The TTE Lineage
The origins of Tara’s Triple Excellence
Green Tara
Green Tara is a female buddha of wisdom in action. Peaceful, resplendent, saviouress, and protector of sentient beings, Tara is often considered to be the mother of all Buddhas and embodies all their miraculous and enlightened activities. Tara’s unique quality is her swift and courageous response to anyone who asks for her help. Her sacred feminine energy is further emphasized by her resolve to always be reborn in female form in order to remove obstacles and liberate all sentient beings until the end of samsara.
Tara has countless manifestations, each embodying different aspects and qualities, offering protection from a specific type of fear, harm, or obstacle. The most popular are the 21 emanations of Tara, celebrated in the beloved and extremely meritorious “Praises to the Twenty-One Taras” prayer that so many devotees chant by heart. Tara is said to have manifested from Avalokiteshvara’s tears of infinite compassion. Saddened by the immense samsaric suffering of beings, Avalokiteshvara shed two tears, which transformed into Green Tara, whose wisdom mind overflows with great love and compassion, and White Tara, who is associated with long life. Green Tara is the yidam deity at the center of the Tara’s Triple Excellence online meditation program.
Noble Tara’s buddha field, the “Land of Turquoise Leaves”, is said to be an enchanting pure realm, a place of wisdom display beyond any worldly concepts of birth, aging, suffering, and death. This lush green jungle-like environment has many extraordinary features: wish-fulfilling gems, beautiful flowers, marvelously singing birds, rainbow light, and nectar-filled ponds. We supplicate to Tara with aspirations to be reborn in her pure realm, where, having perfected our pure nature, we work endlessly for the benefit of countless other beings.
Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa
Chokgyur Dechen Lingpa (1829-1870), whose name means “Sanctuary of Eminence,” is one of the most renowned tertöns, realized beings who revealed termas (dharma treasures) that were hidden by Guru Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyal for the benefit of future generations. Chokgyur Lingpa was born in 1829 in Nangchen, Eastern Tibet, as a reincarnation of King Trisong Detsen’s second son, Murub Tsenpo. Regarded as a universal patron of all tertöns, at the age of thirteen, Chokgyur Lingpa began having visions of Padmasambhava, some of which prophesied his future as a prominent revealer of hidden dharma teachings.
Chokgyur Lingpa was considered the last of a hundred great tertöns. His written teachings and texts comprise more than 40 volumes, collectively known as the Chokling Tersar, or New Treasures of Chokgyur Lingpa, and are studied and practiced by the Kagyu and Nyingma schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Chokgyur Lingpa was a contemporary of two other great treasure revealers: Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo and Jamgon Kongtrul. The three of them, having all reached a formidable level of realization and insight, shared knowledge, pith instructions, and acted simultaneously as a teacher and a disciple to each other.
Chokgyur Lingpa is Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche’s great-grandfather and Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche’s great-great-grandfather. The path of Tara’s Triple Excellence teachings, which forms the basis of this online meditation program, spontaneously appeared in the realized mind of Chokgyur Lingpa while he was on a retreat. The female Buddha Tara appeared to him in a vision and said: “legso, legso, legso,” which translates as “Excellent! Excellent! Excellent!” Chokgyur Lingpa noted the practices and instructions down and spent three years perfecting them in solitude.
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche
Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche is a world-renowned teacher and meditation master in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Born in Tibet in 1951, he is the first-born son of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. As a child, Chokyi Nyima—“Sun of the Dharma”—was recognized as the seventh incarnation of the Tibetan meditation master Gar Drubchen.
Among his many activities, in 2010 Rinpoche founded the Tara’s Triple Excellence Team. His impetus for creating this online meditation program was to provide authentic teachings and a supportive structure for students of the Buddhist path to follow in their daily practice at home.
Every year, Chokyi Nyima Rinpoche travels worldwide to teach practitioners, including annual TTE retreats with Tara empowerments. To learn more about Rinpoche’s many activities, please visit Shedrub.org.
