In love with the world - 13. Of sleep and dreams

Contributors

Justyna, Chloé

Summary of the chapter

It is Rinpoche’s last night at Varanasi Station and he reflects upon sleeping and dreaming. He starts by saying that we undergo a mini-death every night because that is when we leave behind our solid sense of self. With a story about the Dalai Lama and Sixteenth Karmapa, Rinpoche illustrates that there is in fact no distinction between day and night and that it is misleading to insist that our dreams are just illusory and not real. We dismiss our dream reality as if it was something external to us when, while in fact, “Our dreams are us, for these images can only arise from our projections.” Thus, if we run away from our dreams that come from our mind, "we are running away from ourselves.”

Rinpoche finishes this chapter with a reflection on emptiness and he posits that it is easier to understand the concept of emptiness in the context of dreams because we are more aware or less afraid to admit that there is an unlimited amount of things that can happen in dreams. The practice that Rinpoche is encouraging in this chapter is dream meditation where “we train to wake up within the dream and know that we are dreaming”.

Videos: Rinpoche on sleep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-6t62kv53E
Guiding meditation by Rinpoche: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqjORV4_C-o

Question

Meditation

Meditation on sleep