The Lost Sadhanas Project: White Tara
Entering Into Tara's Paradise

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When meditating on White Tara, my mind is like a circus tent with clowns, wild animals, and burlesque circus comedians. It is full of chaos. But the noise dies down and a light appears in the center of the tent. A beautiful ballerina appears dressed in white with dark hair and green eyes. She smiles and the universe smiles with her. Her eyes are huge and expand to fill the tent, and then the universe. Mentally, she says, "Follow me."

The tent turns white and becomes the sails of a tall ship. It is made of polished wood and its sails billow in the wind. We follow a path of light through the starry sky.

White Tara has become the figurehead of a living ship as we travel through shimmering stars and skies. We sail to her paradise.

It is surrounded by a complex mandala made of crystals. It is a living mandala transforming into ever new shapes. She says, "There is no way in for visitors; the mandala must open of its own accord and create a gateway for entry."

Tara places a diamond vajra on my heart and she has taken the form of a veiled Hindu heavenly dancer. I am a mirror and I reflect her form. The mandala opens my soul and the suffering and confusion of the past comes pouring out.

Past pain pours into a gateway, as does the renunciation of that pain and anger, the refusal to live for vengeance. It all circles the entrance of her paradise.

White Tara says,

At the entrance to the paradise is a sort of X-Ray machine. It does not examine your physical body. It looks at your inner bodies and reveals anything that would not be appropriate for a paradise. All those circling images are the attachments of the past, some of desire but most of pain. These attachments are difficult to get rid of because deep pain has claws that fasten onto the soul and cling tightly. So, these remain at the entrance to the paradise as your spirit enters.

Everything in the paradise is made of white light. There are shimmering waterfalls of light, and gardens full of white roses and lotuses. Trees chime, birds call, and worlds are born and die in the lakes and rivers.

White Tara says, "My world is a place of beauty and wisdom. There is much that you could learn here. But you must first return [to your life] to understand and reject the darkness of your past."

We now move on to topics associated with the Bodhisattva Maitreya.