No.3 Emanation of Taras - Sermo Sonam Tobkye (3/21)

Photo Credit: Alan Kozlowski

Praises to the Twenty-One Tara is a traditional prayer in Tibetan Buddhism to the female Bodhisattva Tara. (Tibetan called Drolma) also known as Arya Tara or Jetsun Dolma. The prayer is found in all four traditions of Tibetan Buddhism.  Each of the twenty-one emanations of Tara has her own name, and a specific mantra with which she is associated, offering protection from various types of fears, harm, and calamities.

Tara has Twenty-One ultimate emanations according to the mantra of the Buddha Samantabhadra called “Twenty-One Praises of Tara”. Twenty-One Tara with 21 specific colors serves with a specific function. There are different styles and designs of tangka paintings that represent the Twenty-One manifestations of Tara based on distinct lineages and practices, in which forms, colors, ritual objects and even names or functions can vary.

Homage To The No. 3 Taras - Sermo Sonam Tobkye

OM TARE TUTTARE TURE MAHA PUNYE SVAHA

Golden One Who Increases the Power of Merit

Sermo Sonam Tobkye is peaceful and golden in color. Sonam means “merit”. It is also often translated as “good fortune, prosperity” or even “luck”. Tob is the Tibetan word which means “power, the ability”, and che means “increasing” or “liberator. This is the meaning of Sermo Sonam Tobkye amd there are other very popular names for her are Vasudhari in Sanskrit and Norjunma in Tibetan. 

Her body radiates light the color of the rising sun, empowering practitioners to enact oceans of Bodhisattva activities. She bestows wealth and longevity and liberates beings through the six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, meditative stability, and transcendent wisdom. She has one face and two arms. She sits in the dis- mounting posture. Her right hand is in the mudra of supreme charity. Her left hand, in the Three Jewels mudra, holds an utpala flower. Upon her utpala flower is a wish fulfilling-jewel that showers down whatever one desires.

She is beautiful; her skin is the color of pure gold glittering in the early morning sun. Her left hand is adorned with a blue lotus, upon which sits a gem that bestows all wishes. She is the lord of the Bodhisattvas’ sphere of activity, which encompasses the transcendent perfections of generosity, patience, diligence, ethics, tranquility, wisdom, and meditation. Austerity, (in this context) is ethics, and tranquility is wisdom and meditation.

We pay homage to the unchallengeable lady who has the ten powers: the power over life, the power over the mind, the power over wealth, the power over action, the power over birth, the power over inclination, the power over aspiration, the power over miracles, the power over primordial wisdom, and the power over Dharma. 

She has attained the completion of the six perfections, in just one meditation. The inner meaning is that her singular meditation is like a lotus, free from the flaw of adherence to subject and object, and is endowed with the completion of the six perfections.

The effect of practicing on this Tara of prosperity is not just that we will acquire external or material wealth, but also that we will develop inner or spiritual wealth. By practicing on Tara Sonam Tobkye, we can develop both forms of wealth.

Om jetsunma pakma drolma la chaktsal lo

Om Homage to the noble lady Tara

Chaktsal ser ngo chu ne kye kyi

Homage to you, graced with lotus-like hands

Peme chak ni nampar gyenma

And a water-born flower blue-gold in hue

Jinpa tsondru katub shyiwa

You who show generosity, diligence, strength

Zopa samten choyul nyima

Patience, serenity and meditation

Prayer of the Benefits

Whoever is endowed with devotion for the goddess and recites this with supreme faith, remembering it at dawn upon waking and in the evenings, will be granted all fearlessness, will perfectly pacify all negativities, and will eliminate all unfortunate migrations.

The multitudes of conquerors will quickly grant initiation: Thus, endowed with this greatness, one will eventually reach the state of a Buddha. If affected by the most terrible poison, whether ingested, drunk, or from a living being, just by remembering will one be thoroughly cleansed.

If this prayer is recited two, three, or seven times, It will pacify all the sufferings of torments caused by spirits, fevers, and poisons, and by other beings as well. If you wish for a child, you will get a child; if you wish for wealth, you will receive wealth. All your wishes will be fulfilled and all obstacles pacified.

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Aspiration For Bodhichitta

For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen

May it arise and not decrease

But increase further and further.

Dedication of Merit

By this merit may we obtain omniscience then.

Having defeated the enemies wrong-doings.

May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.

With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness and death.

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