White Tara Yoga Nidra

Let's practice a White Tara Yoga Nidra that helps us to get intimate with the qualities and the loving kindness and compassion of the female Buddha, White Tara.

Tara means star, and she's the goddess and the female Buddha that works with the wind element. We are going to call her into the room, and that energy into the room, for healing.

So you might actually think about, before you're going into this practice, if there's anything that needs to be healed—any illness—and open up to healing.

And now please begin to take rest. Adjust in any way to discover the most ease and comfort that will allow you to be really open in this journey inward.

If you can take shavasana form, release yourself into that alignment. But of course, any position where you can really deeply rest in is fine.

Let your body discover its most natural form of rest. And as you begin to relax the body, unwinding, you feel that your bones start to drop down toward the earth. The organs of your body also are allowed to settle and to heal and to lay down into perfect rest.

And all of your muscles—as you scan through your body and you're making last-minute shifts—just let all the muscles relax. All the tension in your muscles relax. And then the form of your body is invited to rest.

And also there is this invitation for the form of the body to start to dissolve its ordinariness.

So your sense of an ordinary body—we're going to open to extraordinariness, open to a transformation of the ordinary body as our sense of it dissolves.

We kind of merge with the ground and the sky and all of the elements.

And then, as we dissolve into that emptiness through our relaxation process, we can start to take on and rebuild what's called a vajra body. And this happens because we relax.

So let your form begin to dissolve into the formless. Allow your arms to be weighted by gravity and fall limp. Relax your palms, your fingers. Relax your joints. Allow the water in your body to flow free toward the earth's core. So there's a sense of sinking in, melting into the earth. And as you're in that sinking feeling, let your body be generously embraced by the earth. So you feel deeply supported as you merge. And you can sense the support beneath you holding you.

And there's a trust that you commit to, being present with that—the earth is supporting you no matter what. So you can truly give yourself away to its embrace. And you can feel safe in this embrace.

And if you'd like to bring in an inner resource, you're also welcome to do that—something that you could come back to that even gives you more of a sense of safety. And that can be helpful as we commit to giving ourselves up completely.

Open to the space around you, around the body as well—feeling maybe the touch of the air, all of the space and energy that's embracing your form from above and the earth below. Trust that field.

And take a deep inhalation and feel your heart open and create space for the new. And then exhale again. Let go. Take three to five more breaths now in your own time—breathing in and opening, breathing out and surrendering. Relaxing. Each breath making space for the new.

The magic of these new beginnings and for healing, and opening yourself to this indestructible force of infinite love. Let your eyes melt back into their sockets. The lids start to become heavier. Open to witnessing your inner being with the most loving awareness. And witness your body lying still.

And as you're doing that, see that you're this timeless presence that is witnessing the magnificence, the preciousness, of the human life—this body and each precious breath.

And now come into your heart space and connect with those enlightened emotions—the immeasurable love and the unsurpassed joy and this peace, the perfection of the heart energy.

And there, in this infinite space, this timeless abode, connect to the unlimited potential of the heart.

Allow your deepest heartfelt intention, sankalpa, to arise. And you can choose it and bring it into being by silently repeating it three times with the felt emotion. Now offer up this intention and surrender it from the mind, and just allow it to be absorbed into truth.

And begin to open your inner ears to sound. Expand your sense of hearing. Begin first to open up to the sounds of the room you're in—the sound of my voice and any other sounds in the room you're in. Then begin to travel further out, outside of the walls and into the landscape around you, and listen.

Now take the distant sounds and pull them back into the sounds near to you, so they merge in a symphony of sound. Just pure vibration. Sound is there all around, supporting you in this practice.All sounds and all sensations become a support. There's no preference. It's just vibration around you pointing to your original nature.

Now begin to witness that your body is lying still. And you can witness the room that you're in with your eyes closed. Just remember the room, and you can see yourself there in that room—open and dissolving and connected.

And then we call upon this great female Buddha, the goddess White Tara, from the Lotus family of Buddhas of infinite light and love. And we invite her into the room. And the doors open. And we know that any wish we have will be fulfilled by her, because she's carrying the wish-fulfilling gem. And so connected to our heartfelt intention is this empowerment that's coming from Tara.

And so you can start to bathe yourself in her presence and also the joy of being your intention being empowered by her presence.

And then you'll breathe in and out effortlessly. So start to notice your breath shaping your body. And each breath, all of the life force that's coming in—you’re breathing in the fragrance of the flowers and the female Buddha and the life force that comes from her presence and all around you.

All of the life force from Gaia, from the earth, from female energy, from creative energy. Every breath as it comes into your nostrils—feel this divinity, this divine healing energy flowing into your body. Every breath is healing. Every out-breath is releasing any obstacles. So without controlling your breath, just become a receiver of the life force.

Witness your belly being shaped by each breath. Witness the skin expanding with each fertile breath. Feel the touch of the breath coming into the nostrils. The prana, lung—this energy. By grace, receive it.

And then drop into your heart again. And there begin to see a white light, like the cave of your heart is filled with white light. And this light carries—it’s circling and it’s fast and it’s potent. It’s carrying the vibration of White Tara’s mantra today: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Mama Ayur Jnana Punya Pushtim Kuru Svaha.

And from this mantra at the heart, white light rays move out and they move out through all of the pores of your body. And they begin to form around your body, around the room you're in, spinning very fast, clockwise, like flames—an impenetrable defense perimeter. And you can completely heal and open inside of this ring of white fire.

So you see this moving outside of the body, spinning very fast. Nothing gets in. You're completely protected. You can sleep and heal and receive all of the enlightened energy. The body can sleep. Mind sleeps. Awareness is vast and blissful. Surrounded by this spinning wheel of light.

And then from the mantra at your heart, the white light at the heart, feel or sense another ring of white light beginning to form. White light shoots out of the heart center, out of the mantra, and it fills every pore, every part of your body. So you're flooded with white light. And it moves out inside the defense perimeter and it forms a sphere, or a cocoon, or egg-like shape of white light. And this ring of white light pacifies illness. So you can heal within the white light.

It pacifies any disturbances that you have in your mind, your body, any unwholesome thoughts, samskaras, imprints, any obstacles to your life. And now you have this beautiful ring of white light inside the defense perimeter that brings you peace. Start to feel the enlightened energy of peace surrounding you—healing energy, white light. So you can witness this spinning defense perimeter like flames clockwise, and this egg-shaped white light.

Then moving back into the heart from the mantra, yellow light begins to emanate. The yellow light rays fill your body. They move out of every part of the body and inside the two white rings they form a yellow ring. And this yellow light increases your life, your merit, and wisdom.

So when you're hearing teachings and dharma and you're meditating, the yellow light is supporting you to really embody what you're hearing, what you're practicing. So now the yellow light moves and actually moves to the outside of the peaceful white light, but still inside of the defense perimeter. You form a yellow circle, a yellow egg shape. This is going to increase all of the merit and activities that you're doing. 

And then you see from the mantra at your heart red light moving out, and it fills your entire body with power. So you feel refreshed, revitalized. And this red light radiates out and it forms a red ring around your yellow circle. And now you can have more control over what's going on. It brings you this feeling of accomplishment and control.

And so inside the defense perimeter, your body lies peacefully resting—surrounded by a ring of white light, peace, and yellow light increasing your merit, and red light which is increasing your ability to control. 

And then back into the heart center. And from the mantra, blue light flows out from the heart. It goes to the outside of the red ring, and blue light fills your body and forms this impenetrable circle of blue light. And this dark blue light endows you with the ability to destroy what is not serving you or others. And it brings about this ability to accomplish the activities of destruction. So feel yourself empowered with this energy.

And then again from the heart and the mantra there, green light fills your body. It moves outside of the blue ring, surrounding the blue circle. And it allows you to accomplish all enlightened activities. So to really help others, we give our bodies this dose of this incredible green light. It circles around and we have the ability to accomplish enlightening activities.

And then to stabilize all of this power, we see brown light moving out of the mantra at our hearts. It circles around the body and surrounds all of the rings with this stabilizing energy. So it brings about this sense of equanimity and stability. 

And all of these six circles flow into each other. They're very hard and strong and they cannot be destroyed. So they're always there with you. Even when you awaken from the practice, they're always there. And you might start to sense the fragrance of the blue utpala flowers connected to Tara, and they're also within all these rings.

So now we'll just move into the heart and into the mantra, and we'll rest in this cocoon of light—white, yellow, red, green, blue, and brown. And you're resting in a presence beyond doubt, beyond duality. And if you stay in the heart penetrated by this light and sleep there with the lady Buddha Arya Tara, the transformation that occurs is a bliss-void indivisible—awareness of clear light.

Sleep in the heart.

. . .

If you're working with the sankalpa, I invite you to come back to it.

Repeat it with full conviction—seeing its realization, feeling it, sensing its realization and accompanying it with intention, joy and peace, contentment. And then you can tap into the peace in the body and anything else that's there with you and abide in spacious awareness of the energy of Tara.

And we can begin to awaken. We can pay homage to her, thank her, and thank yourself for the practice. And lying still and moving slowly, you can begin to move your body—your fingers, your toes. And after some breath and stretch, you can roll yourself onto the right side. And then anytime you're ready, you can come on up and sit.