Tibetan masters shed light on dream yoga, lucid dreaming, and dying

[opaque lens]

From Evolver.net Over this past summer, I conducted research in northern India on lucid dreaming and dream yoga. I essentially interviewed some of the highest lamas in the Tibetan Buddhism and Bonpo practices about dream yoga and their experiences. Dream yoga is one of the Six Yogas of Naropa, a highly advanced tantric teaching which generally takes three years in solitary retreat to complete. As such, I encountered great difficulty trying to pry the minds of these masters' most secret teachings. But the result was interesting. Menri Trizen Rinpoche is the current world leader of the Bon religion, a pre-Buddhist Tibetan religion, which now strongly resembles Buddhism. Tenzin Palmo is perhaps the first western woman to become a fully ordained nun in the Buddhist tradition. She spent 12 years in a cave, the story of which can be found in her biography, Cave in the Snow. Khamtrul Rinpoche was one of the four lamas who were approached to take over as head of the Nyingmapa order, one of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism (H.H. the 14th Dalai Lama is head of one of the other three, and H.H. the 17th Karmapa [who I also interviewed] is the head of another). His Holiness Menri Trizen Rinpoche amused me with his first comment. Upon hearing that I had come from California to research dreaming, he laughed and said that “dreaming is the wrong way.” I probed what he meant, and he responded, “Dreams come from your past, and maybe what comes from the future. If you follow your dream, you never get there yourself.” This put dream practice into a perspective I hadn't thought of before. Normal dreams are generally past experiences, combined with worries or anxieties, which are generally about the future. Clear light dreams, or lucid dreams, consist much more of being in the present, and recognizing with your awareness. This is the same sort of awareness Buddhism and Bonpo both try to cultivate in waking life, not grasping onto thoughts but merely letting them drift past. In my first interview, Tenzin Palmo shed light on the nature of Buddhist dream yoga, saying that “The point of dream yoga is twofold. One is to continue the awareness at all times and be conscious that you are dreaming, that the dream can therefore be manipulated. Normally when we are dreaming we believe the dreams. To be able to actually stand outside of that, and say, actually this is just a dream I'm just dreaming, so I can play with this...this is a very important step forward. And likewise, when you wake up, you really begin to see things as being far more dreamlike. Normally we solidify and reify everything, including our sense of self and external objects and people, it all becomes very, you know, real to us. But if we become very accomplished in dream yoga, then also in our so-called waking state it also takes on a more dreamlike, rainbow-like appearance, until we wake up. Of course the word Buddha means to wake. So, from the point of view of the Buddha, we are all asleep.” Given that we are all asleep to the Buddha, dream yoga represents a path to awakening, at least in our sleep, as well as to loosening our tight grip on one rigid kind of reality. Khamtrul Rinpoche touched on a similar point, saying that “Basically the more we recognize the dualistic perception we have in our waking life, the more clearly we will recognize our dreams as dreams, and be capable of lucid dreaming. Ordinarily in our daily lives, we are forever taking things to be true, we are believing in all sorts of perceptions and conceptual constructs that we project upon the world and ourselves. The more we recognize the falsehood of these projections, then the more readily we will recognize the dream state for what it is, and dream more lucidly.” As Khamtrul Rinpoche and Tenzin Palmo have shown, lucid dreaming fundamentally challenges our own notions of what reality, dreaming, sleeping, and waking really are. Norbu further expands on the same point, writing, “The dream condition is unreal. When we discover this for ourselves within the dream, the immense power of this realization can eliminate obstacles related to conditioned vision. For this reason, dream practice is very important for liberating us from habits. We need this powerful assistance in particular because the emotional attachments, conditioning, and ego enhancement which compose our normal life have been strengthened over many, many years”1. Norbu's point seems to be that we have essentially created our own grasp on reality, modelled it after social cues and waking perceptions, and the dream practice can help us transcend this limited and rigid view of the world and ourselves. This, of course, is the main mission of Buddhism, to undo the ignorance which comes stock in us all, and regain our presence, our awareness, and our consciousness. Dreams and Dying If you have become knowledgable of, or have awareness of, the state of natural light, you will also have that awareness and presence in the moment of dying. (Norbu, 54) One of the questions I asked the interviewees was, “What is the relationship between dreaming and dying?” I decided on this question after reading some background into dream yoga, and how it is deeply related to the bardos. Bardos in Buddhist psychology are intermediate states of consciousness, transitions if you will. There are bardos after death, as well as between sleep, waking, and dreaming states. Mullin writes, “The 'dissolution process', which is partially experienced every time we go to sleep, and is inescapably and utterly experienced at the time of death, can be consciously induced during the waking stage by means of tantric yoga. When we become skilled in inducing the dissolutions in our daily meditations, we become fluent in applying the same techniques during sleep and dreams, as well as at the time of death”2. Mullin is showing how, in the tradition of the Six Yogas of Naropa, sleep and dream yoga is essentially a practice in preparation for death, or perhaps more accurately, dying. The Dalai Lama writes, "I think it is crucial to become familiar, by means of imagination, with the eightfold process of dying, beginning with the waking conscious state and culminating in the clear light of death. This entails a dissolution process, a withdrawal. At each stage of the actual dying process there are internal signs, and to familiarize yourself with these, you imagine them during meditation in your daytime practice. Then in your imagination, abiding at the clear light level of consciousness, you visualize your subtle body departing from your gross body, and you imagine going to different places; then finally you return and the subtle body becomes reabsorbed in your normal form. Once you are experienced at visualizing this during daytime practice, then when you fall asleep an analogous eightfold process occurs naturally and quickly. That's the best method for enabling you to recognize the dreamless sleep state as the dreamless sleep state. But without deeper meditative experience of this in the daytime, it's very difficult to realize this dissolution as you fall asleep"3. Clearly, the Dalai Lama is putting daily meditation above dream yoga in terms of its importance in Buddhist practice. He implies that daily practice comes first, and dream practice comes naturally after daily practice with visualizations and imagination becomes fluid enough. Mullin, however, in translating the Six Yogas of Naropa, places more emphasis on the dream yoga itself, writing “Any proficiency achieved [in the yogas of sleep and dream] will bring great benefits at the time of death. Practitioners who have not managed to achieve supreme enlightenment in this life can attempt to do so then [by applying what was learned in the sleep and dream yogas]. As the moment of death approaches, they engage the unique methods for retaining the clear light of death, based on the degree of proficiency previously attained in the yogas of the clear light of sleep and of arising in the illusory body of the dream state. Familiarity with this technique causes the strength of one's illusory body practice to increase during the waking state, and that in turn supports one's practice of generating the illusory body of the dream state”4. Mullin and the Dalai Lama are both showing how interrelated waking and sleeping practice are, and how both are primarily aimed at helping the practitioner successfully pass through the death bardos. Tenzin Palmo corroborated this interrelated nature of waking, sleeping, and dying, saying, “Falling asleep is considered to be a little death. And this is because, just before we fall asleep, before we lose consciousness, for a moment we open into the clear light nature of the mind, into the natural luminosity of the mind, just for a moment, and then we blank out and fall into a deep sleep. Then, gradually dreams begin to arise. And this is like rehearsal for the time of death, when according to Tibetan psychology, the various gross elements dissolve into the more subtle elements. The various levels of consciousness dissolve into each other until they all dissolve into the very subtle consciousness in the center of the heart, or the center of the chest, really. At which point the clear light nature of the mind arises very strongly, which is our true nature, our ultimate nature. And normally ordinary people are kind of a bit alarmed at that, and immediately black out, basically, and after that rises the dreams of the intermediate state. So, if one has recognized the clear light nature of the mind during life, then at the time of death when it arises, instead of taking this alarm at what is happening, it is a recognition, like a son meeting with his mother. And so then, you can absorb straight into that clear light, which is familiar, not threatening. And remain in that state of the ultimate nature of consciousness for hours, days, and weeks. Almost all practitioners do so. This is why dream yoga is considered important. It is like a rehearsal for the main performance. The main performance in this lifetime only happens once, and you can't go on stage if you don't know what your lines are. So its important to rehearse first.” Khamtrul Rinpoche as well had much to say about the relation between dreaming and dying. He said, “For someone who actually recognizes what is happening as he or she passes through these different states when one is falling asleep, when one is actually dreaming, lucid dreaming in other words...for such a person who develops familiarity with that process and recognizes what is happening to him or her as it occurs, that person no longer has to go through any intermediate, or bardo state.” Not having to go through a bardo state is a very interesting claim for Rinpoche to make. This means that the intermediary states become obsolete with the proper amount of dream practice. Beyond Dream Yoga The final goal of dream practice is to make dreams become awareness and, there, at that ultimate point, dreams actually cease.5 While studying dream yoga was my first and primary task, I soon discovered that there were levels of practice beyond dream yoga. In essence, dream yoga is but a stepping stone, an intermediate stage beyond which there lie other realms of dream consciousness. His Holiness Menri Trizen Rinpoche of the Bon tradition said to me, “Practitioners do not dream very much. Very good practitioners. If you start practice, sometimes you dream. You can ask your masters, they can introduce you, this is the dream. If you realize dream, it is good practice, if we do not realize the dream is a dream, it’s an illusion.” Practitioners do not dream much, and yet recognizing dreaming is a good step in the right direction. This suggests that practitioners start like normal dreamers, then become lucid, then cease to dream. Khamtrul Rinpoche adds to this, saying, “When Rinpoche grew up, he ceased dreaming. So Rinpoche believes that, given his own experience, dreaming a lot as a child, and ceasing to dream when he got older, that dreams are actually the product of grasping and clinging. The prevalence of dreams in his youth was the result of grasping, clinging, fear, and anxiety. And as he slowly shed those things, he ceased to dream....It is clinging that perpetuates the dream state, so by cutting our clinging we cease to dream....dream yoga is not an ultimate practice that in and of itself can lead to Buddhahood. Through practicing dream yoga, one can begin to see through dualistic perceptions. When dualistic perceptions cease, not only during nighttime, but also daytime, it’s then that one becomes a Buddha. It is really not through dream yoga so much as being able to cut or see through dualistic perceptions that one reaches that state, of being a Buddha, when one can send forth millions upon millions of emanations to benefit sentient beings in any way required. Buddhas are said to have the ability to send forth emanations, to make things appear in whatever way is needed. This is connected to the ability to see through dualistic perceptions that typically bind us.” As both Menri Trizen Rinpoche’s and Khamtrul Rinpoche's accounts illustrate, as practitioners transcend the practice of dream yoga, they pass from lucid dreaming to non-dreaming. However, they maintain that crucial awareness. If being a Buddha means to awaken, then the path of dream yoga and lucid dreaming is becoming Buddha-like in dreams, or put another way, 'awakening' in the dream. Khamtrul Rinpoche further mentioned that, “One can only tell the difference between ordinary dreams and prophetic dreams after one has reached a certain state. In the Dzogchen teachings, there is a statement saying to the effect that 'the boundary is marked by the recognition of dreams.’ What this means is that as one progresses on the path to becoming a Buddha, one develops certain qualities, and some of those qualities are accompanied by the ability to recognize one's dreams. Prior to that point, of course we have certain types of dreams, but it is very difficult to make a distinction between those which are significant or prophetic and those which are just ordinary dreams. According to the Buddhist teachings, there is a series of stages that one goes through, starting with the ordinary state, where you have a mixture of dreams, some may be indicative, some may not be, but because you are not lucid, you are not able to make that distinction properly. Then, as you begin to dream lucidly and recognize dreams as dreams in a consistent and reliable way, you may be able to start making that distinction between prophetic and ordinary dreams. Eventually this also gives way to the stage in which there is no dreaming. So we've got impure dreams and pure dreams mixed, and over time as one becomes more familiar and lucid in one's dreaming, the impure dreams start to tail off and the pure perceptions become more prevalent. Eventually the pure perceptions are all that remain, and these, too, then cease, and give way to what is known as the dawning of pristine timeless awareness. So that is the basic sequence one goes through. Making that distinction between significant and insignificant and prophetic and ordinary dreams really only occurs after a certain level of familiarity with lucid dreaming, so lucid dreaming is key to that.” As Rinpoche has shown, lucid dreaming is fundamental to understanding the real nature of reality, or perhaps the illusory nature of reality. Overall, the experience of interviewing such masters of Tibetan Buddhism and Bonpo was extremely informative, both about the topic at hand as well as the anthropological difficulties of discussing mysticism with less than forthcoming lamas. As for lucid dreaming, it is clear that the slight understanding some westerners have about lucid dreaming is at best superficial. According to the Tibetans, conscious control of dreams is less than half of the picture. Beyond conscious control over dreams, there is awareness in deep sleep, and awareness through the dream stage without actual dreaming. Sources: Norbu, Namkhai. (1992) Dream Yoga and the Practice of Natural Light. Snow Lion. Ithaca, New York. Mullin, Glenn H. (1996) The Six Yogas of Naropa. Snow Lion. Ithaca, New York. 1996. Dalai Lama. (1997). Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying. Wisdom Publications. Somerville, Massachusetts. Further reading: Castaneda, C. (1993). The art of dreaming. New York, NY: HarperCollins. Dalai Lama. (1997). Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying. Wisdom Publications. Somerville, Massachusetts. James, William. (1958). The Varieties of Religious Experience. The New American Library. New York. Steiner, Rudolf. (1947). Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment. Anthroposophic Press. New York. van Eeden, F. (1913). A study of dreams. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, 26. Wangyal Rinpoche, T.. (1998). The tibetan yogas of dream and sleep. New York, NY: Snow Lion Publications.

[ThePreserver]

I had a few moments of free time and read that, and I have never thought about that... I've always seen dreaming as a gateway to further understanding reality, and using dreams to discover this, but DURING the dreams, not by becoming aware and ceasing to dream them all together. I can understand why one may cease dreaming once they are no longer anxious of the past, as dreams tend to cause many memories of the past, both recent and long-past to arise. By ceasing to dream, did he mean ceasing to have non-lucid "dreams" at night, does he still search throughout that state of consciousness for meaning, or does he simply hold awareness throughout the experience of sleep?

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All conditioned dharmas (the constituent factors of the experienced world), are like a dream, like an illusion, like a bubble, like a shadow, like a dewdrop, like a lightening flash; therefore should be contemplated. The Buddhist approach to dreams is identical with the path to understanding the purpose of waking life. We must wake up from our “dream within a dream,” before we can know that we are actually sleeping through our lives. Meaning, even though we may dream with lucidity, we are still within the dream of ignorance, we do not hold the "knowing", or enlightenment. I believe he ment that the dream does not cease to exist nor does it is dismissed. there is no "dreamer" -- there is "awakened". there is no search for meaning -- there is meaning itself, you may call it "knowing". Perhaps it is like becoming lucid within a dream, only that the lucidity is about life itself. a lucidity wich is held all the time. Dreams are precious. through dreams we can enter and explore the deep. the deep wich is connected to ourselves, wich is the more of ourselves. Farewell

[Wolfwood]

From what I gathered reading Tibetan Dream Yoga, the cessation of dreaming results from the absolute dissolution of a dualistic mind (which is to believe there is an I that observes something, and that there is good or bad, light or dark, aversion or grasping etc). There is a dissolution of the Kunzhi Namshe (or conceptual database), and so all that one experiences is the pure light of awareness. There are no forms, and no observation of awareness. You are awareness in itself. Pure and simple. Has anyone achieved the stage before this absolute awareness, however, where you successfully and always have continuity of consciousness from waking life to the dreaming world?