Tuesday, April 22, 2008

May the Flower of Love and Happiness Bloom in Our Heart















This past Sunday (April 20) the 1000 Stars Foundation organized a special event "Beloved Tara" at the foundation house on Ladprao Road.

Although it was hot and humid outside, inside the lobby of the house was full of cool air of compassion.

The beautiful Tara mandala was arranged. The main wall was decorated with beautiful cloth depicting hundred of tiny Taras and thangkas of various deities.

In the wake of unrest and violence in Tibet and amidst misconceptions about Tibetan mind and personality, the foundation offered a corner of love, peace and happiness.

The event started with an impressive presentation on Krisadawan's life, which Dr. Wichat and her former linguistic students at Chulalongkorn University did in the occasion of her early retirement from the university last October.

After that the film on Tara was shown. It was done by the Luck666 company. Thanks to their beautiful work, we got to learn more about this beloved Bodhisattva.

Tara has been worshipped in Tibet since the 8th century A.D. The teaching on compassion spread to Mongolia around the 13th century changing Mongol warriors into peace-loving people.

Then Krisadawan talked about Tara and how to worship and meditate on her.

Because Dr. Soraj had an urgent conference to attend in the Philippines, he couldn't give a talk on Indian and Tibetan devotees, as planned.

Instead, the foundation invited Meu Yontan Tongdrol to talk about Tara from the Dzogchen perspective.

Yontan said he was simply an ordinary man who was fortunate to be a monk for 27 years and served several masters including his maternal uncle Yongdzin Rinpoche, a great Dzogchen master in Yungdrung Bon, indigenous form of Buddhism originating in Tibet.

Yongdzin Rinpoche was a student of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen Rinpoche, who achieved rainbow body in 1935.

After the break, the participants sang the melodious praise to the Twenty-One Taras, recited Tara mantra and meditated on her. Krisadawan reminded the audience to practice the Dharma with pure aspiration to help sentient beings.



They visualized that there was a radiant light from the green TAM sacred syllable from their heart to the entire universe. The syllble TAM represents Tara and the true nature of their own mind. Its light grants love, happiness and healing blessing to any being it touches upon.




After visualization, they sang a praise to Tara for her unconditional love for sentient beings.

Thanapol, one of the first Thai dancers who got a chance to study tantric Buddhist dance from Nepal performed a touching performance of 16 offering goddesses and Green Tara.



Thanapol said this performance was not an entertainment but it was a devotional dance as an offering to Tara. It's an expression of art and spirituality which is rooted on Buddhist principle.

Before the session was over, there was a prayer dedicating the merit to all sentient beings, particularly the Tibetans, Han, Hui (Muslim nationality in China) and all parties related to the sad events in Tibet.

May the seed of peace be planted everywhere in the world! May the flower of love and happiness bloom in our heart always!

With appreciation:



The foundation would like to thank Miao (Worawanna) for her hard work and dedication which made this event a beautiful memory. Thanks are also due to Wichat for accepting to be our moderator even with a short notice and to the media who attended the event and to Thanapol for the inspiring dance.



The foundation is grateful to Bo for filming the event and for asking thought-provoking questions. Last but not least, we thank the audience and Tara devotees.

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