A dream that is a reminder

An Eternal Now SG

I often have dreams that have spiritual messages or prophetic contents (like foreseeing the events of future with uncanny accuracy and I often tell them to my friends beforehand and lo it happens), I don’t discuss them here and only tell people like Thusness. I also have lucid dreaming episode – just two days ago I had a lucid dream session that lasted at least half an hour.

But this dream… Think will share with everyone.

I dreamt that I was in a HDB flat with my family (I don’t live in a flat in real life).

Then suddenly, I felt this gradual tilting of the HDB flat. Then I realized, my gosh! The building is falling!

I started shouting to my family, yet strangely they won’t budge and think that staying inside the flat is safe. I ran out of my flat and shouted to all my neighbours, they also didn’t budge or bother at all.

I ran to the lift or the staircase but realized the hdb block is falling too fast and I have no time to escape. I went to a corner and stayed there, luckily when it fell somehow that enclosed area protected me from death and I managed to escape.

Moral of the story: nobody can escape impending death. The only refuge and escape from samsara and the cycle of birth and death is to take refuge in the triple gems and practice dharma, and time is truly running out. Please have a sense of urgency otherwise you will be crushed by the suffering, ageing, sickness and death of samsara sooner than you think and start a new cycle again…

An Eternal Now SG

I was reminded of a similar analogy by Buddha… Interestingly the analogy sounds a little like a dream scenario. Maybe the Buddha once had such dreams in his past lives.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn03…

An Eternal Now SG

Forgot to mention… An important point about the dream is also about perceiving the dangers in our five aggregates. What is impermanent, inconstant, unstable, unsatisfactory, suffering, not self, not me nor mine… Must be seen as it is and the attachment relinquished.

By indulging and clinging to our aggregates, we will be mesmerized, blinded, fail to see the dangerous situation and the limitless suffering that is ahead of us…

simpo_ SG

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I will also advocate the same urgency. In the future, one cannot guarantee to always be born in conditions and worlds where the Dharma is accessible. No kidding... Earth is not the only world where lifeform is sustainable. One may be reborn in other worlds and there is no guarantee that dharma or similar kind of teachings is available in such worlds.

An Eternal Now SG

Very true.. Smile what’s more, if we don’t practice, chances of falling into lower realm is even higher than getting birth in higher realms…

Dharmadhatu SG

Thanks! You are making me anxious to practice too...

Fugazzi SG

Muse over this lah-
Last night while I was alseep, I dreamt that I was very sick. Do I have to see the doctor or should I have seen the doctor?

Summer hill SG

FYI, i am able to fully control my dreams

An Eternal Now SG

@fugazzi: there is a difference between karmic dreams and dreams of clarity. You need to read Dream Yoga book by chogyal namkhai norbu rinpoche

@summer hill: I am also able to control my dreams in lucid dreaming. How often do you lucid dream and do you practice a particular technique?

Summer hill SG

@fugazzi: there is a difference between karmic dreams and dreams of clarity. You need to read Dream Yoga book by chogyal namkhai norbu rinpoche

@summer hill: I am also able to control my dreams in lucid dreaming. How often do you lucid dream and do you practice a particular technique?

If i have the time, i will sleep in the afternoon.

only time i am able to lucid dreams

Fugazzi SG

when one sleeps one becomes unconscious cos that is the state of many normal human beings. When one is unconscious, only then can dreams happen cos dreams happen in unconsciousness. However, when one is conscious (even while asleep) dreams cannot happen. While awake n if is still dreaming – one is living in unawareness.

Ps – Most of dreaming – is unreconciled living/unreconciled psychological states, emotional and …. – yet waiting to be completed!
It is not absolute but always relative to what one is all about – cos as long as one in physical form – the conditioning is bound to encroach on …. and add color to what is trasparency.

Dharmadhatu SG

Muse over this lah-
Last night while I was alseep, I dreamt that I was very sick. Do I have to see the doctor or should I have seen the doctor?

Don't need to see doctor. And so...?

Fugazzi SG

Ignore lah, it was only a dream and past already lah, what is there to analyse and worry about? What is essential is whether eg, am i writing now and dreaming of … If the latter is transpiring, then i m not living, I m trying to live or livnin in my mind lah.

An Eternal Now SG

Obviously you have no understanding about dreams of clarity and how they can bring clarity to one’s understanding and practice.

Like I said, go read Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche’s Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light.

Fugazzi SG

It is not absolute but always relative to what one is all about – cos as long as one in physical form (mind and body) – the conditioning is bound to encroach on …. and add color to what is trasparency.

Dharmadhatu SG

Obviously you have no understanding about dreams of clarity and how they can bring clarity to one’s understanding and practice.

Like I said, go read Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche’s Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light.

Can u briefly explain dreams of clarity?

I have dreams too and i think everyone has these dreams that guide us... as everyone is basically on some kind of spiritual path...

An Eternal Now SG

Go borrow the book, hehe…

Dharmadhatu SG

Quote from Garchen Rinpoche

Apart from sustaining mindfulness throughout the day and night there is no other clear light yoga. It begins with being able to sustain mindfulness throughout the day. When your mind is very clear and sharp during the day, eventually it will carry through the night. When you fall asleep continuing to sustain mindfulness, in a union of clear awareness and emptiness, you will first recognize the dream state. This recognition is called "recognizing the luminosity of the dream." Then eventually, through consistent mindfulness, even the dream state will disappear, and you will rest in clarity naturally; awareness will remain. Eventually clear awareness will even remain during the deep sleep state. It is like the illumination of a lamp flame. There are no thoughts, and there is a subtle feeling of your sleep's rest. This is accomplished when you sustain clear awareness continuously--remain free from the slightest distraction--throughout day and night.

Finally, in deep sleep you will recognize the clear light of deep sleep. What we call clear light is your ability to outshine thoughts and emotions or feelings with clear awareness. These thoughts, while arising, dissolve without having affected you or leaving a trace behind. A beginning practitioner will sustain mindfulness sometimes, and then will again become unmindful. This must first be overcome during the day. You must first be able to destroy whatever habitual thoughts arise, then habituate sustaining clear awareness. Then when you go to sleep, uphold mindfulness by falling asleep practicing the OM AH HUNG Vajra Recitation. At times you might remember the OM AH HUNG during the dream state, and eventually mindfulness will remain even in the deep sleep state.

An Eternal Now SG

I just realized this is an apt description of my dream:

An untaught worldling, O monks, does not know of any other escape from painful feelings except the enjoyment of sensual happiness. Then in him who enjoys sensual happiness, an underlying tendency to lust for pleasant feelings comes to underlie (his mind). He does not know, according to facts, the arising and ending of these feelings, nor the gratification, the danger and the escape, connected with these feelings. In him who lacks that knowledge, an underlying tendency to ignorance as to neutral feelings comes to underlie (his mind). When he experiences a pleasant feeling, a painful feeling or a neutral feeling, he feels it as one fettered by it. Such a one, O monks, is called an untaught worldling who is fettered by birth, by old age, by death, by sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief and despair. He is fettered by suffering, this I declare.

~ Buddha

An Eternal Now SG

Other dreams that remind of the urgency of practice (I had both dreams just yesterday – but dreams of similar theme keep reoccuring) -

1) Often had this dream of a final exam that is coming up, but I have only a few days left to prepare for it and I haven’t even began flipping through the books – then I realize, oh my god, what have I been doing the whole year not preparing for the exam, now I have no more time at all!

2) I dreamt of preparing for a sudden and urgent overseas trip, the flight is about to depart and I only have time to pack the essential clothes and leave. No time for unnecessities at all that seemed important to me in the past – like for example, my digital camera

In conclusion: prepare for the ‘final exam’ of death NOW…. there is no time to lose. You never know when that exam is coming… it could be very soon. DON’T wait until your last moments before you realize you have wasted the whole life which could have been put into good use for your liberation.

Also, no more time for unnecessary distractions! Keep life simple and Practice NOW…