Unless we are Yogis or Yoginis, the closest we are likely to come to an inciteful appreciation of emptiness and the true nature of phenomena might actually be our dreams. The first Karmapa attained enlightenment with dream yoga.
“It is easier to develop your practices in a dream than in the daytime. In the daytime, we are limited to our material body, but in a dream, our function of mind and our consciousness of the senses are unhindered. We can have more clarity. If a person applies a practice within a dream, it is nine times more effective than when it is applied in waking life.” Namkai Norbu Rinpoche (1938 - 2018)
Chogyal Namkhai Norbu (1938–2018) was an internationally renowned scholar of the Nyingma lineage who dedicated his life, prodigious mind, and intellect to becoming a master of the Dzogchen Atiyoga teachings.
In the bardo, one has the yid lus , the vision body (yid, consciousness; lus, body). It is the same as the body of dreams, the mind body.
If you’re in a nightmare and you become lucid, relate to your fear instead of running from it. This practice can show you that it’s not the contents of the nightmare that scare you, but your habit of taking the events to be solid and real.
However, lucid dreaming alone will not wake you up in the spiritual sense. If you merely indulge your fantasies, lucid dreaming becomes super-samsara. When intention is involved, even at the level of a dream, karma is created.
Lucid dreams are not karmically neutral. If you want to go deeper, lucid dreaming can develop into dream yoga, which is when it becomes a spiritual practice. While lucid dreams can create negative karma, dream yoga is designed to purify it. “Yoga” is that which yokes, or unites. Dream yoga is designed to unite you with deeper aspects of your being and is more concerned with self-transcendence.
With dream yoga, instead of using your mind as an entertainment centre, you turn it into a laboratory. You experiment with dream meditations and study your mind using the medium of dreams. For example, one dream yoga practice is to change the objects in your dream.
In The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, “if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes? Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake.”
But, when we sleep, our minds create entire worlds within seconds; a century can pass in a relative minute; we can fly through the sky and meet Buddhas and stunningly beautiful Dakinis; we see monsters from the deepest fictional hells of our mind—and none of it is real. Yet, all of it is as real as we experience in our daily lives.
Lucid participation in your dreams can quickly help us develop insight into duality, into the true nature of phenomena, and into the illusion of appearances in our dualistic “waking” world.
Footnote
For those who have received the empowerment of this Tantric practise, you are reminded not to intentionally or unintentionally disclose the mantra to the public or anyone who may not have the empowerment or permission to practise, and disclosing the mantra intentionally or unintentionally is a form of breaking your Tantric Samaya vows to the lineage masters and Dharma protectors.
Please consult your Guru or a qualified lineage master for Vajrayana practise! Should a devotee even want to start studying and contemplating the Vajrayana practise, then it is truly necessary to first have completed the preliminaries and to be certain that Bodhicitta has arisen and developed in one’s mind.
Vajrayana features countless skillful and powerful methods that, if practised in the proper way, can make the process of accumulation and purification incredibly swift and direct. It is absolutely necessary to have pure motivation and to know that Vajrayana practise is not carried out to increase one’s own ego, power, or self-interest.
Donations for our Buddhist research and development
Do you earnestly cherish our devoted work? Assuming this is the case, we are delighted that you are finding our blog useful and valuable. Would you consider making a donation for our Buddhist research and development?
We need your help to secure the future of scholarly interaction with Buddhism. Since our very first publication of Dharma works and activities in 2008, we have been effortlessly providing free distribution of Dharma posts and articles throughout the previous 14 years. We have exceptionally constrained support and do not receive subsidies or funding from people in general.
Please help us develop our Dharma activities that will not only benefit you but all Dharma readers on the planet. Please consider showing your support. Your generosity will certainly help us enhance our work and accomplish more for a better and brighter future.
Thank you for reading. May you find peace and great bliss. With your support, it helps to spread the Buddha’s precious teachings and turn the Dharma wheels in the world.
Aspiration For Bodhichitta
For those in whom the precious Bodhichitta has not arisen
May it arise and not decrease.
But increase further and further.
Dedication of Merit
By this merit, may we then obtain omniscience then.
Having defeated the enemies wrongdoings
May we liberate migratory from the ocean of existence.
With its stormy waves of birth, old age, sickness, and death.
*Note
I do not own or infringe any copyright on the picture(s).
Picture(s) courtesy and credit to the rightful distributors and/or studios
The picture(s) are intended for editorial use only.