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green tara goddess self portrait project
a three year exploration of self portraiture by someone who doesn't like being photographed. influenced by green tara goddess meditations 2017-2020
Some of these are available as NFTs on OpenSea through mowna museum
Tara Who Protects from the Eight Great Fears (Tib. འཕགས་མ་སྒྲོལ་མ་འཇིགས་པ་བརྒྱད་ལས་སྐྱོབ་པ་, pakma drolma jikpa gyé lé kyobpa, Wyl. ‘phags ma sgrol ma ‘jigs pa brgyad las skyob pa) - the practices relating to this form of Tārā find their origin in The Sūtra of Tārā Who Protects from the Eight Fears.
Usually the form of Green Tara, also known as Tara of the Khadira Forest (Skt. Khadiravani Tara, Wyl. seng ldeng nags kyi sgrol ma, Tib. སེང་ལྡེང་ནགས་ཀྱི་སྒྲོལ་མ། sengdeng nak kyi drolma), is the main deity who is considered to give protection from the eight great fears. But there are also individual forms of Tara for each of the eight fears as well.
The eight fears are considered to have an outer aspect such as lions, elephants, etc. and an inner aspect, the mental defilements they represent. While the outer fears, or dangers, threaten our life or property, the inner ones endanger us spiritually by obstructing or turning us away from the path to enlightenment.
1. water or drowning representing attachment
2. thieves representing false views
3. lions representing pride
4. snakes or serpents representing jealousy
5. fire representing anger
6. spirits or flesh-eating demons representing doubt
7. captivity or imprisonment representing greed
8. elephants representing ignorance
Another way to think of them is to consider the flood of attachment, the thieves of wrong views, the lion of pride, the snakes of jealousy, the fire of anger, the carnivorous demon of doubt, the chains of miserliness or greed, and the elephant of ignorance. [1][2]
1. Tara who protects from fear of Water (Tib. ཆུའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, chü jik kyob drolma, Wyl. chu’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
2. Tara who protects from fear of Thieves (Tib. མི་རྒོད་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, mi gö jik kyob drolma, Wyl. mi rgod ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
3. Tara who protects from fear of Lions (Tib. སེང་གེའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, sengé jik kyob drolma, Wyl. seng ge’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
4. Tara who protects from fear of Snakes (Tib. ཀླུའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, lü jik kyob drolma, Wyl. klu’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma')
5. Tara who protects from fear of Fire (Tib. མེའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, mé jik kyob drolma, Wyl. me’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma')
6. Tara who protects from fear of Flesh-eating demons (Tib. ཤ་ཟའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, shazé jik kyob drolma, Wyl. sha za’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
7. Tara who protects from fear of Imprisonment (Tib. ཆད་པའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, chepé jik kyob drolma, Wyl. chad pa’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
8. Tara who protects from fear of Elephants (Tib. གླང་པོའི་འཇིགས་སྐྱོབ་སྒྲོལ་མ་, langpö jik kyob drolma, Wyl. glang po’i ‘jigs skyob sgrol ma)
mask attached
a green tara goddess meditation on the attachment of the mask.
fear of water or drowning; the suffering of attachment.
number one of the eight great fears.
i am the mountain
a green tara goddess meditation on being the mountain.
a fear of thieves, suffering through false views.
number two of the eight great fears.
living with lions
a green tara goddess meditation on living with lions.
fear of lions, suffering by pride.
fear number three of the eight great fears.
self initiation
a green tara goddess meditation on initiating the serpents of the self.
a fear of serpents, suffering through jealousy.
fear number four of the eight great fears.
a green tara goddess meditation on holding fire.
fear of fire, suffering of holding on to anger.
number five of the eight great fears
the carnivorous demon of doubt
a green tara goddess meditation on the carniviorous demons of doubt.
fear of of flesh-eating demons, suffering through doubt.
the sixth of the eight great fears.
embracing the cage
a green tara goddess meditation on the captivity of greed.
fear of captivity, suffering through imprisonment of greed.
number seven of the eight great fears.
head in the fish
a green tara goddess meditation on the head swallowed by a fish.
fear of elephants, suffering through ignorance.
fear number eight of the eight great fears.