The Practice of the Female Buddha Tara and Her Twenty-One Forms

Tara is undoubtedly one of the most popular meditation deities in Tibetan Buddhism and her image and practice can be found in about every temple and monastery in the land, as well as in individual Tibetan homes. In Tibet she is principally invoked in her white form for healing and in her green form for protection. Her basic form is Arya Tara, who is green in colour because symbolically that is the colour of physical and spiritual activity. In this guise, she principally she protects against the eight great fears, which are not only physical threats, and threats from enemies and hostile spirits, but the affl ictions of the negative emotions of confusion, anxiety, pride, anger, envy, wrong views, greed, attachment, and doubt.