07/26/2018
Tārā is known as a saviouress, as a heavenly deity who hears the cries of beings experiencing misery in saṃsāra. Green Tara the Deity of compassion, also know as Kwan Yin in China, and White Tara the Deity of Long Life. Tārā also embodies many of the qualities of feminine principle. She is known as the Mother of Mercy and Compassion. She is the source, the female aspect of the universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion and relief from bad karma as experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence. According to Sarvajnamitra she has a “universal form” (visva-rupa), that encompasses all living beings and deities, and which changes with the needs of each being. There is a true feminist movement in Buddhism that relates to the goddess Tārā. Following her cultivation of bodhicitta, the bodhisattva's motivation, she looked upon the situation of those striving towards full awakening and she felt that there were too few people who attained Buddhahood as women. So she vowed, "I have developed bodhicitta as a woman. For all my lifetimes along the path I vow to be born as a woman, and in my final lifetime when I attain Buddhahood, then, too, I will be a woman."
