To those within her refuge, every happiness and joy, for those beset by suffering, every assistance. Noble Tara, I bow before you.

The purpose of offering praise to one of the Buddhas is to create merit and to make oneself humble. For those who take refuge in Tara, who turn to her for spiritual direction, they receive happiness and joy. Not because Tara is some independent creator god that fills your stockings up every morning with whatever you want. Tara teaches us about karma and about how our mind works, thus empowering us to create the causes of happiness and abandon the causes of suffering. When we think of the way the Buddhas benefit us, it is primarily through their speech or their teachings. By hearing the teachings, it gives us the power to change our own experience by putting the teachings into practice.

The Buddhas cannot help us by crawling into our minds and making us think differently, changing the synapses in our brains, or creating an awakening pill. If that were possible, the Buddhas would have done it already. Their half of the bargain is they teach, and our half is we practise. That is where the challenges come from. From the side of the Buddhas, there is no hesitancy, no impediments to teaching. From our side, there are impediments to hearing, even getting to where the teachings are.

Sometimes people will go to the Abbey and before even entering the meditation hall or hearing one teaching, they suddenly say, “Oops! I’ve got to go!”. The real issue is to first overcome our impediments: to physically get ourselves to where the teachings are, then listen attentively instead of spacing out, doodling, or falling asleep, and recall the teachings and contemplating them to get the correct understanding, and finally practise them.

These are all steps that we must do, nobody else can do them for us. We cannot hire somebody else to listen to the teachings, remember them, and put them into practice for us. We can have all the money and employees in the world, but it does not do us any good in terms of Dharma practice. Just like eating and sleeping, we have to do these ourselves. To receive every happiness and joy, we must listen and practise on our own.

“365 Gems of Wisdom” e-book is out now!