Searching for Tara: The Goddess Who Became a Buddha

All this may sound intriguing, but I admit that no matter how hard we try to pin her down, Tara always seems to slip away. Yet though we may not be able to capture her with our abstract theories and descriptions, we can become her. That is to say, we can merge with her enlightened wisdom and love just as our ancient ancestors did with the animals and the spirits.

My desire to understand Tara's mysterious power actually came from such an encounter. The catalyst was a health crisis: cataract surgery on my right eye. I was told it would be a simple procedure, but complications left me with a detached retina that required five more surgeries to fully repair. After the third surgery, my doctor put a gas bubble in my eye to help hold the retina in place. He told me that for the next three weeks, I had to keep my head face-down all night long and for at least eight hours during the day. It wasn't easy. I lay awake most nights due to the back pain that strange sleeping posture caused, but the hardest part was keeping my head down during the day. I'd had a regular meditation practice for more than twenty years before the first surgery. So, I found a way to sit in a cross-legged meditation posture with my forehead resting face down on my desk, and there I sat for eight hours a day.

For the first few days, I was awash in fear and confusion. Eventually, I started going through my mental catalog of meditation practices looking for something that might help, and I remembered White Tara. I had done a variety of other visualization practices before, but I didn't know much about the details of her practice. All I remembered was her association with health and longevity, and that seemed to be exactly what I needed. So, I just reached out from the depths of my suffering and fixed White Tara in my mind. As time went by, her image grew clearer and I had a stronger sense of her presence. Then, something happened I can't really explain. All the barriers between us dissolved, and I connected with an indescribable love and an openness so vast and powerful that it seemed to pervade the entire universe.

Of course, such overwhelming experiences inevitably fade with time, but the insights they reveal may linger on. Ever since then, Tara has been the focus of my daily meditation, and as my life stabilized, my relationship with her only deepened. As an academic and a writer, I have struggled again and again to understand her ineffable feminine presence and how she transformed my life. Yet even though Tara remains as mysterious as ever, the attempt to make sense of it all has led to countless discoveries and delights. I have tried my best to convey them in Searching for Tara.