Posts
I recently sent the following message to someone regarding manifestation:
Some time ago, I wrote about my experiences with manifestation:
Soh Wei Yu:
My experience with manifestation relates to praying to Green Tara and concerns some personal life situations from my past which I prefer not to discuss. I haven't tried other manifestation methods (including New Age ones like 'The Secret').
However, suffice it to say, I had some miraculous encounters where I felt Green Tara's presence (though not visually) and received mental communication from her. She informed me that my wish would be "granted" that day. Indeed, after many months of waiting, it was fulfilled that very day. Months prior, Tara had also communicated that my wish would come true and advised me not to worry but to “focus on helping others.” Without that specific communication, I would have had no indication of when it would happen. During that encounter, there was also a strange, pleasant smell when I felt 'her Presence'. The last time that happened was in 2012 when I did the Garab Dorje guru yoga for the first time after receiving Chögyal Namkhai Norbu's transmission. My bunkmates also smelled that pleasant fragrance. (Incidentally, burning incense was forbidden in the army barracks, so the origin of the scent was inexplicable).
[Update, 2024: I just met Sim Pern Chong, and he told me that in 2012, he too smelled an otherworldly fragrance the first time he practiced the Garab Dorje guru yoga after the transmission he attended with me from Chögyal Namkhai Norbu. An amazing synchronicity. He also related other miraculous encounters he experienced during mantra recitations.]
While this might sound superstitious, this event convinced me of the truth behind the promise found in this sutra:
Excerpt (1.28):
Those who want children will come to have them, Those who seek wealth will come to have that, Each and every wish will be fulfilled, And obstacles, entirely vanquished, will be no more. (Emphasis by Soh)
(Update:
(The following section appears to be from a comment thread)
Aditya Prasad: Soh Wei Yu, Was it just the Green Tara prayer (Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha) you were reciting? I've been drawn to that one lately for some reason.
Soh Wei Yu: Aditya Prasad, I recited the Green Tara mantra (Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha) a lot over many months, but I think on that specific day, I was reciting the
I also wrote previously:
I've had a strong affinity with Guan Yin since a young age. I started going to my mom's dharma center at the age of 13, and since then, I have also received teachings from other teachers. In more recent years, I started chanting the Da Bei Zhou (Great Compassion Dharani) and the Tara mantra daily.
Guan Yin has told me to be compassionate in my visions. Also, the last time I saw her in a dream, I entered a blissful samadhi state. Guan Yin pointed me to rest in my true nature, and then I experienced instant samadhi and an intense presence and blissfulness of my true nature while asleep.
Tara also appeared to me previously, telling me my wishes would come true six months later and on the day before it happened (otherwise I wouldn't have known). She told me to focus on helping others. When she appeared, there was a fragrance from another world, even though I was not burning any incense in my air-conditioned room.
Also, this thread on the importance of cultivating merits is absolutely crucial for any successful 'manifestation':
That said, manifestation is not the main point of dharma practice for me; liberation and awakening are far more vital and important on my path.
The concerns of this life are not so important in the long run. You may or may not believe in past lives, but many people in my community, and practitioners/yogis starting from the Buddha, can and do recall past lives. Therefore, liberation concerns not just the well-being of this life (and certainly not only its material aspects), but liberation from the cycle of rebirth in samsara.
(Also see:
In the 'importance of merits' link above, I mentioned why merits are also important, both in spiritual life and for worldly success. My mentor, who [info redacted], attributes his success to cultivating merit.
In short, from the perspective of Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism, the main purpose of dharma practice and awakening is to achieve freedom from all suffering and the cycle of rebirth (samsara), attain omniscience, and develop the capacity to tirelessly help all sentient beings attain the same liberation and awakening, without turning away from samsara.
Check out this post I created (with assistance from ChatGPT); the descriptions and generated images explain who Tara and the other Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and masters are:
I feel particularly connected with Avalokitesvara (Guan Yin) and Green Tara. In my visions and encounters with them, they told me to be compassionate and to focus on helping others.
I recently told John Tan:
“Just now I was searching for my AirPod casing for quite some time, like half an hour. I searched here and there and couldn't find it. Then I prayed to a bodhisattva. I suddenly heard an inner voice confidently tell me something like, ‘Why are you searching everywhere when it’s with you right there all along?’ Then I tried to search my pockets again, for what felt like the hundredth time, but couldn't find it. Then, about half an hour later, the AirPod casing fell out from inside my jeans – I suspect it had fallen down into my pants earlier when I was in the toilet 🤣
I hear inner voices like that sometimes that I believe are from bodhisattvas when I pray sincerely.
I patted my jeans when I heard that voice but somehow didn't find it then.”
John Tan replied, “U must be something wrong, why bother bodhisattva for such a matter?”
He added, “That said, over the years, I have come to realize and believe despite my overly logical and pragmatic mind 🤣 that such "phenomena" are not uncommon in practice, it is hard to sweep all under the carpet in the name of "science" and "coincidence".”
I (Soh) responded, “I see... yes... especially since my encounter with Tara and the otherworldly fragrance when she ‘came’. And previously, when I received the Dzogchen transmission from ChNN (Chogyal Namkhai Norbu) and practiced the guru yoga of Garab Dorje for the first time, I also experienced that otherworldly fragrance. It’s hard to deny and attribute it purely to coincidence. My mother also knows that otherworldly fragrance well; I think she experienced it when chanting the Da Bei Zhou in the past.”
Further Accounts of Tara's Blessings
Besides my own experiences, countless others have had miraculous encounters with Tara. For example:
Mama Buddha Tara: Compassionate Action; Stories of Green Tara the Rescuer — How She Can Help You (Buddha Weekly)How Tara Buddha saved my life — appearing beside my hospital bed (Buddha Weekly)How Tara Saved Me from Great Dangers: Narratives by H.E. Garchen Rinpoche (H.E. Garchen Rinpoche)
Also recently, someone on Reddit shared this experience (
I did Tara practice religiously for many many months and finally one night in a dream she revealed herself to me. She came with a retinue of dozen of monks and they gave me spiritual teachings in a dream for what seemed like a long time. They told me that tenderness was one of the highest spiritual qualities. I was also visited by Yeshe Tsogyal after a retreat where we had been doing Yeshe Tsogyal prayers. She briefly put my mind into samadhi as she merged her mind with mine, and I felt the most unfathomable bliss, peace, joy, and love I had ever felt. Then she told me: "on the path to enlightenment, there will always be obstacles, but suffering is optional"
The Vajrayana View of Deities
However, it should be emphasized that Tara practice, within the Vajrayana framework, goes beyond merely praying to an external being. It is important to keep this perspective in mind and receive appropriate instructions from a qualified Vajrayana master.
Dzogchen teacher Acarya Malcolm Smith:
Tara, as a deity, is just a name for our own state. As ChNN puts it, "Tara is the state of Dzogchen." ... When we practice deity yoga, we are realizing our own state, not the state of some other being, buddha or not.
…
There is also the fact that in kriya tantra people practice by addressing the deity as external, like Tāra, for example, for common siddhis; a kind of practice that is enjoyed by brahmins, which also depends heavily on ritual purity and so on. So, because Vajrayāna is a path of skillful means, it employs people's theistic tendencies. But this vanishes in carya tantra, where the deity is understood as a symbol of the nature of the mind and one visualizes oneself as the deity. By the time we get to HYT, this is all completely abandoned, since now we are to understand, at the time of the result, that all phenomena we experience—aggregates, sense bases, and sense elements—are the display of our own gnosis.
…
But generally, if you want mundane siddhis, then you need to practice some creation stage practice, like Tara, Kilaya, Amitayus, etc. depending on one needs.
Krodha / Kyle Dixon:
You are the deity in Vajrayāna.
…Green Tara is a powerful practice, has benefited me greatly in times of need.
...
Let’s put it this way: they’re as real as you and I are, which ultimately isn’t real at all, but we can still ride a bike, go to the store, help someone else, etc.
...As for Buddha nature, Buddha nature can replace God for the meantime, as long as it is understood that buddhanature is your own, personal potentiality to become a Buddha. Buddha nature or tathāgatagarbha, has many of the same qualities as the qualities the Christian God is said to have, but it is something within you.
You start with Buddha nature as like a seed inside you, and then you cultivate it and at the time of buddhahood, everything will be buddha nature, so to speak.
There are many beings, buddhas, ārya-bodhisattvas, dharmapālas, lōkapālas, etc., we can pray to for help and guidance. You can also pray to your own buddhanature, and set your intention on your own awakening so you can help to benefit and liberate all sentient beings.
Mahamudra teacher Thrangu Rinpoche:
The practice of deity meditation consists fundamentally of three elements: clear appearance of the deity’s form, stable pride or confidence, that you are the deity, and recollection of purity by recalling the deeper meaning of the various aspects of the deity. It is difficult to cultivate clear appearance and the recollection of purity in post- meditation. Therefore, the principal post-meditation practice is to maintain the stable confidence that we are actually the deity. We try to maintain the confidence that the true nature of our body, speech, and mind is the body, speech, and mind of the deity being practiced. The commentaries on deity meditation commonly state, “In post-meditation, never part from the confidence of believing you are the deity.”
SEEING OURSELVES AS THE DEITY
In practicing we are trying to ameliorate the traces of our previous wrongdoing, especially our obscurations, which consist of the cognitive obscuration and the afflictive (or emotional) obscuration. Because of the presence of these obscurations, we experience the world in an incorrect and deluded way; our experience of what we call samsara consists of deluded projections.
What we are trying to do in our practice is to transcend these deluded projections and experience the pure reality, or pure appearances, that lie behind them. It is not sufficient simply to tell ourselves, "I know that what I am experiencing is adulterated by delusion," and then to stay with these deluded projections. As long as you continue to invest energy in them they will continue, even though you recognize them, at least theoretically, to be invalid. We have to reject, to cast aside, our involvement with delusion and actually consciously attend to and cultivate attention to pure appearance. By doing so you can gradually transcend and abandon delusion.
It is for this purpose that we make use of iconography, or, in other words, deities. In the Vajrayana the deity is something very different from what we normally mean by that term. Normally when we say "deity," we imagine some kind of external protector or higher power, something superior to us, outside of us, that can somehow lift us up out of where we are and bring us to where we want to be. Therefore, concurrent with our conventional idea of deity is the assumption of our own inferiority to deities.
In comparison to the deity, we consider ourselves as an inferior, benighted being that has to be held up by something outside ourselves. But the Vajrayana notion of deity is not like that, for in the Vajrayana, practitioners visualize themselves as the deities with which they are working.
This body that you now consider to be so impure and afflicted is an extension of the nature of your mind. Therefore, in practice you consider this apparently impure body to be the body of your yidam, the deity upon whom you are meditating. Since buddha nature is the most fundamental essence of your mind, and since your body is the projection of that mind, your body is pure in nature. You acknowledge that fact in practice by imagining your body to be pure, not only in essence, but in appearance.
Through cultivating this method, eventually the actual appearance or experience of your body comes to arise in purity. The creation stage is necessary in order to work with the deluded projections in this way.
~Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche
Update:
I shared this with my admins days ago:
"I see. I think doing some deity practice or simple ones like the 21 praises to Tara may help ward off negative influences.
I always have the feeling that Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are helping me and have had many miraculous encounters (in a waking state, not psychedelic-induced), including experiencing pleasant smells from other realms and receiving telepathic messages.
Just the other day, I had difficulty finding a cockroach that was hiding in my home. It hid from me for hours. Then, after chanting the 21 Praises, I asked Tara to please let the cockroach come out because the helper was coming to clean my place the next day, and she would definitely kill it. As soon as I finished that thought, the cockroach ran out towards me. I was able to gently catch it with a wet tissue and release it outside. I felt some compassion for the cockroach when I saw it.
Later, rereading the 21 Praises, I was reminded that it mentions warding off things like pestilence, negative entities, and so on."
P.s. after people asked me how to manifest their desires through Tara practice, I decided to write and share something:
A Guide for the Sincere Seeker: On Worldly Desires, Spiritual Powers, and Finding a True Path
The spiritual path often begins not with a clear decision, but with a deep ache in the heart. It can be a feeling of profound loneliness, a series of painful life events, or a desperate longing for a happiness that seems just out of reach. In this state of vulnerability, we look to the world for a solution, and the world of spirituality offers many promises: instant awakening, miraculous powers, and the manifestation of all our worldly desires.
But how does a sincere seeker navigate this landscape? How do we find an authentic guide without falling into traps? And how do we relate to our own very human desires for love, success, and security while walking a path to ultimate liberation?
This guide is for the sincere seeker who stands at that crossroads, filled with equal parts hope and confusion.
Part 1: The Search for an Authentic Guide
The first step is often the most confusing. We find a teacher or a tradition that seems to promise what we lack. But how do we know if it is authentic?
Look for a Verifiable Lineage: A genuine spiritual path is not invented overnight. It has a history—a "lineage" of masters who have passed the teachings down through generations. An authentic center will be transparent about its lineage and the teachers who have authorized it.
Trust, but Verify: The Duty to Examine the Teacher It is the duty of all students to choose their guru wisely and carefully. You should not follow blindly. The Dzogchen texts provide a clear list of criteria to select a guru.
The Rig pa rang shar tantra describes the attributes of a qualified teacher:
The master of the intimate instructions that possesses the vajra meaning has a positive attitude, is skillful in teaching, has obtained the empowerments, applies the meaning of Secret Mantra, understands all the inner and outer activities, is inseparable from the meditation deity, remains undistracted in samadhi, is knowledgable in the secret tantras of Secret Mantra, possesses the meaning of the intimate instructions of the Great Perfection, engages in all outer and inner sadhanas, never leaves the meaning of the view, gives up outer, inner, and secret activities, is endowed with qualities like a precious jewel, and enjoys an inexhaustible treasury. With the cord of compassion unsevered and the stream of affection uninterrupted, the master and disciple are thus connected.
The same tantra describes a “master” to avoid:
A master lacking a connection with a lineage of scholars, who is self-important, stupid, literal-minded, who does not understand the meaning of Secret Mantra, has harsh words for others, is boastful, has entered false paths, has not seen the mandala of the empowerment, disregards samaya, is unable to answer questions, has little learning, and great pride — such an unexamined master is a māra for the disciple. He is not a master who can teach Secret Mantra and is unable to teach the Great Perfection, Ati. Do not associate with such a person.
The great masters Jigme Lingpa and Longchenpa both comment on this, advising students to avoid such a demonic master. The kun byed rgyal po tantra adds:
The inauthentic master teaches scripture like a monkey, his false path beset with concepts. The master who displays the truth is a precious treasury worth an inestimable price.
Jigme Lingpa further clarifies six essential characteristics of a genuine teacher from the rig pa rang shar tantra:
[i] having put all samsaric phenomena behind him, [ii] having few desires and being content, [iii] being skilled in practice and having had experiences, [iv] being learned in the meanings of the tantras and having striven to accomplish them, [v] being learned in the meaning of the view and being completely capable with it, and [vi] having great compassion and being happy in renunciation.
He warns against teachers who are merely famous or appear miraculous. The Kalachakra Tantra gives an even stronger warning, advising that wise students should shun a teacher who is proud, angry, defiant of pledges, ignorant, deceptive, and obsessed with wealth and desire "as they would hell."
However, the great masters were also realistic. Jamgön Kongtrül wrote:
"Because we are living in a [degenerate] age, we very rarely meet a teacher endowed with all of the necessary qualifications. Since we may never meet such a teacher, we should accept a master who has many good qualities and very few weaknesses."
Therefore, your task is not to find a "perfect" guru, but to use these scriptural guidelines to find an authentic one, examining them carefully before committing.
Listen to Your Intuition (The Red Flag Detector): Your intuition is your greatest protector. If you interact with a center and the staff are unprofessional, make you feel uncomfortable, or cross personal boundaries, that is a significant red flag. A path to awakening should feel safe, clear, and respectful at every step.
Part 2: The Great Paradox – Worldly Desires and a Buddha’s Blessing
This is often the most difficult point for a new seeker. We come to the path because we are suffering in our worldly lives. We want a loving partner, financial security, and success. Can the practice give us these things?
The answer is a profound paradox. To understand it, think of an enlightened being like Tara as the wisest, most loving mother imaginable. Her only wish is for your absolute, lasting happiness. If her child, believing it will bring joy, asks for a kilo of candy, the wise mother knows this will ultimately cause sickness. Out of love, she will not give the child exactly what they asked for. Instead, she will provide a delicious, nourishing meal that will bring them true health.
A Buddha's blessing works this way. The practice is not a magic formula to bend reality to your ego's will. It is the powerful medicine that heals the deep, internal illness of our negative karma and our clinging attachment.
The Two Wings of Practice: For the bird of enlightenment to fly, it needs two wings: Merit and Wisdom.
The Wing of Merit (Method): Through devotional acts like prayer, mantra, and offerings, you accumulate powerful positive energy. This merit purifies negative karma and creates the causes for positive external conditions to arise. It can absolutely assist in creating the conditions for health, abundance, and loving relationships.
The Wing of Wisdom (Liberation): Through contemplation and practice, you develop insight into the nature of your mind and your attachments. This wisdom is what cuts the very root of suffering.
A complete path develops both wings together. The practice creates the possibility for your wishes to manifest, while also giving you the freedom from the suffering of needing them to.
Part 3: The Skillful Path – Transforming Desire
Is it normal to have worldly desires? Yes, it is completely and absolutely normal. The path does not begin by pretending we are already saints. It begins by honestly acknowledging the longings of our human heart.
The key is to learn how to work with these desires skillfully.
Frame Your Wishes with Bodhicitta: Instead of praying, "Grant me a partner," the skillful prayer is, "May I meet a kind and supportive partner so that our connection becomes a cause for us both to grow on the path to enlightenment for the benefit of all." This transforms a selfish wish into a vast, compassionate one.
Hold Wishes Lightly: Have strong aspiration, but loose attachment. It is like shooting an arrow: you aim with focus, pull the bow with all your strength, and then you release the arrow completely. You trust that your sincere effort has given it the best possible flight, and you let go of the outcome. If you are overly attached to a specific outcome, you will naturally become nervous and suffer more.
Understand the Progression: The famous teaching, "Parting from the Four Attachments," shows the natural evolution of a practitioner. It begins with attachment to this life, then to samsara, then to one's own self-interest, and finally, even the subtlest grasping is released. It is a gradual journey, and we must be patient with ourselves.
Part 4: Understanding the View – Why the Buddhist Path is Unique
As you explore, you will encounter many paths. It is important to understand why the Buddhist view is considered unique by its adherents.
The Commitment of Refuge: Taking Refuge in the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dharma, Sangha) is the formal entry to the Buddhist path. It is a commitment of the heart to rely on an "ultimate" source of liberation that is beyond worldly suffering. This is why, from a traditional standpoint, one cannot simultaneously take ultimate refuge in a worldly god or a teacher from another tradition whose goal is different.
The Goal of Anatman (No-Self): Many spiritual paths seek the realization of a universal Self (Atman) or its union with a divine consciousness (Brahman). The ultimate goal of the Buddha's teaching is the direct realization of Anatman—the profound truth that there is no solid, separate, enduring self to be found. This is a key distinction. While other paths can lead to profound states of non-dual consciousness, the Buddhist path asserts that without realizing anatman, one has not cut the root of samsara.
Siddhis (Powers) are Not the Goal: In the Buddhist teachings, spiritual powers or siddhis are understood in two distinct categories.
Mundane Siddhis: First are the 'mundane siddhis,' which include the five "higher knowledges" (abhijñā): the ability to display miraculous physical feats, clairaudience, telepathy, recalling past lives, and clairvoyance. It is crucial to understand that these powers arise from states of intense concentration (samādhi), not necessarily from wisdom. As such, they can be developed by any skilled meditator, including those who are not enlightened, and are not considered the true goal of the path. The great Chan Master Hui Lu tells the story of Maudgalyayana, the Buddha's disciple with the greatest psychic powers. When his homeland was about to be destroyed, he used his powers to place 500 people in his bowl to save them. But when he opened it later, they had all turned to blood. The master's conclusion is profound: "From this story, we can know that even psychic powers cannot change the collective karma of sentient beings. Psychic power cannot overcome karmic force." To be straightforward, the ability to fulfill desires can indeed be accomplished through dedicated Creation Stage practices like Green Tara. However, it is vital to understand that this power, like all mundane siddhis, does not overcome the karma of other people.
Supramundane Siddhi: The true goal is the sixth and ultimate "supramundane siddhi." This brings us to the ultimate supramundane power, the one that surpasses all others. It is not the ability to read minds or recall past lives—for these can still be objects of grasping. It is 漏尽通 (lòu jìn tōng): the supramundane power of the exhaustion of outflows. The "outflows" or "leaks" (āsava) are the fundamental taints of craving, aversion, and ignorance that create the illusion of a separate self and a solid world. This power is not an ability to do anything new. It is the power that arises from the complete cessation of doing, the final sealing of every leak. It is the fruition of a deconstruction executed without remainder. When the outflows are exhausted, what remains is the already-perfect, zero-action radiance of being itself. This is not just another power among many; it is liberation itself, the very state that gives birth to the light and rainbow bodies as its natural, effortless, and final expression.
This brings us to a very important point regarding a desire like "I want to change my age." We must be realistic. The teachings show us that even the most highly realized beings are subject to the laws of impermanence in their physical form. The historical Buddha himself displayed aging, sickness, and eventually, physical death. The ultimate goal of the path is not to perfect this temporary body, but to realize the nature of mind that is without birth and death, overcome our afflictions and cyclic rebirth in samsara. We have to understand that otherwise, we are stuck in endless suffering of samsaric rebirths. This connects back to the teaching on the "Parting from the Four Attachments": "If you are attached to this life, you are not a true dharma practitioner." We should understand the four noble truths: the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering.
Part 5: The Path Forward – From Questioning to Practice
Many seekers become caught in a loop of questioning, driven by a deep anxiety and a longing for certainty. But there is a limit to what can be understood through intellectual inquiry.
Imagine you have never tasted salt. I can spend hours writing detailed explanations about it—its chemical composition, its history, how it feels on the tongue. You can ask endless questions. But no matter how many answers I give, you will never understand the actual taste of salt until you put a single grain on your own tongue.
The Dharma is the same. The deep understanding you are seeking does not come from intellectual knowledge; it comes from the direct taste of practice. The answers are not in words on a screen; they are waiting for you inside your own mind, to be discovered through your own effort.
Once you have done the difficult work of finding an authentic guide, the work must shift.
Trust the Path You Have Chosen: You must have confidence that the practice you have received is the medicine the Master Doctor has prescribed for your specific illness of suffering. It contains everything you need.
Understand that Dharma Takes Time: These profound truths are not understood in a few weeks. They are realized through months and years of dedicated, patient study and practice.
Bring Your Questions to the Source: Your questions are precious. Write them all down. But the person you must ask is your own teacher—the one who gives you the transmission. Their direct guidance is a blessing that is a thousand times more powerful than any answer from a friend or a book.
Conclusion: The Journey Itself is the Blessing
The spiritual search is not a straight line. It is a journey of discovery, filled with confusion, hope, and moments of profound clarity. The fact that you are asking these deep questions, that you are examining your own heart with such honesty, means you are already on the right path.
Find a guide whose lineage is clear and whose qualities you can verify. Trust your intuition. And when you receive a precious teaching, cherish it. The ultimate blessing is not that the practice gives you everything you think you want. The ultimate blessing is that the practice transforms you into a person who is so whole, so free, and so full of compassion that you no longer need the world to be a certain way to be happy.
That is the true fulfillment of every wish.
