I’ve been returning to Kathmandu for 14 years now, and I’ve been fortunate to spend time with many precious shrines and statues. One that I return to often in my mind is the beautiful Tara in the Golden Temple in Patan.
Many sacred images are idealized, symmetrical, composed toward a kind of perfected face. What moves me about this Tara is something different. There is a deep humanism in her presence. She feels as though she was based on a real person. That, to me, is part of her power.
In that way, the statue expresses something essential about Tathagatagarbha, the understanding that all beings possess Buddha nature. The deity is not distant or elsewhere. It is here, within us, waiting to be recognized.
I have met people in the Himalayas who resemble this Tara. Seeing them has helped me recognize the deity in others, to glimpse Buddha nature not as an abstraction but as something living and embodied.
This is a high aspiration. To see all beings with pure perception. To recognize Buddha nature in everyone, not only in humans but in animals, in all forms of life, even in those that provoke fear or confusion.
In a time marked by uncertainty and violence, when the five poisons feel especially strong, this aspiration feels both more difficult and more necessary. Each time I encounter this statue, I feel a quiet renewal of that commitment: to remember, even in doubt, that Buddha nature is present, and to respond in ways that help reveal it.