Twenty years ago I attended Tarthang Tulku’s workshop on Tibetan Buddhism at the Esalen
Institute in Big Sur, California. Rinpoche (“precious jewel”), as we called the teacher, had been
forced to leave Tibet when the Chinese
Communists had invaded, and had “just gotten off the
boat” from India. He therefore spoke precious little English. The bits of his speech that weren’t
already broken
were frequently broken with laughter. I had been expecting esoteric
explanations of advanced theory, but what I got was something incalculably more valuable.
Rinpoche would indicate the world around us with a casual sweep of the hand and portentously
announce: “This... dream!” Then he would laugh some more and pointing at me or some other
person or object, rather mysteriously it seemed, he would insist: “This dream!” followed by
more laughter. Rinpoche managed to get the idea across to us (how, I don’t really know; I
wouldn’t rule out telepathy, considering how very few words were exchanged) that we were to
attempt to think of all our experiences as dreams and to try to maintain unbroken continuity of
consciousness between the two states of sleep and waking. I didn’t think I was doing very well
with the exercise, but on my way back to San Francisco after the weekend, I unexpectedly
found my world was in some way expanded.
A few nights later, I had the first lucid dream I remember
since the serial adventure dreams I
had when I was five years old. In the dream:
It was snowing gently. I was alone on the rooftop of the world, climbing K2. As I made my way
upward through the steeply drifting snow, I was astonished to notice my arms were bare: I was
wearing a short-sleeved shirt, hardly proper dress for climbing the second highest mountain in
the world! I realized at once that the explanation was that I was dreaming! I was so delighted
that I jumped off the mountain and began to fly away, but the dream faded and I awoke.
I interpreted the dream as suggesting that I wasn’t yet prepared for the rigors of Tibetan dream
yoga. But it was also a starting point, and I continued to have lucid dreams occasionally for
eight years before I began to cultivate lucid dreaming in earnest. Incidentally, my impulsive
behavior
when I became lucid is typical of beginners. If I were to have such a dream now, I
would not precipitously jump off the mountain. Instead, I would fly to the top of the mountain
and find out if I was climbing it for any reason besides “because it was there.”
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