In the practice tradition of Tibetan Buddhism there's a mantra renowned for its "swift response" — whose Sanskrit name means, simply, "the one who liberates," whose form is always emerald green, embodying surging life force and immediate, compassionate action. She is Green Tara, and her heart mantra, "Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā," is among the most widely recited mantras of Tibetan Buddhists.
This article approaches Green Tara on two levels, historical and philosophical — from how Padmasambhava brought esoteric Buddhism into Tibet, to the graduated framework of Tsongkhapa's Geluk lineage, to the modern interpretation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama; and at the same time, from the psychology of the "protector image" and attachment theory, to see why a compassionate visualised figure can bring steadiness when anxiety rises.
Who Is Tara? Origins and Legend
The name "Tara" (Tibetan: Sgrol-ma; Sanskrit: Tārā) means "the one who liberates," "the one who ferries across," and stands for the power of compassion that helps beings cross the sea of suffering. In Buddhist cosmology, Tara is born from the tears of Avalokiteśvara's compassion for all beings — when Avalokiteśvara saw the boundless suffering of beings and shed a tear, that tear became Tara, who vowed to come swiftly to the aid of all sentient life.
Tara has twenty-one forms (the "Twenty-One Taras"), of which Green Tara is the most fundamental, the principal figure. Her green colour stands for nature, life force, and the unobstructed activity of awakening. She's usually shown seated with her right foot lowered, resting on a lotus — unlike the upright seated posture of other buddhas and bodhisattvas, this pose suggests she's ready at any moment to rise and come instantly to the aid of beings in need.
This "lowered right foot" detail is stressed again and again in Tibetan Buddhist iconography — it's not a casual stylistic choice but a clear signal: Tara isn't a figure seated in some distant pure land waiting for you to come and pray, but a presence already half-risen, ready at any moment to set out in response to a call. When you recite before an image of Green Tara, this visual message is sent continuously to your subconscious — you are not alone; there's a presence, ready to respond, right there.
Padmasambhava: The Turning Point That Brought Esoteric Buddhism to Tibet
To understand the central place of Green Tara devotion in Tibetan Buddhism, you have to go back to a pivotal figure in Tibetan Buddhist history — Padmasambhava (8th century). Padmasambhava was the founder who brought Indian Mahāyāna esoteric Buddhism into Tibet; revered as the "Second Buddha" in Tibetan Buddhism, he's regarded as the founding patriarch of the Nyingma school (the oldest school of Tibetan Buddhism).
As Tibetan Buddhist tradition tells it, in the 8th century King Trisong Detsen invited the eminent Indian monk Śāntarakṣita to establish the Dharma in Tibet, but because the local indigenous beliefs were powerful at the time, both building temples and spreading the teaching met enormous obstacles. Śāntarakṣita advised inviting Padmasambhava — a yogi held to be a master of esoteric methods, able to subdue places hard to convert. After entering Tibet, Padmasambhava is said to have used esoteric methods to establish Tibet's first Buddhist monastery, Samye, and to have transmitted a great body of esoteric teachings — including the Tara practices — to the practitioners of Tibet.
Padmasambhava's path of teaching laid the ground for a fundamental difference in style between Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism — Tibetan Buddhism preserved a large body of late Indian Mahāyāna esoteric practice, including complete systems of deity visualization, mantra, mudrā, and maṇḍala. Green Tara devotion, one important stream within this, has been transmitted in Tibet for over 1,200 years since Padmasambhava's time.
Atiśa and His Profound Connection with Tara
Tibetan Buddhist history records a widely told story that makes Tara's figure all the more vivid. Atiśa (982–1054) was a renowned Buddhist master from India's Nālandā University who later went to Tibet at invitation to teach, becoming an important founder of the later spread of Tibetan Buddhism.
It's recorded that when Atiśa was deciding whether to accept the invitation to Tibet, he prayed to Tara for guidance. Tara told him that if he went to Tibet, he would greatly benefit beings in this life, but his lifespan would be shortened as a result. Atiśa accepted without hesitation, spending the last 17 years of his life in Tibet and leaving works such as A Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment, of far-reaching influence on Tibetan Buddhism. This story, widely told in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, presents Tara as a "teacher of wisdom" — not only a protector but a source of clear guidance.
Tsongkhapa and Tara Practice Within the Geluk Stages of the Path
Another major turning point in Tibetan Buddhism was the reform led by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) from the late 14th to early 15th century. Tsongkhapa founded the Geluk school (the "Yellow Hat" school, to which the present Dalai Lama belongs), and on the foundation of the Kadam lineage transmitted by Atiśa, he reorganized a complete graduated path of practice. His major work, the Lamrim Chenmo (The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path), is the most widely cited blueprint for practice in Tibetan Buddhism.
Tsongkhapa's core contribution was to organise the entire path to buddhahood into a clear ladder — from the "path of the lesser person" (practising for good rebirth in future lives), to the "path of the middling person" (practising for one's own liberation), to the "path of the greater person" (practising for the benefit of all beings). Within this sequence, deity practice (including Green Tara practice) isn't isolated mystical exercise but is set within the "path of the greater person" as a concrete practice of the bodhisattva's conduct — cultivating, through visualising and supplicating a compassionate deity, the awakening mind that shares in the joys and sorrows of all beings.
This organised sequence gives modern practitioners an important perspective — the Green Tara mantra isn't a wish-granting charm where "recite it and your wish comes true," but an entry point within a whole system of compassion training. When you recite, you're not asking an external being to solve your problem for you; through repeated contemplation of this compassionate image, you cultivate within yourself a compassion and a capacity for action of the same quality.
The Fourteenth Dalai Lama's Modern Teaching on Green Tara
In contemporary Tibetan Buddhism, the one who has offered the most far-reaching modern interpretation of Green Tara devotion is the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso, b. 1935). In The Art of Happiness (1998), co-authored with the American psychotherapist Howard Cutler, the Dalai Lama stresses concrete methods for training compassion again and again — and Green Tara visualization is a typical instance of such training.
The Dalai Lama's core teaching is that compassion isn't a passive emotion but a capacity you can strengthen through practice. When you regularly visualise a compassionate figure (such as Green Tara), recite her mantra, and feel her presence, the process does two things: first, it moves your attention from "my own anxiety" to "a larger, compassionate field"; second, it turns "compassion" from an abstract idea into a concrete feeling your body and emotions can sense.
The Dalai Lama also notes that modern people's expectations of "swift response" are often one-sided — many expect outer circumstances to change right after they recite, but he stresses that the true "swiftness" is inner: when you begin to recite, your breath, heartbeat, muscle tension, and patterns of emotional response begin, in that very moment, to show subtle shifts. This inner "swiftness" is often the most precious gift of the Green Tara practice.
The Full Mantra and Its Sanskrit Meaning
Green Tara Mantra (Heart Mantra)
Oṃ Tāre Tuttāre Ture Svāhā
(another common transliteration: Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha)
Sanskrit: Oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā
These syllables carry a refined interpretation in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition:
Oṃ — the root sound of the cosmos, standing for the essence of the Three Jewels: the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha.
Tāre — "liberation," Tara's fundamental name, meaning to rescue beings from the sea of saṃsāra's suffering.
Tuttāre — "swift liberation," rescuing from the eight fears (outer dangers).
Ture — "ultimate liberation," freeing from inner obstacles such as illness, affliction, and ignorance.
Svāhā — "may this be accomplished," the prayer that the merit of the practice be fully realised and grounded.
The three levels of "liberation" (Tāre / Tuttāre / Ture) are read as protection at three levels: from outer danger → from karma and suffering → from the root of ignorance — embodying the Mahāyāna sequence of practice from the surface to the depths, from the relative to the ultimate.
The Eight Fears: The Eight Perils Tara Guards Against
One of Tara's most famous merits is guarding beings from the "eight fears" (eight kinds of fear). Traditionally, these eight fears carry meaning on two levels at once — outer (actual peril) and inner (the obstacle of affliction):
🦁 The lion (pride) — outwardly the threat of a fierce lion, inwardly the obstacle of arrogance.
🐘 The elephant (delusion) — a charging wild elephant, inwardly ignorance and folly.
🔥 Fire (hatred) — fire consuming the body, inwardly anger and resentment.
🐍 The snake (jealousy) — a venomous snake harming people, inwardly the jealous mind.
🗡️ Thieves (wrong views) — robbers plundering, inwardly mistaken views.
⛓️ Bondage (miserliness) — the bindings of prison, inwardly stinginess and grasping.
🌊 Water (craving) — floods drowning, inwardly craving and desire.
👻 Ghosts (doubt) — malevolent spirits intruding, inwardly suspicion and uncertainty.
This two-layered reading embodies the Tibetan Buddhist philosophy of practice, in which outer circumstances and the inner mind mirror each other — clearing outer peril and purifying inner affliction proceed in step.
A Psychological Lens: The Protector Image, Attachment, and Building a Sense of Safety
Step outside the Buddhist context, into a modern psychological view: why can a practice like "visualising a compassionate protector" bring steadiness when anxiety rises? Two scholarly frameworks help here.
The first is an extension of the self-efficacy theory Albert Bandura established in 1977. Bandura later noted that a sense of self-efficacy is built not only from the direct experience of "I did it myself," but also from the felt support of "an important other believes I can." When a practitioner builds in the mind a vivid image of "Tara is there, ready at any moment to respond to me," this inner feeling of "being believed in, being supported" itself strengthens her courage to act in the face of challenge. In other words, Tara isn't there to solve your problems for you, but to establish within you a foundation of safety: "I'm not facing this alone."
The second framework comes closer to the heart of it — research on attachment in contemporary psychology finds that our capacity to regulate emotion develops, to a large degree, through "connection with a predictable, steady other." For an adult, this "other" need not be a physical person; it can be an internalized image. When anxiety rises, if the mind can call up an image that is "compassionate, connected to me, always there," the act of calling it up itself activates the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing steadiness at the physiological level. Green Tara — a compassionate image transmitted for over 1,200 years, visualised and affirmed by countless practitioners — provides exactly this kind of "always there" inner anchor.
To be clear — this doesn't mean Green Tara is "merely" a psychological image. In the Buddhist tradition's view, she has her own complete nature and merit. But even if you haven't entered this faith system, from a psychological angle this kind of practice can still bring real support to your emotional system. Tradition and modernity aren't in conflict; they illuminate the same phenomenon from different angles.
How to Practice the Green Tara Mantra
The Green Tara mantra is one of the lowest-threshold practices in Tibetan Buddhism; basic mantra recitation can begin without a specific empowerment (for deeper practice, receiving the lineage transmission is still advised):
Sit upright and relax — take a comfortable seated posture, relax the whole body, bring your attention into the present.
Visualise Tara (optional) — picture in your mind the image of green-luminous Tara, or recite directly before an image of Tara.
Recite the heart mantra — recite in a clear, calm tone, at least 21 times each session, with 108 times making one full round.
Keep a devout, open heart — the power of the mantra is closely tied to the practitioner's faith and pure mind.
Dedicate — at the close, dedicate the merit of the practice to all sentient beings.
The Green Tara mantra can be recited at any time, with no special ritual setting required — one reason it's so widely accepted by modern people. If you're interested in the healing mantras of Tibetan Buddhism, you might also learn about the [Medicine Buddha Heart Mantra](/blog/medicine-buddha-mantra-guide.html) — the two complement each other well in their aims. You can also read Universe Bella's piece on the [Cundī Mantra](/blog/zhunti-mantra-guide.html), comparing the mantra-practice styles of the Chinese and Tibetan traditions.
Three Situations in Which Practitioners Today Use the Green Tara Mantra
First: as a morning recalibration of the mind. The first hour after waking is when the brain is especially open to outside information. Reciting the Green Tara mantra 21 or 108 times in this window, paired with visualising green light, sets the tone for the day's inner state with a steady image of compassion. You can link this practice with a [morning stillness ritual](/blog/affirmation-morning-ritual.html) as the start of your day.
Second: as an inner anchor in travel and unease. Tara is traditionally seen as the protector of travellers — and this means more than the literal "keep me safe on the road." Its deeper meaning is that when you're in an unfamiliar place, facing strangers and the unknown, your sense of safety shaken, being able to summon a familiar compassionate image in the mind builds for you a portable "inner home." Many modern practitioners recite short mantras during the wait before a flight, a business trip, or an interview.
Third: as a vehicle of prayer when dedicating to others. When someone you care about is going through hardship — illness, job loss, a broken relationship, a low in spirits — and you can't directly help, the Green Tara mantra offers a concrete channel for "I am doing something." Within the traditional framework, the heart of this act isn't "Tara, please help him," but "I turn my care for him, through this practice, into a steady blessing." For you, it eases the anxiety of "being powerless"; for the one being blessed, at least someone is, in this way, continuously and consciously sending love their way.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I recite the Green Tara mantra without a Tibetan empowerment?
Recitation at the heart-mantra level requires no specific empowerment; it's traditionally one of the lowest-threshold practices. If you want to go deeper into the full Tara visualization or liturgy, then consider receiving the lineage transmission.
What's the relationship between Green Tara and Avalokiteśvara (Guanyin)?
The traditional account is that Tara is born from a tear shed by Avalokiteśvara out of compassion for beings, and so she's seen as another manifestation of Avalokiteśvara's compassionate action. The two are kindred in their spiritual essence.
Why is Green Tara called "swift rescue"?
Tara's posture — right foot lowered onto a lotus — stands for "ready at any moment to rise and rescue"; she's traditionally held to respond especially swiftly to supplication, and this "swift response" is one of her most praised qualities.
How many times a day is best?
There's no hard rule. Twenty-one repetitions is a common beginner's session; 108 makes one full round. Morning, before sleep, or any time you need to settle — what matters is regularity and focus, not the count.
Why is Tara green?
In traditional interpretation, green stands for the life force of nature, the "all-accomplishing wisdom" among the four wisdoms (the wisdom that completes all activity), and the unobstructed activity of awakening. Green is also seen as the energetic colour of summer, growth, and recovery — resonating with Tara's quality of "swift rescue."
Can I recite on behalf of someone else?
Yes — this is traditionally called "dedication." The basic method is to first recite one full session with a calm mind (for example 21 or 108 times), and at the close clearly dedicate the merit of the practice, within your heart, to a particular person or to all beings. Psychologically, this act is also an active expression of relationship — you're using a stretch of quiet time you've protected to create a blessing for someone else.