Index
The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep
When things are seen from a higher perspective they tend to level out. From the perspective of non-dual wisdom there is no important and unimportant.
Do not think about the object, just let it be in awareness. This is an important distinction to make. Thinking about the object is not the kind of concentration we are developing. The point is just to keep the mind placed on the object, on the sense perception of the object, to undistractedly remain aware of the presence of the object. When the mind does get distracted—and it often will in the beginning—gently bring it back to the object and leave it there.
thoughts arise without distracting the mind from the object.
You may find that drowsiness is actually a kind of movement of the mind that you can stop with strong concentration. If this does not work, take a break, stretch, and perhaps do some practice while standing.
Regard the practice as something precious, which it is, and as something that will lead to the attainment of the highest realization, which it will. Strengthen the intention and automatically the wakefulness of the mind is strengthened.
is not enough to simply repeat again and again that you are in a dream. The truth of the statement must be felt and experienced beyond the words. Use the imagination, senses, and awareness in fully integrating the practice with felt experience. When you do the practice properly, each time you think that you are in a dream, presence becomes stronger and experience more vivid.
This is the first preparation, to see all life as a dream. It is to be applied in the moment of perception and before a reaction arises.
Whereas the first preparation is applied in the moment of encountering phenomena and before a reaction occurs, the second practice is engaged after a reaction has arisen.
When a reaction arises, remind yourself that you, the object, and your reaction to the object are all dream. Think to yourself, “This anger is a dream. This desire is a dream. This indignation, grief, exuberance, is a dream.”
try to actually feel the dream-like quality of your inner life. When this assertion is actually felt, not just thought, the relationship to the situation changes, and the tight, emotional grip on phenomena relaxes.
The third preparation involves reviewing the day before going to sleep, and strengthening the intention to practice during the night. As you prepare for sleep, allow the memories of the day to arise. Whatever comes to mind recognize as a dream.
Then develop the strong determination to recognize the dreams of the night for what they are. Make the strongest intention possible to know directly and vividly, while dreaming, that you are dreaming.
“sending a wish.” We should have that sense here,
Keep building intention, using both successes and failures as occasions to develop ever stronger intent to accomplish the practice. And know that even your intention is a dream.
during the morning period, generate a strong intention to remain consistent in the practice throughout the day
And pray with your full heart for success; prayer is like a magical power that we all have and forget to use.
The Mother Tantra tells us that as we prepare for sleep we should maintain awareness of the causes of dream, the object to focus upon, the protectors, and of ourselves. Hold these together in awareness, not as many things, but as a single environment,
imaginal senses: try to visualize it clearly and, even more importantly, feel it and let it affect the sensations in the body and energy, and the quality of the mind.
Let the object appear without effort, as if intention, lying below the surface of consciousness, binds the mind to the object, just as the mind stays connected to the need to wake for an early appointment or to a great joy. There is no need for exertion or concentration—the object just is and you are with it. You are no longer creating it, you are allowing it, observing
The progression is to see it, feel it, and then be it. When you fully merge with the object, the visualization may cease, and this is all right.
Do not think this through—experience it.
anything that you cannot do, do not worry about. This is an important secret of practice! Worrying will not help your practice. But you also should not lose the force of your intention to do better. Just do the best you can.
The categories are: size; quantity; quality; speed; accomplishment; transformation; emanation; journey; seeing; encounter; and experiences.
syllables are RA, which is yellow and is toward the front of your body. LA, which is green, is to your left. SHA, to the back, is red. And SA is to the right and is blue. If there is a problem with restless self-distraction, focus on the syllables one after the other as you fall asleep.
If you find it difficult to calm the mind, it is sometimes helpful to do hard physical work, to tire the body or even exhaust it. Meditating on emptiness can also clear the mind.
Meaning does not exist until someone starts to look for it.
Why expect great messages from a dream? Instead penetrate to what is below meaning, the pure base of experience. This is the higher dream practice—not psychological, but more spiritual—concerned with recognizing and realizing the fundament of experience, the unconditioned. When you progress to this point, you are unaffected by whether there is a message in the dream or not. Then you are complete, your experience is complete, you are free from the conditioning that arises from dualistic interactions with the projections of your own mind.
simple and regular habits of reconnecting to ourselves, of becoming more present, must be cultivated. Every breath can be a practice.
Appreciation for sensory experience reconnects mind and body.
using bodily sensual experience to bring us to presence, to connect us to the beauty of the world, to the vivid and nourishing experience of life that lies under our distractions. This is the underpinning of successful dream yoga.
“May I have a clear dream. May I have a lucid dream. May I understand myself through dream.”
Feel the A rather than focus on it, merge with it rather than remain separate from it.
There are four successive domains of integration related to dream practice: vision, dream, bardo, and clear light.
truth is that there is never an object separate from a subject; there is only an illusion of separation.
Dzogchen teachings always stress the importance of knowing yourself, recognizing your capacities and obstacles, and using that knowledge to practice in the manner that will be most beneficial.
bring the mind into rigpa if possible. If not, then bring the mind into the body, into the central channel, into the heart.
strong intention is the foundation of the practice. Developing devotion will aid in making intention one-pointed and powerful enough to pierce the clouds of ignorance that mask the luminosity of the clear light.
Rather than relying on conceptual decisions to move from one tiglé to the next, and rather than trying to make the process happen, allow intention to unfold the process in experience.
Sleep yoga is not only a practice for sleep. It is the practice of remaining in non-dual awareness continually, throughout the four states of waking, sleeping, meditation, and death. Thus, the obstacles addressed below are actually the single obstacle of being driven away from the clear light and into dualistic, samsaric experience.
prayer has power but it is not in the words; it is in the feeling you put in the prayer.
The practice begins with light and the perceiver of light, but the intent is to unify the two.
It is good to see the light of the tiglé but more important to feel it.
Experience still arises, but allow whatever arises to dissolve spontaneously in blue light. Let this happen without effort.
The mind plays tricks. Its main trick is to identify itself as the subject and then take everything else to be separate from that subject. In this practice, everything perceived as outside of yourself is dissolved on the exhalation. The perceiver is dissolved on the inhalation. Both outside and inside become luminous and clear and merge into one another, becoming indistinguishable.
Life needs to take some form; if we do not shape it, it will take a form dictated by karma, which we may not like very much.
If we directly observe desire rather than becoming fixated on the object of desire, the desire dissolves. And if we can abide in pure presence, the desire, the desiring subject, and the object of desire will all dissolve into their empty essence, revealing the clear light.
When pleasure is used as a door to practice, the pleasure is not lost; we need not be anti-pleasure. When the subject and object dissolve in clear light, then the union of emptiness and clarity is experienced and there is joy. The approach to hatred or aversion is similar. If we observe anger rather than participating in it or identifying with it or being driven by it, then the dualistic obsession with the object of anger ceases and the anger dissolves into emptiness. If presence is maintained in that emptiness, then the subject, too, dissolves. The presence in that empty space is the clear light.
“The more wisdom is present, the less thoughts there will be.”
Wake, if possible, in the nature of mind rather than in the conventional mind. Observe without identifying with the observer. This can be a little easier in the first moments of waking because the conceptual mind is not totally awake yet. Develop the intention to wake in pure presence.
The distraction of our daily life and the unconsciousness of sleep are two faces of the same ignorance. The only limits to practice are those we create. It is best not to compartmentalize practice into periods of meditating, dreaming, sleeping, and so on.
Dzogchen teachings often use a mirror to symbolize rigpa. A mirror reflects everything without choice, preference, or judgement. It reflects the beautiful and the ugly, the big and the small, the virtuous and the non-virtuous. There are no limits or restrictions on what it can reflect, yet the mirror is unstained and unaffected by whatever is reflected in it.
Learn the form, understand the purpose of it, apply it in practice, and realize the result.
So take joy and peace as qualities to maintain, as supports in developing the continuity of awareness. Feel these qualities in the body, see them in the world, and wish them for others.
Continuity is the key to integrating life and practice. With awareness and intention, continuity can be developed.