Peacemaker, you transcend passions,

And peer lynx-eyed through samsara

To the naked truth.

Behold this:

                     the yoni mandala

                     the womb door

                     the mysterious gateway

Breathe in the perfume of the lotus flower

Yes, it grows in mud

       (where judge and flogger wallow)

But how it shines in purity!

       Unfolding pink petals

       Of wisdom and compassion.

All of Nature invokes

                     the Jewel in the Lotus . . .

       Diamond hardness

       Sea of bliss

Through this dark portal glimmers

       Orgasmic Nonduality

Through this portal

       Life gushes out in all its forms

In this very moment

The Himalayas hum a perfection they know to be eternal

As we breathe out the sweet taste

Of what it means to be awake.

James:  In The Enlightenment, we depict Green Tara, “the Mother of All Buddhas”, presenting Venus’ yoni to the Buddha under the Bodhi tree to re-install the appreciation of the Divine Feminine to Buddhism.    As with many “holy books” that are put out as transcripts of the words of avatars, mystics, lords, and divine beings, most of these “records” were written down years after the life of the individual; therefore, we can suspect their credibility.  For me, this is most obvious when the “record” presents a patriarchal agenda that would not come from a truly enlightened person.  I also recognize that while Siddhartha Gautama became the Buddha through his incredible spiritual realization, he still was Siddhartha Gautama, a man of his time.  Fifth-century BCE India was well before any modern notions of gender equality.

     Various Buddhist scriptures attribute many anti-woman comments to him;  he says that women cannot be trusted because they can “beguile a man’s heart” and therefore should be avoided.  I know the Buddha abandoned his own wife and spent some years wandering as a mendicant, denying all worldly pleasures, so maybe that is when he said, “From lust springs grief.”  [Lust for Enlightenment, p.30].   He was focused on the unhappy consequences of attachment.  His famous Fire Sermon (Adittapariyaya Sutta) paints a pessimistic view of a dangerous life:  “All is burning . . . burning with the fire of passion [lust], hate, and delusion.  When the blaze of passion fades, one is liberated.”  The “blaze of passion” he is referring to must be that of sexual desire.  He warns about the danger of emotional attachment, but later goes a step further, indicating that all this suffering comes from the fact that we are born through the yoni of a woman, and a man should never even go near one.  “It is better that your penis enter the mouth of a hideous cobra or a pit of blazing coals than enter a woman’s vagina.”  [Lust for Enlightenment, p. 32].  Pretty strong words for an enlightened guy!

     I question whether the Awakened One really said such things, but if he did, our piece literally paints a different picture.    Since I tend to believe that he really was a self-realized master, I painted him purple to indicate his high spiritual development.  As far as I’m concerned, his path to enlightenment included years of sexual indulgence, when he was a pampered prince at the palace and could taste as many beautiful women and polyamorous situations as he had an appetite for.  Maybe he even went overboard and had to do the begging bowl routine for years to regain balance. 

      Green Tara wears a crown of sapphires and rubies, inspired by the jewels I often see in Tibetan thangka paintings.  Most fittingly, our dear friend Evelyn has long identified with Tara, even naming her business “Green Tara Hawaii”, and R.B. was the picture of a peaceful, earthy, holistic man.  So each participant made up the perfect combo for this piece.  The photo shoot was a lot of fun, and it was exciting for me to watch my partner displaying herself for R.B., who, as you can see from his grin in the painting, was quite happy with the situation, too.  The feeling of this painting is one of delight, which a celebration of our physical bodies and what they can do should be.

     Becca:  Tara is a great champion of women, in that she refutes the Buddhist dogma that claims you must incarnate in a man’s body in order to attain enlightenment.  Different interpretations of Buddhist thought offer a broad spectrum of possibilities of sexual conduct, from total monastic negation to complete immersion in the experience of carnal love.  Vajrayana Buddhism joins yoga and ritual practices with psychological reasoning, as written in the Tantras, and uses as its symbol the Buddha sitting in yab-yum sexual embrace with his consort, which is called “the Great Bliss of Liberation”.  While the purpose is for the meditative merging of the internal Masculine and Feminine, the imagery is nonetheless sex-positive.

     Tara is considered “Mother of All Buddhas” and devotion to her involves visualizing the complete dissolution of yourself into nothingness, at which time you take on the image of Tara as the essence of wisdom and compassion, who then acts through you.  We can breathe in her prana (life essence) through her green color.  She becomes, therefore, the “mother” of all of us budding “buddhas” as we attain enlightenment.  Unlike Mother Mary, who physically gives birth to a divine son Jesus, Tara helps birth each one of us into our divinity.

     This is the Tara that I tried to portray in my poem:  a kindhearted, gentle, sympathetic, motherly presence who nudges her beloved son into a more expansive view.  She calls him “Peacemaker” and acknowledges his accomplishments of seeing “through samsara” (illusory cycles of existence) and of transcending “passions”.   The next step in his evolution is to “Behold” the power of the yoni, and to meditate on it as he would a “mandala”.

     Breathing is integral to any meditation practice, and Tara instructs him to “Breathe in” and eventually “breath out”.   Comparing the yoni to a “lotus flower” that “grows in the mud” of the world – which includes the dirty, sticky behaviors such as judgment and punishment (“where judge and flogger wallow”) –  she calls attention to the fact that the bloom “shines in purity”.  By easing his condemnation of the yoni, he can appreciate the “wisdom and compassion” (cornerstones of Buddhism) of the Feminine.

     Tara goes on to illustrate that the union of the Masculine (“Diamond hardness”, skillful means, Emptiness)  and the Feminine (“Sea of bliss”, transcendental wisdom, Form) is the way Nature creates –  by joining opposites and enjoying the beauty of the balance.  It is through accepting the ecstasy of this union, which “gushes out” orgasmically through the yoni and results in birth (“life … in all its forms”), that we can attain full presence “in this very moment” and glimpse beyond opposites to the reality of “Nonduality”.  Attaining such a moment is the definition of enlightenment, “what it means to be awake”.   By embracing all of life with such appreciation, the Buddha truly earns his title, “the Awakened One”.

     I wrote this poem in free verse, and it has the style of Mother Tara speaking in conversational style with her son, often pausing for emphasis.

        King Duddhodana and Queen Maya rule their kingdom in northern India/Nepal from a luxurious palace.  During a royal journey, the queen goes into labor, so the entourage stops at the Lumbini Grove, where she gives birth to her first child, a son.  Amazingly, the newborn begins to walk, and a flower sprouts at each footfall!  Queen Maya is delighted with her baby boy, as is the king, but, weakened by childbirth, she dies in a week.  Thus the king must oversee the young Siddhartha Gautama’s upbringing, and he does with fastidious care, for the fortune teller Asita has prophesized, “This boy is destined to become a great king, but if he enters religious life, he will become an enlightened being, a leader of many.”  King Duddhodana wants to insure that the first – and not the second – prediction comes true.  Aware that his son is particularly sensitive and not wanting anything to jeopardize the heir to the throne, he gives strict orders to the court that Siddhartha’s every need should be met.

       And so it is.  Rich food and wine, fine clothes and jewels, and servants and sexy women are all available to the young prince, who indulges in them all.  Years pass full of pleasure parties with his harem.  He marries the beautiful Yashodhara, who soon gives him a son, which they name Rahula.  Yashodhara is an independent thinker, well-educated, with a slender waist and round breasts scented of sandalwood.  She has dark, inquisitive eyes and red, full lips.  All the kingdom lauds the handsome couple.

       One day, Prince Siddhartha rides his chariot outside the palace walls with his retinue.  The king prepared the populace for such events by lining the route with happy, well-dressed people.  As the chariot passes, citizens shower the prince with rose petals and cheer him on.  Peering down an alleyway, the prince spies an elderly man and woman, hunched over with pain.  “What is wrong with them?”  Siddhartha quizzes his attendant.

       “Well, my lord, they are old and sick,”  he replies.

       “Old and sick?  What is that?” the prince asks.

       The prince also glimpses a funeral procession of people wailing in grief. “Why are they so sad?”  he inquires.

       “Their relative has died,”  his attendant answers, and then in response to the prince’s puzzled look, “My lord, everybody dies.”

       “Everybody must suffer and die?  But how can that be?”  Gautama demands to know.

       Realizing he is treading on dangerous topics, the attendant refuses to answer.  But Siddhartha does not let it drop and, once back at the palace, pursues his curiosity until he discovers that sickness, suffering, and death are indeed part of life.  Horrified at the injustice of such a state of affairs, Siddhartha decides to embark upon a quest.  He will find the secret of life and find a way to end suffering.  Stealing away in the middle of the night, he slips out of the palace, abandoning his wife and child, and his destiny as king.

       He takes up with a band of ascetics, who promise him that through purification and discipline, he will free his mind and find the answers he is seeking.  Homeless and dressed in rags, carrying only a begging bowl, he travels with them.  In order to free the soul from the body, they endure pain, sleep outside in the cold, and go without food.  By the time Siddhartha is skin and bones, he feels no closer to self-realization.

       Over the next years he follows different teachers, who all claim to know the path to enlightenment.  “Accept that this life is all there is!  When you die, you are left to the worms.  Strive for what you want now – there is no reward in the hereafter!”  exhorts one of the leaders of a school.  And so Gautama lives for the now, but eventually he feels selfish and alone, so he leaves the school.

       Another philosopher tells him, “Nothing matters!  It is futile to try to be moral or good because there is no underlying universal truth.  So stop looking for it!”  Gautama finds this path meaningless and seeks another way.

       When he joins a group of yogis, he disciplines his body and his mind to transcend reality – to arrive at the balance point between existence and non-existence.  After dwelling in hours of non-thought, however, he walks through a village unable to relate to the cacophony of human emotion he finds in the marketplace.  Weak from years of fasting and grimy from his life of denial, he stumbles to the river to drink and to wash himself.  There, a lovely village girl spies the frail man and offers him a bowl of spiced rice and milk.  Touched by the kindness of the girl and nourished by the rich food, Siddhartha decides to try something entirely different.  He has found no solace in the philosophies and practices he has tried, but now that he has accepted the comfort of food and feminine beauty, he feels fortified for a final attempt at enlightenment.

       Sitting down under the spreading branches of a bodhi tree, he vows to sit there until he finds salvation from life’s quandary of endless suffering.  In deep meditation, Siddhartha must first confront his inner demons, and they each try to take over his mind in turn:  fear, doubt, confusion, and horror appear as a Devil Army led by Mara.  When he does not sway the determined seeker, the demon Mara tries another tactic and sends to him his three daughters:  Desire, Discontent, and Lust.  Womanly wiles are no stranger to the once-pampered prince, who steadfastly refuses to give into their seduction.  Mara then turns to other weapons, assailing him with hunger and thirst, cowardice and boredom;  but his years as an ascetic have steeled his endurance to such discomforts.  When Mara tempts him with visions of glory, greed, and fame, the former prince refuses again what he once enjoyed.   Mara, defeated on every front, flees Siddhartha’s meditation.

       Having passed through this series of initiations, Siddhartha is ready to behold the Universe in all its manifestations.  He observes how it works and discovers the grand Kosmic dance, with its joys and sorrows.  Everything is crystal clear to him.  After 49 days of sitting, he opens his eyes.

       It is dawn.  The morning star, Venus, is just setting.  Feeling infinitely peaceful in his state of nirvana,  he says, “I am tranquil in body, with a liberated mind; craving nothing, mindful and detached, calm and unperturbed.”  As his words float on the air, the earth trembles.  Birds cease their morning songs to observe the man below them.  For here, under the bodhi tree, sits the Buddha, the Awakened One.

((( )))

       Siddhartha Gautama was a real man (566 or 563 – 486 or 483 BCE) born into a noble family of the Shakya clan in Nepal.  While much myth and legend have been overlaid onto his biographical story, the above account likely follows the events of his life.  After his enlightenment at the age of 35, he devoted the rest of his life to teaching others what he had come to understand.  His teachings – and others’ interpretations of them – were to become the religion of Buddhism.

He outlined a system of embracing the Four Noble Truths:

       (1)  Suffering exists

       (2)  Suffering has a cause

       (3)  Suffering has an end

       (4)  There are things you can do to end suffering

You can end suffering by following the steps of the Noble Eightfold Path:

       (1)  Right Understanding

       (2)  Right Thought

       (3)  Right Speech

       (4)  Right Action

       (5)  Right Livelihood

       (6)  Right Effort

       (7)  Right Mindfulness

       (8)  Right Concentration   

The Buddhist system is designed to get a person off the Wheel of Karma, because without conscious effort or realization, the consequences of our actions (karma) will continually bring us back into many cycles of existence, lifetime after lifetime.

       From these simple precepts have sprung a whole menu of schools of thought as well as practices.  The fact that recommended sexual conduct runs the gamut – from Theravada Buddhism’s complete abstinence and denial of desire, to experiencing one’s sexual partner as the transcendent goddess or god of Vajrayana Tantric Buddhism, to the brothel as a training ground for some Zen Buddhism –  shows just how varied the interpretations can be.

       Mahayana Buddhism has been largely practiced in China, Vietnam, Japan, and Korea.  Theravada Buddhism is widespread in Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Cambodia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.   Vajrayana Buddhism is predominant among the Tibetan, Mongol, Manchu, and Bhutanese people.  Buddhism is considered one of the major religions of the world and has adherents in most countries.

        The Earth is young; humans have not even appeared yet, but there exist two primordial beings: Avalokiteshvara and Tara. Avalokiteshvara is a male red monkey who lives in the Yarlung Valley, content to swing from tree to tree, eating fruit, and munching on bamboo stalks. Deep in a snowy crevasse high in the mountains lives Tara, a white snow ogress.

         Eventually the two find each other and fall in love.  From their sexual union, they bear six offspring: the progenitors of the six original tribes of Tibet. The father shows them how to gather fruits along the meandering river of the valley, and the mother shows them how to enjoy barley and wheat from the high mountains. Thus the first family flourishes, as does all of humanity which proceeds from them.

        In addition to the above Darwinian-sounding myth, there is the following Buddhist tale . . .

        Buddha Amitabha manifests as a bodhisattva who only wants to help human beings. His name is Avalokiteshvara, and his vow is to liberate all beings from suffering.  So intense is his desire to serve that he grows eleven heads - so that he can see everywhere - and a thousand arms, so that he can work to help each person that cries out for him to rescue them from danger, improve their circumstances, or "give them a hand".  In some of his hands he holds a blue lotus blossom, a rosary, and a jar of divine nectar.

         Despite being so well equipped, Avalokiteshvara eventually realizes that the number of souls lost in the illusion of samsara is not decreasing.  If anything, it is increasing!  How can this be??  He works even harder, being even more vigilant, quicker to respond, and more compassionate. To no avail!  More and more human beings choose ignorance over enlightenment.

        Desperate and exhausted, the Buddha bursts into tears.  So heartbroken is he, that he cries an ocean of tears. He does not notice that from that salty body of water there sprout two lotus blossoms. The petals unfold to reveal two fully-formed women . . . On one flower there stands White Tara, a mature, wise woman of round breasts and a delicate face as white as snow, whose serenity offers an example of how to live a long life of good fortune. On the other flower there stands Green Tara, a feisty maiden ready to knock down any obstacle in her path.

         "O noble Avalokiteshvara!" Green Tara calls. "Dry your tears! Do not despair! We are here to help you!"

         Looking up, the buddha sees the ravishing women. Replying to the green one, he asks, "Who are you?"

        "I am Arya Tara!" she thunders, and then giggling, "That's Green Tara to you! I offer myself to the mission - to free all sentient beings from the cycle of karma and suffering."

       "But there are so many!" Avalokiteshvara wails. "Don't you see all the lost souls there? The battle is lost!"

         Leaping upon the peaks of the Himalayas, the green goddess scans the world.  Beams of crystalline light shine from her eyes as she surveys the Earth. "Listen, O Blessed One, you have been waging this battle all alone. Now you have help . . . woman power!" she exclaims, winking. "You have the diamond hardness of your skillful means. But I have the unfolding lotus blossom of transcendental wisdom and pure bliss. Together we shall turn the tide. Together we cannot be defeated!"

         In this way they form their partnership. While earthly kingdoms may rise and fall, as long as people turn to the boundless compassion of the Buddhas and the Taras, they are released from the cycle of suffering into the bliss of nirvana.

        While considered thoroughly Buddhist, Tara may in fact have been a primordial Indo-European Earth Mother.  Her name is akin to other goddesses: Terra Mater ("Mother Earth" in Latin), Taranis (Gaul), Turan (Etruscan), Taramata ("Mother Tara" in Greek), and Terah (Hebrew). A sacred grove in Ireland, called Tara, has a phallic stone pillar, where the god Taran was honored. A traditional refrain, "Taran-Tara!" pairs the god and the goddess, perhaps as an exclamation of empowerment.

         The first myth of the monkey and the snow ogress, retold above, is of tribal origin, the Buddhist names being applied when Buddhism came into Tibet. Either way, the Tibetans can trace their original connection to the goddess Tara. It was King Songtsän Gampo (604-650 CE) who united all of Tibet under Buddhist rule in the 7th century. With his marriage to a Chinese princess and a Nepalese princess, he consolidated his kingdom, as well as the guiding spiritual practice, as both princesses were considered incarnations of Arya Tara and he an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara.

         Green Tara engendered the Tibetan Renaissance of the 11th century CE by drawing the famous master Atisha from India; according to him, a stone statue of Arya Tara instructed him to bring his teachings to Tibet, saying that even though it would shorten his life, his works would have great effect.  He made the trip, and his student, Lama Drom Tonpa, also considered an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, established the traditions that would become Tibetan Buddhism.

         In the 14th century, a Buddhist monk, a devotee of Arya Tara, distinguished himself with his wise and compassionate leadership. Named the First Dalai Lama, he set the tone for all subsequent Dalai Lamas as the spiritual leaders of the Tibetan people.

         The Tibetans have a long history of devotion to Avalokiteshvara and Tara. While much of Buddhism may be patriarchal and chauvinistic regarding women, Tibetan Buddhism recognizes the importance of the union and balance of the Masculine and the Feminine. Tara sets the example through another myth that recounts that because of her immense compassion as a mortal woman, she was going to be granted a male incarnation, since Buddhist dogma states that only men can attain enlightenment. Instead, Tara refused the offer and vowed to attain enlightenment in a woman's body.  Every Tibetan knows the basic mantras and prayers of Green Tara, and recites them on the phases of the moon.

         Since the Chinese invasion (1951) and occupation (1959) of Tibet, and the resultant diaspora of the Tibetan people all over the world, but particularly into nearby India, much of their spiritual tradition, long kept secret in the remote kingdom at the "roof of the world", has been revealed to us in modern times. Traditional and contemporary thangka paintings have spread the image of Tara far and wide.

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