Waking, Sleeping, dreaming, life, death, rebirth

[Dannon Oneironaut]

Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism has great teachings on lucid dreaming. It is called Dream Yoga. According to the Tibetans the three states of mind of Waking Life, Sleep, and Dreaming correspond to life, death, and rebirth. They believe that by practicing lucid dreaming they can gain control of life, death, and rebirth. They believe that for most people, who do not cultivate lucidity, upon death they black out and then gradually begin to sense a dream realm that they call "Bardo". Because they have not cultivated lucidity during life they do not recognize this state as a dream state and therefor believe that it is real rather than the projection of their minds. There can be either great blissful experiences and/ or very frightening terrifying experiences. By not recognizing these experiences as projections of the mind, they react to these experiences as real and they eventually become reborn. There are six realms one can be reborn in: The realm of the Gods, which is extremely blissful. However one is not immortal in this world and one neglect the spiritual path and eventually die and are reborn in a lower realm. The Human Realm, which is a realm of desire and passion, doubt and pride. This is the best realm to be born in because the greatest spiritual growth is possible. The Realm of the Jealous gods, Who experience great pleasure but are caught up in always trying to improve themselves and be better than each other. A great example in human life are Hollywood movie stars who are always creating drama with each other and getting cosmetic surgery and breast implants. The animal realm, which is a realm of ignorance of one's true nature and the fight for survival The hungry ghost realm, where one suffers from intense craving that can never be satisfied. Into this category fall drug addicts and alcoholics. Hell realm, which is a realm of hatred and violence. Jail, Prison, and War are Hell realms. One is either born in these realms by attraction or repulsion. That is one is either attracted to one realm or is running away from a terrifying hallucination and ends up seeking rebirth in the closest realm in order to escape. However, according to the Vajrayana teachings, by practicing meditation and cultivating lucidity in the three states of waking, sleeping, and dreaming, one can pass through death lucidly. By not blacking out, one encounters the Clear Light of Death. Not to be confused with the White Light. The clear light is not a realm or bardo but your own true nature itself. One then can try to merge into this clear light and not get distracted. The teachings assert that once one merges with the clear light one is liberated from the compulsory wheel of life, death, and rebirth. One can choose, however, to consciously seek rebirth in order to teach others how to attain union with the clear light. These people are called Tulkus and claim to remember all their previous lives. There have been accounts when these people are about to die they tell their students to find them at a certain time at a certain place as a child to certain parents. Their students then go and indeed find a child of these parents and they test the child to see if he has authentic memories of his previous life. These test include relating personal stories of many of his previous lives and by recognizing personal belongings from a previous life among many decoys. The movie "The Golden Child" with Eddie Murphy opens with a scene where the little Golden Child is being tested. The Dalia Lama is just one such Tulku. These teachings are found in the Tibetan Book of the Dead, Also called Liberation through Hearing during the Intermediate State, Akathe Bardo Thodol. This book also has teachings on how to close a womb so that you can't enter into it in case you find yourself falling into it. But what is very interesting to me is that, whether or not the above is truly how the after death state is, these teachings are great for lucid dreaming. There are instructions for gaining lucidity at any stage of rebirth. One can look at rebirth as analagous to waking up in the morning after a night of sleeping and dreaming. By following the instructions, one can remain lucid not only during dreaming, but in deep sleep as well, and also during waking life. According to Buddhist scholars The realms of rebirth and bardo experiences are looked at as actual psychological states of mind in day to day life as well as actual realms of rebirth and halluciantory states of mind after death. So during day to day life you can pay attention to when you lose lucidity and you will find yourself in one of these six states of mind. Either angry, jealous, prideful, ignorant, desirous, craving, or blissed out distracted in daydream and fantasy. There are two schools of dream yoga in the Vajrayana. One belongs to the Great Perfection school and one is followed by the Highest Yoga Tantra school. They are very similar, however the great perfection (Dzogchen in Tibetan) focuses more on encountering the Clear Light of Sleep prior to the onset of dreams with the goal of eventually passing the whole night in the clear light rather than entering into dreaming. However along the way to perfecting this path, lucid dreams are a benificial by-product. The Highest Yoga Tantra school focuses on using lucid deams to open the mind, release habitual emotions and limiting beliefs. One then arises in an immortal illusory body in the shape of a deity upon death and gaining liberation. In the same movie 'the Golden Child' the golden child appears in his illusory body to Eddie Murphy while he is sleeping and shows him the bird guide. In the Dzogchen teachings the goal is to remain lucid 24-7 and see all phenomena as a projection of your mind and upon death the matter in your body, and the energy in your mind turn into a rainbow and you achieve the rainbow body leaving behind only hair and fingernails without a corpse. Quoted from wikipedia: " The rainbow body is the physical mastery state of Dzogchen of the Nyingmapa and the Bönpo where the trikaya is in accord and the nirmanakaya is congruent with bodymind and the integrity of the mindstream (the heartmind) is realised as Dharmakaya. The corporeal body of the realised Dzogchenpa which is now hallowed, returns to the pure primordial energetic essence-quality of the Five Pure Lights of the five elemental processes of which it is constituted through phowa and the Bardo of Mahasamadhi or Parinirvana. This is then projected as the mindstream through the process of phowa. The realiser of Jalus resides in the 'once upon a time' time out of time, timeless eternal state that is considered a mystery.[citation needed] According to Dzogchen lore, the attainment of the Rainbow Body is the sign of complete realisation of the Dzogchen view. As Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche (2002: p.141) states: “The realised Dzogchen practitioner, no longer deluded by apparent substantiality or dualism such as mind and matter, releases the energy of the elements that compose the physical body at the time of death”. More specifically, the rainbow body is constituted by the Five Pure Lights. When the view of Dzogchen and the integrity of the mindstream which links the Trikaya is realised prior to the death-Bardo (Skt. antarabhava), the bodymind of the Nirmanakaya (Tib. sprul sku) Dzogchenpa enters samādhi (Tib. ting nge ‘dzin)[1] and commences Phowa or the ‘transferral of consciousness’ into the constituent Five Pure Lights of the Sambhogakaya (Tib. longs sku)[2] to the Dharmakaya, sometimes leaving the non-living faecal elements of the bodymind such as hair and nails. There have been a number of documented sightings of the Jalus process through the Bardo of death which may take a number of days to complete. The bodymind of the Nirmanakaya in samadhi, all the time decreasing its dimensionality as the constituent Five Pure Lights of the mindstream are transmuted into the 'glorious body' of Sambhogakaya. From the case studies of those who have realised the rainbow body the practices of tregchöd and thödgal are key." Sounds crazy. It is hard to believe. But there are lineages of teachers until the present day who are said to have each attained the rainbow body. The living one now is named Namkai Norbu and he is a Dzogchen and Lucid Dream Yoga master. Regardless if this is true or not, or if one is a skeptic or a believer, it is an inspiring reason to practice lucid dreaming.

[beachgirl]

Thanks for posting this. I've been hoping to find some posts on Tibetan Dream Yoga. A few questions. Do you practice it? I assume that done correctly: you would not feel tired being lucid 24/7. Yes? Okay... maybe you have to train to acheive this, but that's to let go of all the baggage of the other "lower" realms, correct? Does the Tibetan dream yoga do lucid dreaming primarily for spiritual purposes, then, only? Many thanks for this very thorough information, beachgirl

[Dannon Oneironaut]

Thanks for posting this. I've been hoping to find some posts on Tibetan Dream Yoga. A few questions. Do you practice it? I assume that done correctly: you would not feel tired being lucid 24/7. Yes? Okay... maybe you have to train to acheive this, but that's to let go of all the baggage of the other "lower" realms, correct? Does the Tibetan dream yoga do lucid dreaming primarily for spiritual purposes, then, only? Many thanks for this very thorough information, beachgirl I TRY to practice dream yoga! And I am a long way off from being lucid 24-7, however, being lucid is the most energy efficient state. It is not strenuous. In fact, the whole process of tantra can be said to be relaxing your body/mind and body energy so your tension just melts. Unawareness creates tension. You know that feeling when you are in the flow? Keeping it high and letting it flow? The practice of Dzogchen is to stay relaxed like a baby, and don't do anything at all to any and every impression but just let it be and see it as a part of your lucid dream. No need to clear your thoughts, they clear by themselves, no need to do anything except remain lucid. Of course it is difficult for US, and Dzogchen is called the Great Perfection. It is an advanced practice. In fact it is the culmination of ALL Buddhist teachings. It is not so much of letting go of the lower realms, ALL realms are part of the wheel, so whichever realm you are in, whether a Hell realm or Heaven realm, ghost, human, animal..etc. you are not free and lucid and therefor you suffer. It is not so much letting go but having insight and lucidity to see that these realms are dreams and therefore not real and there is nothing to let go of. But that is the Ultimate reality according to Vajrayana, but in the relative reality in which we find ourselves, believing this human experience to be inherently real, it is Karma which binds us here. So, yeah, it is all based on desire and repulsion. Cling to anything too much or push away anything too much creates Karma and reinforces the illusion and loses lucidity. Trying to get something out of this existence, like some kind of fulfillment, is a greedy and vain desire that reinforces the illusion of Samsara (wheel of rebirth). The Buddhists do dream yoga for purely spiritual purposes, however they inherited these practices from the pre-Buddhist shamanic tradition in Tibet called Bon. They would practice dream yoga for not always spiritual purposes.

[Vranna]

Wow... I find this very interesting. Where can I find more information about this?

[Dannon Oneironaut]

Wow... I find this very interesting. Where can I find more information about this? Any books by Chögyal Namkhai Norbu or just Namkhai Norbu. The Tibetan Book of the Dead, which is an ancient Tibetan scripture. It was adapted by Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert to use when they did LSD but it is more understandable to Westerners than the Tibetan book is. It is called "The Psychedelic Experiences". Also, the funnest book is "The American Book of the Dead" by E.J. Gold. It is like a science fiction version. And it is funny and deep and it makes you think! Namkhai Norbu wrote a great book called "Dream Yoga and the practice of Natural Light". It is very mind opening and inspirational. Look for these books at Amazon.com. Don't get the version of the Tibetan Book of the Dead translated by Evan Wentz. He mistranslated it and he didn't understand the teachings. Get another version. Here is a link to a video....I haven't watched it yet so I don't know if it any good, but I will watch it now.: http:///video.google.com/videoplay?d...k+of+the+dead#

[Dannon Oneironaut]

OK, I watched it and I liked it. Leonard Kohen narrated it! It is interesting that according to the Tibetans it takes 49 days to become reincarnated. Is it just a coincidence that on the 49th day after conception a fetus finishes developing the pineal gland and a rush of DMT floods the fetus's brain? Is it a coincidence that on the 49th day after conception the fetus becomes either male or female? Hmmm. Traditionally Buddhists are against abortion because they do not want to create any suffering. But if the consciousness has not entered the body of the fetus until the 49th day after conception it seems that abortion might be acceptable to them if it happens before then. Just a thought. DMT also floods through the brains of both mother and child during a natural childbirth. DMT also floods the brain at death. DMT also flows through the brain in smaller doses when we dream. DMT is made in the pineal gland which is called the crown chakra in Hindu, and Buddhist terminology. This is the halo seen around the depictions of holy people and Jesus. Has anyone here tried DMT? It is a near death experience for sure!!! The most powerful psychedelic and the most fast acting and it occurs in our own bodies! I believe it is the chemical of consciousness. Too much DMT and people become schizophrenic, too little and they become like zombies. Anti-psychotic Drugs like Thorazine block the DMT receptors in the brain. But only at 49 days after your conception, and when you were born, and when you give birth, and when you die do you get a serious dose of it. Also the pineal gland and the part of your brain around the pineal are the last to die or turn off. But of course DMT is also responsible for dreams. And I believe DMT is released during great orgasms but that is just my theory. I should get a scientist to study that.

[Dannon Oneironaut]

Just like it may be hard to recognize that you are dreaming, it is hard to recognize that you may be dead. Here are some clues: Spoiler for Long post: Signs that You Might Be in the Bardo (Dead)* In a bus or train or any other form of public "transportation". Compulsively walking from room to room in a house or apartment and you can't seem to stop moving or to reduce the restlessness and agitation, yet your not actually in an anxiety state. In a small chamber with someone whose face keeps changing subtly, as if the light is playing on it. Alone for long periods of time, in an older motel room or hotel room. Continually going into a bathroom or kitchen, or back and forth between bathroom and kitchen. Waking up suddenly from a "nightmare," or a dream about yourself having just had a different biological machine, not necessarily of the Earth varieties. Driving in a car for a long period of time. Watching a clock that moves impossibly slowly. In an older theater with balconies and basement, watching a film that seems strangely familiar to you but you can't remember having seen before- usually the film will have an unusual amount of senseless violence or seem very religious, or both. Getting a phone call in the middle of the night, especially from someone you know is dead. Apparently attending a funeral for "someone else," . . . even more suspicious when the deceased is conspicuously unidentified. . . and perhaps unidentifiable. Lost in a small but unaccountably complex town or a very large, unaccountably complex city. Finding oneself playing with cards with pictures on them, arranging the cards in varying order; the mood is exalted, as each combination yields a new set of all-encompassing cognitions. Unfortunately, the cognitions, albeit vast and grand, don't actually refer to anything. Inside a tunnel,ascending or descending an escalator which seems to get smaller and smaller, eventually requiring a squeeze through--head first, naturally. In an elevator alone. . .very alone. And the elevator seems to be going sideways. In front of a television set, seated in a canem wicker or rocking chair, generally of oak, with side arm rests, unable to recieve anything other than soap operas and news. Traveling a tube while surfing. Sitting alone in a room for a long time. Awakening after an inusually long sleep--a full day at least. At a discotheque, dancing to a loght show and heavy metal or "rock" music--the word "rock" has a very interesting meaning, dealing with an area of basic Creation before the present cosmos was constructed--heavy metal, in the chemical sense, is a very interesting set of elements with a half-life that;s over before it begins. Sitting or standing in total darkness for an indeterminate--but quite obviously long--period of time. Standing in front of a mirror for an unusually long time. In a city which, although large, appears to be abandoned or unpopulated. Having strange full-blown three-dimensional, totally tactile, hallucinatory experiences of "another life," in "another world." Dreaming you had died or "almost died." Seeing people whom you had thought were long dead on the street or in restaurants. Sitting in a caged area or in what appears to be a playpen for children (you will see red, blue, green, white and yellow lights just out of touching range). Talking with mysterious strangers who stop you on the street or in a public place and begin speaking to you as if they know you and you know, somehow, that they do. Feeling very tired and run down although there is no apparent reason. Getting divorced or married or changing partners. Feeling apprehension and intense agitationm as though something terrible is about to happen--a feeling of dread. Getting a new car or new clothes or moving to another house or town, for no apparent reason. Changing friends or neighbors. Listening to loud music with lots of rumbling bass sounds in it or high-pitched tones which hurt your ears. Visiting a recording studio or broadcast station. Leaving one country and going to another, or going from "state" to "state." * from AMERICAN BOOK OF THE DEAD by E.J. Gold

[BINGO]

^^I think I might be dead

[Dannon Oneironaut]

^^I think I might be dead That is the point. Life is a dream.

[cygnus]

yay good stuff! the american book of the dead... erf. could've saved a lot of effort just saying that experience is illusory instead of 'you might be dead if you're listening to music w/ rumbling bass etc. etc.' the tibetan book of living and dying is good. it's too bad it's so hard to find anything about bön buddhism.

[Dannon Oneironaut]

yay good stuff! the american book of the dead... erf. could've saved a lot of effort just saying that experience is illusory instead of 'you might be dead if you're listening to music w/ rumbling bass etc. etc.' the tibetan book of living and dying is good. it's too bad it's so hard to find anything about bön buddhism. I look at these as dreamsigns to remind me to do reality checks. Of course it is tongue-in-cheek.

[Dannon Oneironaut]

I'd like to say a lot about the bardo experience now. There are differences also between dreams and the afterdeath bardo experience. Number one: in dreams you can't really feel intense bodily sensations. You may be able to have sexual experiences and even orgasms, you may be able to feel sublime states of rapture but in the bardo experience you feel things like pressure, like too much energy being squeezed out of a toothpaste tube. Everything around you will be buzzing, and jackhammering. YOU will be buzzing and jackhammering! You can't find any peace or any ground to collect your thoughts to face the onslaught. It overtakes you like a wave crashing on you. It crushes your skull, breaks your back and smears your guts and licks it up. In the Bardo Thodol they say that the wrathful dieties will be crushing your bones, eating your brains and drinking your blood. There is a paradox here, because you have no body anymore, but you have a sense of "I" to defend, to protect. The wrathful dieties fill all space in all directions so there is no space for you to be unless they eat you. Another difference between dreams and the bardo experience is that you are not asleep. You are wide awake and trying to process and deal with your experience every moment. You can't wake up and have it just be a bad dream. You are fighting for your soul. And this is just the illusion here. The reason why it is so scary, the reason why it is so relentlous is because you are fighting for your soul. And they aren't going to give up unless they devour your soul or you find a womb to be reborn into. So what do you do? You give up, you let them devour you. You let them rip you into pieces and devour you. Then what happens? Are you gone? Do you not exist anymore? That is impossible, awareness is eternal, whether or not you recognize it as yourself or not. The Universe may not be eternal but awareness is. If it is other than you then that means that you exist in relation to it. You are awareness. Now it is peaceful, now you are the Buddha. It is amazing what we are willing to endure rather than being the Buddha. It is amazing what suffering we endure in order to hide from ourselves. We would rather be born into a Hell Realm full of self loathing with no love than to be the Buddha. We would rather be a hungry ghost never to find any nourishment than to be the Buddha. The tricky thing though is we are seduced into being Gods and enjoy any pleasure we want and the power of being able to create and destroy worlds. It is tempting. We have all done that before though and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere. If you absolutely MUST be reborn, I hope that you are not reborn as an animal, but as a human that has the ability to understand these teachings so that you won't forget what happened to you. So you can gather courage and be willing to be annihilated. You need courage, and you need your memory. You need to remember that no matter how much you ever thought you had it made, that you were young, rich, and in love, you always ended up here having to fight for your soul again. And you need to remember that also you have been up shit creek without a paddle countless times before and you may not be so lucky in your next incarnation. Who knows when your next chance at liberation will be? Who knows how much suffering you will have you endure, where the Buddhas have no power to help you and they just wish you well. You need to remember that you have no choice but to give up and sacrifice yourself to the gods. But there IS another way! There is another route you can take to realize that you are the Buddha. And that is to develop your lucidity. On this path we have to remember what Carl Jung said: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." We don't develop lucidity so that we are invincible, no matter what you should never try to cheat Death. Because if you do, you may be an adept magician, a shape shifter of the dreamworlds. But there is only so much you can play. Pretty soon you will want someone like you to play with, you will want a peer. You will grow tired of playing with the phantoms of other people's dreams and you will be weary of the limits of your own imagination. You will become a prisoner of your own mind. You will become very lonely living in a virtual world where you are God but you have done everything already. The only way out of that predicament is to create a Universe and hide yourself in it and forget who you are. Then you will have to wait for eons and eons as energy crystallizes into matter and stars are born to create hydrogen into helium and eventually into all the other elements. Then you will have to wait for you to figure out how to arrange atoms into molecules and molecules into proteins and proteins into DNA. Then you will have to wait for eons and eons of evolution to have the awareness to remember that you have been in this predicament before and somehow you fucked it up. So we cultivate lucidity to step outside of time, not to play in it. There is no escaping in the end, YOU ARE THE BUDDHA! That is ultimate lucidity. Life and dreams is all just a bunch of false awakenings and false awakenings that we forget what it really means to be awake and to be lucid. WE forget that even this so called "waking Life" is just another false awakening within the biggest dream there is!!! Congradulations.... YOU ARE THE BUDDHA

[beachgirl]

Wow! interesting stuff! during my awakening i had many breathing sessions (usually between 5 and 7 am) where my whole being would explode into millions of pieces... or where i was being torn to shreds. or a cobra was squeezing me intensely internally (literally squeezing my guts out and sending them to the edges of the galaxy - ok that one happened once). other times like a rattle snake went up my spine rattling like crazy.... or bombs went off. but fortunately i knew at some level i was dreaming. in fact occasionally i'd be having a dream right on top of this at another level of consciousness. fortunately i am practiced in the art of surrender so i thought this was all pretty interesting. but reading this makes me think that so much more was going on than i realized at the time. (no guides or anyone else ever explained too much to me about what was happening.) many thanks, beachgirl

[Naiya]

Thanks for posting this. I really wish we had more of this type of thing on BD. I'm fascinated by tibetan dream yoga.

[Dannon Oneironaut]

According to the Bardo Thodol, upon death the elements in the body dissolve into each other and then into space. Consciousness withdraws into the spine and then up into the brain. At this point one loses consciousness when the brain dies. This is also confirmed by science. Now what happens depends on the awareness you cultivated during life. A yogi will have a subtle consciousness arise where he will come face to face with the clear light of death. If he can maintain presence and merge with it he is liberated and escapes the endless wheel of life, death and rebirth. But a normal person will remain unconscious during this part and the clear light might only last a fleeting moment. So then one enters the bardos first the manifestation of the peaceful deities. If one realizes that these are projections of one's mind and is able to merge with them then liberation is won. If not, then we eventually enter into the manifestation of the wrathful deities which I wrote about earlier. One "dies" all the time. These experiences happen in day to day life as well. For example: quitting a job, finding a new job, making love, sleeping and dreaming, going on a trip by airplane, etc... Look at sex: at first Earth dissolves into water. You don't feel so solid and you feel more liquid and flowing. As water dissolves into fire great heat and passion arise. If one does not ejaculate at this point then fire will dissolve into air and the passion cools and one enters into a spacious expansive feeling. As air dissolves into space (mind) one is spontaneously in a meditative state. Dissolve the mind into light and you have liberation. Also, knowing this helps one to WILD and to recognize the states of sleep. Of course with death of the body the experiences probably will not be so pleasurable. Here is something I copied and pasted: during our lifetime it is these five elements which bind our physical form together. At the time of our death they dissolve again and there appear the so-called "outer, inner and secret" signs. The outer sign, when the earth-element melts into the water-element, is that our body loses its power and we are no longer able to keep it upright. We cannot raise our head and body and cannot hold anything in our hands, that's how weak we are. The body begins to dissolve. We fall into a state of panic, for although we lie quite normally, we all the time have the sensation of falling, and we want the people around us to hold us and to help us. The way we experience the inner signs is that our mind becomes unclear, we cannot concentrate anymore and we become confused. The secret sign is that one experiences a kind of flickering. This may also happen in connection with a certain kind of meditation, but here it happens automatically. Next the water-element melts into the fire-element. The outer sign for this is that the body becomes dry. Mouth and tongue become increasingly dry, no matter how much one drinks. Also one can no longer control the tongue. The inner sign is that one is very irritable and becomes angry very easily; one feels very unwell. The secret sign is that, one experiences smoke-like apparitions. Then the fire-element melts into the wind-element and the outer sign for that is that, the body-heat decreases. The breath loses its warmth and appears as cold as cool air. Slowly body-heat fades away, starting from the feet all through the whole body, until it has become completely cool. The inner sign is that the mind becomes even more confused; sometimes it is still clear, but one can't seem to really concentrate on anything. The whole perception of the outer world is not clear anymore. One is not certain anymore whether one sees something or not. Flickering red lights - a bit like glow-worms - appear as the secret sign. After that - when the breathing stops - the wind-element melts into the consciousness. First we take quick breaths, and then we exhale for a long time and have great difficulties inhaling again. Finally we breathe out for the last time and the wind-element melts into space. Since at this time the whole physical basis for our existence has dissolved, so have the senses, which we experience through this basis, dissolved. This means that we can no longer see, hear, taste, smell or feel. This is the worst moment, and if we don't have a very good Karma, we will really panic. At this time one can have the most horrifying visions. The moment, when the consciousness leaves the body, is the really crucial moment. One can only maintain control, if one has been practicing very well in this life. If one has developed a very stable practice and some understanding, one can manage to keep the spirit under control. Otherwise this will be a very painful moment at which most people will suffer severely. If one has gathered very much good Karma, one will get help at this time. Then one can for instance get visions of Dharma-protectors and Dakinis, who will come to help one through this crucial time. When the outer breathing has ceased, an inner breathing still carries on; one is not totally dead. For this reason it often happens that people after the cessation of the outer breathing may still come back to life. As the cessation of the outer breathing is not the final death, it is very good if a Dharma-friend or at least someone, who knows a bit about Dharma, can be present by the side of the corpse. At least it would be good if the body is left in peace for some time. The Hindus remove the body the moment the breathing stops, almost even before that. It is immediately carried out of the house and given over to the funeral-pyre. It would however, be very beneficial if the body could be left lying for at least one day or three days or perhaps even longer, but of course this depends on the climate. If it is very hot it is not kept for long. The death-process should be really finished before the body is burned. To know this is very good for us, because we can then take care of this for our friends and us when that time comes.

[Kuhnada29]

I don't know about all this shit about wrathful deities Dannon speaks about lol. But if THAT is what you believe that is what will manifest when you die. Your subconscious beliefs are manifested into whatever you want them to be. That means if you are faithful in Christianity and believe there is a Jesus waiting for you and punishes you for being gay or masturbating, or if you believe that there is a Buddha...that will manifest. OR if your atheist..you may just fall into an unconscious state when you die. Which would suck. ME...I will keep my lucidity as I die, whenever that may be. No point in being unconscious when you can do whatever you want.

[Hijo de la Luna]

Thank you both very much for your posts. I am very interested in the Bardo Thodol. I also agree what we experience in the after life is our own creation & is based out or our beliefs & expectations. I enjoy the rich colorful detailed experiences created by & known as the Bardo Thodol. I am so grateful for someone else who has read it & for those of us who realize the nature of mind & the implications of conscious living, & conscious dying I think that the underlying advice is just that, "Be relentless to know the nature of mind in every state of consciousness so that we may enjoy our time unconditionally where ever we are". I can't think of a better way of being. Thank you

[Hijo de la Luna]

I'd like to say a lot about the bardo experience now. There are differences also between dreams and the afterdeath bardo experience. Number one: in dreams you can't really feel intense bodily sensations. You may be able to have sexual experiences and even orgasms, you may be able to feel sublime states of rapture but in the bardo experience you feel things like pressure, like too much energy being squeezed out of a toothpaste tube. Everything around you will be buzzing, and jackhammering. YOU will be buzzing and jackhammering! You can't find any peace or any ground to collect your thoughts to face the onslaught. It overtakes you like a wave crashing on you. It crushes your skull, breaks your back and smears your guts and licks it up. In the Bardo Thodol they say that the wrathful dieties will be crushing your bones, eating your brains and drinking your blood. There is a paradox here, because you have no body anymore, but you have a sense of "I" to defend, to protect. The wrathful dieties fill all space in all directions so there is no space for you to be unless they eat you. Another difference between dreams and the bardo experience is that you are not asleep. You are wide awake and trying to process and deal with your experience every moment. You can't wake up and have it just be a bad dream. You are fighting for your soul. And this is just the illusion here. The reason why it is so scary, the reason why it is so relentlous is because you are fighting for your soul. And they aren't going to give up unless they devour your soul or you find a womb to be reborn into. So what do you do? You give up, you let them devour you. You let them rip you into pieces and devour you. Then what happens? Are you gone? Do you not exist anymore? That is impossible, awareness is eternal, whether or not you recognize it as yourself or not. The Universe may not be eternal but awareness is. If it is other than you then that means that you exist in relation to it. You are awareness. Now it is peaceful, now you are the Buddha. It is amazing what we are willing to endure rather than being the Buddha. It is amazing what suffering we endure in order to hide from ourselves. We would rather be born into a Hell Realm full of self loathing with no love than to be the Buddha. We would rather be a hungry ghost never to find any nourishment than to be the Buddha. The tricky thing though is we are seduced into being Gods and enjoy any pleasure we want and the power of being able to create and destroy worlds. It is tempting. We have all done that before though and it really hasn't gotten us anywhere. If you absolutely MUST be reborn, I hope that you are not reborn as an animal, but as a human that has the ability to understand these teachings so that you won't forget what happened to you. So you can gather courage and be willing to be annihilated. You need courage, and you need your memory. You need to remember that no matter how much you ever thought you had it made, that you were young, rich, and in love, you always ended up here having to fight for your soul again. And you need to remember that also you have been up shit creek without a paddle countless times before and you may not be so lucky in your next incarnation. Who knows when your next chance at liberation will be? Who knows how much suffering you will have you endure, where the Buddhas have no power to help you and they just wish you well. You need to remember that you have no choice but to give up and sacrifice yourself to the gods. But there IS another way! There is another route you can take to realize that you are the Buddha. And that is to develop your lucidity. On this path we have to remember what Carl Jung said: "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." We don't develop lucidity so that we are invincible, no matter what you should never try to cheat Death. Because if you do, you may be an adept magician, a shape shifter of the dreamworlds. But there is only so much you can play. Pretty soon you will want someone like you to play with, you will want a peer. You will grow tired of playing with the phantoms of other people's dreams and you will be weary of the limits of your own imagination. You will become a prisoner of your own mind. You will become very lonely living in a virtual world where you are God but you have done everything already. The only way out of that predicament is to create a Universe and hide yourself in it and forget who you are. Then you will have to wait for eons and eons as energy crystallizes into matter and stars are born to create hydrogen into helium and eventually into all the other elements. Then you will have to wait for you to figure out how to arrange atoms into molecules and molecules into proteins and proteins into DNA. Then you will have to wait for eons and eons of evolution to have the awareness to remember that you have been in this predicament before and somehow you fucked it up. So we cultivate lucidity to step outside of time, not to play in it. There is no escaping in the end, YOU ARE THE BUDDHA! That is ultimate lucidity. Life and dreams is all just a bunch of false awakenings and false awakenings that we forget what it really means to be awake and to be lucid. WE forget that even this so called "waking Life" is just another false awakening within the biggest dream there is!!! Congradulations.... YOU ARE THE BUDDHA I did some salvia divinorum extract one time. It took place in a fiery red sandstone temple. First I was being drug across pavement or gravel on my head for a long time by two beings. Next the put me through a meat grinder with three gears that ripped my body apart (it was painful). Then I was imploding & exploding at the same time. After that they shouted at me to let go. The funny thing was at this point I didn't know who or what I was, if I had arms & I didn't even know how to let go. Eventually I did let go of something. I guess it was the exploding. I felt half way better. However, they kept yelling at me to let go. Eventually & quickly I returned to my room drenched in sweat!

[Dannon Oneironaut]

I don't know about all this shit about wrathful deities Dannon speaks about lol. But if THAT is what you believe that is what will manifest when you die. Your subconscious beliefs are manifested into whatever you want them to be. That means if you are faithful in Christianity and believe there is a Jesus waiting for you and punishes you for being gay or masturbating, or if you believe that there is a Buddha...that will manifest. OR if your atheist..you may just fall into an unconscious state when you die. Which would suck. ME...I will keep my lucidity as I die, whenever that may be. No point in being unconscious when you can do whatever you want. Well, look at it metaphorically... The wrathful deities are projections of your shadow, your ego clinging. Your soul is your ego. If you can merge with the clear light and let your ego dissolve, there is no problem then you are the Buddha. If you cling to your ego you will have a painful experience as you are trying to protect your individual self from annihilation. You feel threatened by things 'other' than you, however there is nothing other than you and it is all projections of yourself. Your compassionate Buddha nature that you are resisting will manifest as wrathful things 'other' than you that seem to attack you. It is not a matter of belief. If you are greedy and miserly you will project that there are thieves scheming to steal from you. If you are insecure in your manhood you will project that your woman is looking to cheat on you and you will feel threatened by other men and not trust your woman. This happens in nightmares when an aspect of your subconscious is trying to communicate something to you that you aren't listening to or are in denial of.

[defygravity]

Thanks for this post. very interesting. "Waking, Sleeping, dreaming, life, death, rebirth" well said. I practice buddhism and find that meditation does wonders for lucidity.

[Darkmatters]

Amazing thread!!! Dannon, YOU DA MAN!!

[juroara]

I thought I made a post earlier? I was half asleep, I guess I only imagined it Dream yoga really messes with my head. Its so fascinating, and I want to 'practice' it, but is it something you can really practice? Seeing reality as a shared dream, I'm not sure that's something you can practice! Also, I've heard its very hard to really learn dream yoga without a master? Do you think this is true? Btw, what kind of language does the book you recommend use? I was once reading a book, but instead of using illusionary it used meaningless. And after reading for half an hour how meaningless reality was, I got annoyed and found the book meaningless Also, the image you posted, WOW!! Its amazing!! I once saw a DC that left a lasting impression on my mind. I wanted to draw the character, but I didn't know how, because something strange happened to their face. It became reflective, like water. That painting really captures it (jealous!)

[Hijo de la Luna]

Jurora, it is possible to see the world the way you want to. I personally practice seeing all form in any state of mind as dream. As far as the language of the book w/i Tibetan Yogas of Dream & Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche is written in terms that anyone can understand. The language is fairly simple but the concepts are profound. The practices are rigorous! I however, have enjoyed reading his book and have certainly been inspired and influenced powerfully for the better. I personally do not practice the way he suggests. I purport that if we listen sincerely to our own inner guidance we must be successful. As Guru Pitka says in Love Guru, "I don't want to be the next Deepak Chopra; when I am the first Guru Pitka!!!!" he he he he

[Dannon Oneironaut]

I thought I made a post earlier? I was half asleep, I guess I only imagined it Dream yoga really messes with my head. Its so fascinating, and I want to 'practice' it, but is it something you can really practice? Seeing reality as a shared dream, I'm not sure that's something you can practice! Also, I've heard its very hard to really learn dream yoga without a master? Do you think this is true? Btw, what kind of language does the book you recommend use? I was once reading a book, but instead of using illusionary it used meaningless. And after reading for half an hour how meaningless reality was, I got annoyed and found the book meaningless Also, the image you posted, WOW!! Its amazing!! I once saw a DC that left a lasting impression on my mind. I wanted to draw the character, but I didn't know how, because something strange happened to their face. It became reflective, like water. That painting really captures it (jealous!) Of course dream yoga messes with your head! that's how you know it's working! LOL! But, seriously, you can do it anyway you'd like as long as you know the theory of how and why to do it. you can just keep doing your lucid dream practice that you do right now, but instead of chasing pleasures and avoiding pain and gratifying yourself, search for wisdom, try to free your mind. The first step in dream yoga is to achieve lucidity. The second step is to use dreams to dissolve the limitations of your mind. For example, practice shapeshifting. Practice multiplying yourself and being conscious in more than one of you. I have got to be three people before. it is hard to be in all the bodies at once and not just in one controlling the others like puppets. But that is a limitation that you can work on. Change a mountain into a poodle. Change fire into water. If a demon attacks you turn into a bigger demon and eat him. But the point is to loosen your self-perception or self-image, not to impress yourself with how bad-ass and skillful you are. The third step is to dissolve the lucid dream into the pure awareness of the clear light. This is the Clear light of sleep. It is called the baby clear light. the clear light of death is the Mother clear light. In the West we have no concept for this: "Dissolve the dream but remain lucid and not enter into another dream? Why?!" Because! It is beautiful! It is pure unlimited infinite blissful awareness! this is what Nirvana is! It is hard to not use negative terms because although there is no body, no mind, no color, no yadda yadda yadda, it IS PURE BLISS! And it contains all things. It is freedom! And it is like the best orgasm but not from stimulation of the nerves but ESPANSION forever. Or until you come out of it. So dream yoga is not about fulfilling egoic fantasies that are unattainable in waking life, for example: sexual fantasies, violent fantasies or overriding a DCs freewill. However in the context of dream Yoga sexual dreams and even violent dreams can have a place if it is for dissolving the ego and cultivating compassion. In sexual dreams you can unite the male and female aspects of yourself which are represented by a white drop and a red drop respectively at the top of the head and the base of the spine respectively and you unite them in the heart when they combine the clear light burst forth. The fastest way to enlightenmnent is cultivating bliss and uniting it with the wisdom of emptiness. Simply, feel greaat and know that it is all a dream, not real. But it IS MEANINGFUL! That is funny story about the book that said everything is meaningless so you threw the book away because IT was meaningless! I wonder what they were trying to say? I believe that all meaning comes from within and we project it onto objects or events. Like that is how Tarot cards or dream interpretation work. But the cards themselves are meaningless, but they are a tool for us to understand the meaning within us. Maybe that is what he meant? Hmm. Don't get hung up on language. A lot of Buddhist stuff is very dry and intellectual. Because they analyze things so much and debate things so much. For you, Juroara, seem more of a heart centered person rather than a head centered person. I believe that cultivating compassion is what you are good at and that is how you help the world. Your compassionate nature is the natural expression of your Buddha Nature. And compassion doesn't need an object. You don't require pitiful sufferers for an opportunity to be compassionate. You ARE compassion, even when you are alone. Words like meaningless and emptiness and nothingness probably turn you off. It all seems so barren and pointless. Look beyond the words to the juiciness of bliss. Let the word 'Nirvana' roll of your tongue while you close your eyes halfway like the Buddha! Feel the tug in your heart and the yearning for Union with Existence and let go and flow down the river to the Ocean! It is quite meaningful! The Buddha said that Nirvana and Samsara are one. He also said that "even though all things are empty and without any separate independent permanent existence, they still continue to appear continuously!" Even after enlightenment. Nirvana is never ending lucidity! Then you can help others achieve lucidity. The only reason people suffer is because they are not lucid and they think that this reality is so serious. One of my first Lucid Dreams I started telling all the DCs that this is only a dream! This isn't real, it's a dream! some would say "Is this some kind of Eastern Philosophy?" I said "No! This is the truth! This isn't a philosophy! I can't prove it to you, you just need to realize that it is a dream!" You see, although I was lucid I still thought that the DCs were separate people. Some said to me "How do we realize that we are dreaming? Should we meditate?" Some thought that I was a Guru and wanted to follow me. It is all ridiculous. This is what enlightenmnet is and this is who the Buddha was/is. That is how you end suffering, by realizing that all suffering is a dream. It can be a very very bad dream, and for more and more Earthlings it is becoming more so. And the ultimate compassion is to realize that all these dream Characters that are suffering with us here on the Earth, are none other than ourSELF. The old lady with Alzheimers that has no family left and lives in a nursing home hooked up to a breathing machine in the dark and thinks that the nurse is her daugher is you, unlucid. The Iraqi orphan who lost his leg from a land mine is you. The people in Haiti who right now are starving and thirsty and burying their children are you. This is compassion, and this is what motivates us to wake up. That is what 'Buddha' means. It means the awakened one. So people think that what is the point of being in this space when people are suffering? That is why we seek enlightenment, is to end suffering for all. How does remaining in Ego space help anybody? The Buddha DID help. After he attained enlightenmnet he lived for 60 more years continuously traveling and teaching. He taught what the root of all suffering is and how to get out of suffering. He was not an Only Son Of God. He was an ordinary guy like you or me. He died an ordinary death of food poisoning. He wasn't crucified. He didn't die for our sins. He doesn't want to be worshipped. He said that even if there is a God he can't save you or liberate you and he didn't create you. He taught to be a light onto yourself and save yourself. He also taught how to be a bodhisattva. A bodhisattva is someone who becomes enlightened in order to help every single sentient being everywhere to cchieve Enlightenment. It is interesting that the Buddha taught about alien Buddhas from other planets. Anyway. Buddhism isn't about nothingness, it is about no concepts ABOUT reality, so he says things are nothing or void or not this not that so that you don't fool yourself into thinking that you know just becasue you have a mental concept. Anyway, bliss is contagious. And when your energy is freed you share energy. The more you share the more you have. The more you love the more loved you are. The more you help others the more you help yourself. Dream Yoga is great.

[Darkmatters]

Anyway, bliss is contagious. Yes. Yes it IS!