Introduction to Dream Yoga
From the earliest Hinayana teachings all the way to Dzogchen, our great teacher Buddha Shakyamuni pointed out that everything is illusory, like magic, dreams, clouds, echoes, or lightning. The Buddha used many such metaphors to show us our nature, to soften our grasping, and to melt our regimented, icelike dualistic mind that sees ourselves and all phenomena as separate, discrete, and unconnected. He gave us a great many tools to help us wake up. Dream yoga practice is one such tool.
Everything is like a dream. There’s no difference between our waking experiences during the daytime and our sleeping dreams at night. When we’re not hindered by duality, we see that everything is a dream. We could also say that everything is real. It’s not that dreams are unreal and this waking life is real. Whichever word we want to use, whether it’s dream or reality, if everything is real, everything is real. And if everything is a dream, everything is a dream. Their nature is the same. There’s no difference. That’s what the Buddha and Guru Padmasambhava* taught, and to some degree we can experience this.
Everything is a dream because everything is constantly changing. Since we were born and until this very moment, for as long as we can remember, how many things have changed? How many things have shifted and been dislocated? Even ourselves, myself, how many changes have we been through? When we look at all those changes in the past, they’re really just dreams. What’s the difference between my dream last night and everything that happened in the past? Really, what’s the difference? This book is also a dream. We’re in another stage of the dream, exploring and analyzing the beautiful qualities of dreams, but it is still a dream. Bring up this realization vividly and touch the nature itself without being dislocated by the power of duality and the force of our misunderstanding. This is dream yoga practice, in which we bring up our realization of the true nature exactly as it is.
Buddha Shakyamuni taught dream yoga extensively on many occasions. Much later, in the eighth century, the dream yoga teachings were concealed by Padmasambhava as terma, or hidden treasure, to later be located and revealed in the fourteenth century by the great terton, or treasure revealer, Sangye Lingpa. The entire terma is called The Heart Collection of Lama Practices, and the particular chapter of the text we’re discussing is called “Instructions on Using Dreams as the Path,”† which includes lengthy teachings on dream yoga.
Dream yoga is very important since it contains all the instructions and techniques necessary to reach enlightenment. In particular, the pith instructions* found in the original text encompass all the heart practices of the guru, without missing anything. Our teaching is a line-by-line commentary on the meaning of the main sections of this text.
Before we begin these teachings, we should generate the beautiful motivation of bodhichitta, the “mind of enlightenment,” comprised of impartial love, compassion, and wisdom. Receiving and practicing these teachings should therefore be dedicated to all sentient beings. Maybe you’ve heard about bodhichitta a hundred times or more, but it’s really so important. Without bodhichitta, we can’t develop any kind of spiritual qualities or strength, and we won’t have any realization or inner development. Whenever we practice and whatever we do, it should be based on the beneficial thought of bodhichitta. Bodhichitta is like a hand that gathers all good qualities. Without this hand of love and compassion, we can’t do anything good in samsara. So we must practice with the bodhichitta intention to benefit all sentient beings. Our motivation and practice must be joined together. We can’t separate them by accepting one and rejecting the other, or by thinking that one is valuable and the other is not—they’re both invaluable. In a way, they are skillful means and wisdom, which always have to be united and practiced together. This union will bring realization.
We should always remember that bodhichitta is our ground. We have to extend our bodhichitta to all sentient beings, including ourselves, sangha members, and everyone. We should bring everyone together equally within our love and compassion, without discrimination. If we have emotional patterns due to past habits, we have to remove them and bring up more harmony and joy. It is with this foundation that we practice dream yoga.
Dreaming and sleeping are important to all beings, particularly those who, like ourselves, live in what the Buddha called the “desire realm.” In the desire realm, consciousness is connected with the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space, but particularly with the earth element. For us, sleep is like food—it sustains both the body and the mind. It calms and soothes the body and makes the mind fresher and stronger. The Buddha’s teachings say that as soon as sentient beings obtain the form aggregate, they need sleep.
More than merely resting, we can use the time we spend sleeping to truly benefit ourselves and others. Human life in this world can last about a hundred years if we’re lucky, and almost half that time, say fifty years, is spent sleeping. Unfortunately, the remaining fifty years cannot be totally dedicated to enlightenment. We spend most of this remaining time working for a living and doing ordinary activities like preparing meals and cleaning the house. If we could dedicate even fifteen full years to practicing with diligence and concentration, there would be a real growth of understanding of the primordial nature and enlightenment. However, very few people can do this. Most of us spend only one or two percent of our time on focused practice. Since almost half our time is spent sleeping, if we can do dream yoga, then sleep can be used as practice time, making it a meaningful and important part of the spiritual path.
Dream yoga redirects and transforms our neutral dream states into positive or virtuous states so that we can use our dreams for Dharma practice. Unless we do dream yoga, sleep is just sleep. As we know, time is very precious, and time is always running. Whenever we have the opportunity, we should use our time to good purpose. When we strengthen our courage, commitment, and devotion, we can make dreamtime more meaningful for everyone, including and especially ourselves.
Human birth is such a special opportunity. As Dharma practitioners, we should try to use our time here more enthusiastically so that we can develop in a natural, beautiful, and meaningful way. To do this, we can use dream yoga as one of our essential Dharma practices. It’s very important to remember the preciousness of time. Whenever we have the opportunity, we should grab hold of it and perform beneficial activities for others and ourselves. Of course, we all know this, but sometimes we neglect to do so. We kind of casually let those beautiful moments pass by, one after another, so that sometimes we don’t even have enough time to say goodbye. Many times we overlook very special opportunities. For this reason, we should continually remind ourselves of the preciousness of our situation and restrengthen our courage, commitment, and devotion to the Dharma. We can then use our time to good purpose, which will reflect in our lives and the lives of others, now and long into the future. Practicing dream yoga is a very beneficial way to use our time.
What is a dream exactly? Dreams are illusory, changeable, flexible, open, and empty. That’s what a dream really is. Whatever we see or think of, we must think of it as an illusion that is flexible and changeable. Even this world that we see now—this land, these trees, people, ourselves, and the entire universe—we’re all dream beings in a dream world filled with dream experiences. Seeing everything as a dream is one example the Buddha used to usher us into a deeper level of understanding the nature of openness. The Buddha gave many teachings to open up the tight, tense, solitary world that we mentally cling to as we forget the open, empty, flexible state of the true nature. The Buddha said that all our experiences are like a dream, a bubble, a mirage, and a reflection of the moon on water. They’re a magical display, an echo, the double images we see when we press on our eyeballs, or like a variety of hallucinations induced by drugs.
All beings in samsara know that dreams aren’t real. The Buddha was skillfully trying to help us bridge the gap between samsara and nirvana by connecting and opening us to the true nature of phenomena. Of course, dreams aren’t real—we all know that. Reflections of the moon are not the actual moon; echoes and movie images aren’t the real sounds and images of what’s really happening. All of these examples are meant to lead us out of our closed mental attitudes of grasping and clinging by understanding and revealing our inherent wisdom. If we release these fabricated knots of hope and fear, we can discover the infinite freedom and openness of great emptiness.
