riwo Sang Chöd is an offering of generosity on many levels: material, energetic, and spiritual. At a time when ecological imbalance, social harm, and personal confusion are so prevalent, this ritual helps release habitual grasping and reestablish harmony with the world around us. It is an offering of self and substance, dissolving boundaries and making space for blessing.
We’ll also engage in Guru Rinpoche’s Seven-Line Prayer, one of the most essential practices in the Vajrayana tradition. This concise, evocative prayer is both a direct invocation of Padmasambhava and a doorway into his enlightened activity, especially his fearless compassion and power to dispel obstacles. In a time when outer and inner challenges seem to intensify daily, this prayer strengthens our connection to the unwavering presence of awakened guidance. Tara and Padmasambhava together represent two dynamic currents of enlightened activity: swift, responsive, fearless, and utterly committed to the liberation of beings.
Tara’s practice is one that ever-deepens. It may begin with calling her name in moments of fear or need, but over time, it opens into a vast and luminous path, one that continues to unfold in ways we may not expect. For some, she becomes a refuge. For others, a mirror of their own buddhanature. For many, she is both. Regardless of how long we’ve been practicing, there are always subtler layers to discover, deeper intimacy to uncover, and a growing recognition that Tara is not separate from us. Her wisdom, her compassion, and her fearlessness are not qualities we borrow from outside ourselves but living expressions of our own awakened nature. This retreat is not simply an introduction to Tara, nor a repetition of what is already known. It is an invitation to listen more closely, to enter more fully, and to discover what Tara may be ready to reveal now, that we could not have heard before.
In a culture that rewards reactivity and speed, where the momentum pushes us to act from fear, habit, or conditioning, Tara reminds us that genuine presence is still possible and deeply needed. She shows us that true power lies in responsiveness, not reactivity. That wisdom is not separate from love. That awakening is not beyond us, but waiting to be known, moment by moment, in how we show up for ourselves, for each other, and for the world.
We hope you’ll join us.
