Today, the whole world is faced with one of the most challenging adversity with the spread of coronavirus which originated in Wuhan, Hubei Province in China. Had the Chinese communist Party been open, this cataclysmic danger to the world could have been averted but the Chinese communist Party is more pre-occupied to protect its image and reputation than the lives of its citizens or feel concerned about the explosion of the deadly virus all over the world. As a result, the world is facing an unprecedented danger of mass deaths in every nation and territory across the length and breadth of the entire planet. The blame must be squarely laid at the door of the Chinese leader Xi Jinping and his CCP cronies.
Now that we all have to face this imminent danger, we have to remain calm and not be too anxious or depressed. This is of course easier said than done when our lives are in danger. However, we have to look from a different perspective. By worrying and being anxious, if it helps to keep the virus at bay, then we can say, it’s worth worrying but the fact is it will not. In fact it will impact our welbeing by losing sleep, appetite and zest for life. That in turn will weaken our immune system and could expose ourselves to more danger of health related complications. Therefore, we have to remain positive not withstanding the prevailing atmosphere and environment. It’s in our interest to keep ourselves as cheerful as possible in these trying times.
We have to think that the way karma works is; we meet with karma we have created and will not meet with karma, we have not created. It doesn’t follow that each and every individual will be infected even if they expose to the virus. We often hear of survivors in a plane crash where most people have died but some have miraculously cheated death. How do we explain such phenomena? It is said, that even though everyone of them could have died since the circumstances for their death was present for everybody who was involved in the crash, some survive because they didn’t have the karma to die at the point in time.
Therefore, we have to trust in our karma and hope that things will be alright but even if there is karma, there is not much we can do in such a scenario. Karma spares no one and we have to accept it as it comes. With this acceptance, perhaps, it might help to settle down and be less anxious about events that we have no or little control.
we have to do everything the medical people, the experts are advising us to keep ourselves safe and healthy. This is the first line of protection. Nobody should neglect or ignore the advise of the doctors and medical experts.
We also need emotional guidance to go through these difficult times. This is why I am writing this piece here. On top of taking all precautions of protecting oneself and ones family and loved ones, then live as normally as you can without tension and agitation. Most important thing is, instead of worrying, we have to do things to make sure we are safe and sound. For this, apart from following the advise of the medical experts meticulously, we can recite Tara mantra as advised by HH The Dalai Lama.
Tara means Liberator. She is said to liberate us from eight fears: external dangers like earth such as earthquakes, water such as tsunami, fires and winds like tornadoes plus robbers, thieves, ghosts and hostile spirits. Internally, she protects us from the ravages of ignorance, anger, attachment, pride, jealousy, miserliness, scepticism (doubt), erroneous views, untimely death and disease.
She does it swiftly too. This is because Tara came into being to help Avaloketesvara to help liberate sentient beings from their unbearable suffering. With thousand hands and thousand eyes, Avaloketesvara was liberating millions of beings but even so, there was no end to the sentient beings. He was beginning to wonder if there was any end and a sense of despondency started to creep in temporarily and a drop of tear rolled down and that tear manifested itself as Tara. She immediately proclaimed, “I will help you to liberate sentient beings”. That’s how Tara came into being and that is precisely why, Tara’s help comes very swiftly.
I therefore beseech all my friends and students across the world, to recite Tara mantra as much as possible. This is Tara mantra: OM TARE TUTTARE TURE SOHA
The meaning of OM is auspiciousness.
TURE means liberating from samsara. Releasing us from the clutches of ignorance, anger and attachment and put an end to the cycle of death and rebirth.
TUTTARE means liberating from the dangers posed by the four elements as mentioned above and internal disturbances such as the three poisons.
TURE liberates us from diseases. It can be the physical diseases that we all experience and also the psychological diseases such as ignorance, attachment etc. Tara liberates us from our present mundane physical sufferings and more importantly, from the psychological delusions which finally set us free from cycle of death and rebirth.
Therefore, Tara prayers whether, it’s the 21 Tara prayer or the short Tara mantra are effective in times of dire need when we are hapless in difficult situations. Therefore, I urge all of you to recite Tara mantra instead of worrying and living with anxiety. If you have mani pills (blessed by HH The Dalai Lama, I can give some to those in Perth) take them as often as you can and pray to Tara to protect you/family from all dangers you are afraid of whenever you feel threatened or become apprehensive. This will ally your fears and you will become more assured of yourself and the anxieties will dissipate. I am keeping all of you in my humble prayers. Love to you all!
Geshe la