Tara is an inspirational figure to many Buddhist practitioners. She embodies the most compelling and vital qualities of the feminine: beauty, grace, and the ability to nurture, care for and protect. In addition, she is a true warrior, vanquishing fear and ignorance. One could say she is the earliest known Buddhist feminist."Skillful Grace" is an introduction to practice and meditation techniques from the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana path that show us how to become Tara in our everyday life through the complete and unexcelled Vajrayana Buddhist path. There are many explanations of the different Tara practices. However, "Skillful Grace" is unique in that it outlines an entire path, taking Tara as support. This book is divided into three main sections. The first is the root text of this cycle, The Essential Instruction on the Threefold Excellence, according to the mind treasure of the profound essence of Tara as revealed by Chokgyur Lingpa. Following that is a commentary on this root text by Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Next is Jamgon Kongtrul and Adeu Rinpoche's synthesized commentary on the same text.In order to make this work less scholarly and more applicable to practitioners, we decided to paraphrase Jamgon Kongtrul commentary and blend it together with Adeu Rinpoche's teaching. The book is rounded out with a foreword by Tara Bennett Goleman, author of the best selling book "Emotional Alchemy", an in-depth introduction by Marcia Schmidt, and various appendixes and footnotes.
