The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP
ring their bells in the long peal and blast called the "peaceful music"
of offering. And while the music crashes, almost inaudibly beneath
its thunder, the monks "cause the power to descend" by reciting
three times:
OM VAJRA-DHARMA-RANITA PRARANITA SAMPRARA-
NITA SARVA-BUDDHA-KSETRA-PRACALITE PRAJNA-
PARAMITA-NADA-SAMBHAVITE VAJRA-DHARMA-HRD-
AYANI SAMTOSINI HUM HUM HUM HO HO HO All KHAM
SVAHA!
"OM! The sounding of the Diamond Law, the ringing, the resounding,
shaking all the Buddha realms, born of the roar of the
Perfection of Wisdom, delighting our hearts in the Diamond Law !
HUM HUM HUM ! HO HO HO ! AH KHAM SVAHA !"
2 Basics
When these preparations of the participants, the place, and the
materials are completed, the ritual moves into its main portion,
which, stripped of its elaboration, consists simply of (1) the visualization
of the field to whom the offerings and prayers will be made,
and (2) making the offerings and prayers to them.
2.1 Contemplating the field for offerings
2.11 Generating the Chief Lady
First, then, the Chief Lady of the field is evoked through the
Process of Generation; here the Process of Generation takes place
in front of the assembly, but the sequence of the visualization is the
same as we have examined in detail above, wherever the divine
power is made to manifest itself.
2.111 Generating the symbolic being
The assembly dissolves everything—all of their construed and
fabricated nonreality—into Emptiness, reciting the mantra, OM
SUNYATA-JNANA-VAJRA-SVABHAVATMAKO 'HAM! This
is the stock of knowledge as opposed to the preceding stock of merit,
the actual thought of enlightenment as opposed to the preceding
intentional thought of enlightenment; from this omnipotent Emptiness,
in a ritual reenactment of Tara's own primal genesis, they
generate the goddess before them—for this is a ritual of offering—by
reciting: