Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [154]
Everyone has lucid dreams, but we don’t always recognize them or remember them. You can start trying to become more conscious about your dreams with the simple act of keeping a dream journal by the side of your bed and recalling your dreams as soon as you wake each morning. When I first did this, I discovered that the more I wrote down, the more dream-material kept pouring out of my subconscious mind.
In the traditional Tibetan lama-training retreat, we would sleep sitting up all night in a meditation box, which is like a seat, instead of sleeping in a bed. With repeatedly chanted Tibetan prayers and affirmations, we would resolve to awaken within the dream and know it as a dream. With guidance from my teachers, even I was able to remember more and more dreams every night and to learn from them. In some instances I was even able to get some indication of future events and to understand certain signs, portents, and omens. I was able to better see for myself how similar are all the various bardos, including living, dreaming, and dying.
The important thing to remember is that lucid dreaming is a spiritual practice. It is not meant to be a parlor trick or a way to psychically predict whether certain stocks are going up or down. Dream yoga is a spiritual training and a powerful, experiential way of pointing out the insubstantial, malleable, dreamlike nature of reality. By learning to be aware in our dreams, we prepare ourselves for more moment-to-moment awareness in daily life. By transforming our dreams, we train in spiritual transformation. Let’s put on our natural night-lights. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily—we can find out for ourselves exactly to what extent—”life is but a dream.”
Dream Yoga: A Meditation
Before retiring at night, assume a meditative, prayerful posture and affirm your intentions by chanting:
For the welfare and well-being of the world
And the sake of spiritual awakening
May I seize my dreams and awaken within them
And realize the true nature of mind and all things.
This can be repeated three or more times to plant the seed and intentionally set up the conditions to awaken within your dreams, without waking from sleep.
After reciting this chant, lie down. Relax; breathe. Stay calm and tranquil. Place your head as if in the peaceful Buddha’s warm, soft, accepting, welcoming lap. Visualize yourself actually lying down with your head in the lap of the orange-robed, seated, cross-legged Buddha.
Then close your eyes. Take a rest.
Drop all the day’s tensions, activities, and memories.
Relax.
Rest peacefully.
Rest in light.
Rest your weary heart and mind, body and soul.
Gaze into the shimmering dark light behind your eyelids.
To illumine your mind, visualize a shining white letter A, there before your eyes,
glowing like a luminous full moon.
Concentrate on that white light. Focus on it.
Dissolve gradually into that light.
Enter into the inner light, and spontaneously awaken in the perfectly luminous, clear, dream light.
Know everything is like a dream.
Let it go as it goes
and be as it is,
in the natural Great Perfection,
the radiant light
of the natural mind.
STEP EIGHT
RIGHT CONCENTRATION
The Joy of Meditation
O let us live in joy, in love amongst those who hate! Among men who hate, let us live in love.
O let us live in joy, in health amongst those who are ill! Among men who are ill, let us live in health.
O let us live in joy, in peace amongst those who struggle! Among men who struggle, let us live in peace.
O let us live in joy, although having nothing! In joy let us live