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<\/a>One of the central metaphors in the buddhadharma likens our usual world to a dream from which practice can help us awaken.<\/p>\nBut what about the nonmetaphorical dream world we live through while asleep? What practice can we do there? Can the world of dreams also be a field for awakening?<\/p>\n
In preparing for our upcoming practice period, \u201cExpressing a Dream in a Dream<\/a>,\u201d I\u2019ve been reflecting and reading about dreams. Are dreams important to you? How many dreams from this life do you remember?<\/p>\n I remember only about a dozen dreams from the thousands that I\u2019ve dreamed.<\/p>\n For example, in about 1987, Katagiri Roshi told me to study the Abhidharmakosa<\/em>, a commentary on the so-called \u201chigher teachings\u201d (a systematization of the original Buddha\u2019s teaching with a technocratic psychological bent). I\u2019m not sure why he wanted me to do that and don\u2019t remember if I asked him or not.<\/p>\n Anyway, I waded through the first chapter repeatedly but found it impenetrable. Try as I might, I couldn\u2019t find an entry point in \u201cclassif[ying] existing things into stained and unstained phenomena\u201d or in the second chapters\u2019 \u201cdescrib[ing] how existing things are perceived.\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember being bored, more like reading something that was supposedly in English but having no fricking clue as to the meaning of even a single sentence.<\/p>\n This was a new experience for me. I\u2019d thought of myself as smart enough to at least have an inkling about what was going on in what I was reading but this was like walking into a brick wall.<\/p>\n So late one night, I put the text down in frustration, thinking I\u2019d have to go to Roshi and tell him that I was just too stupid for it.<\/p>\n That night, I dreamed I was in a brightly lit room, at a party with a bunch of Zen students engaged in merry conversation, creating a cacophony of party voices. Suddenly, I saw in my right peripheral vision a woman of light, floating above the revelers. As I shifted focus to her, she said to me, telepathically I think, \u201cStart with chapter three.\u201d<\/p>\n Then she zipped up and away through the ceiling, I think.<\/p>\n I awoke in disappointment. \u201cWhat a weird thing to say! \u2018Start with chapter three\u2019 \u2013 what the hell?\u201d<\/p>\n Then it occurred to me that it might have something to do with the Abhidharmakosa<\/em>. Doh! I opened to chapter three and found it absorbing, describing the various realms of existence, including the deva realm.<\/p>\n Later when I told Katagiri Roshi about my dream, he said, \u201cDeva<\/a> came to help you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou believe in devas?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d he said, \u201cbut don\u2019t tell. It would encourage the people to be spiritual fascination.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s one of the reasons \u2013 concern about spiritual fascination that distracts us from the main point \u2013 that has led the modern Zen tradition to down-played dreams and their relevance in the spiritual journey, generally regarding them, like devas, as a form of makyo<\/a>, or delusion (literally, \u201cdevil place\u201d), making little or no distinction between dreams while sleeping, zazen lulling out, and other types of mystical visions.<\/p>\n Back in the medieval period, though, dreams seem to have played a more significant role. See Bernard Faure\u2019s Visions of Power: Imagining Medieval Japanese Buddhism (<\/em>mostly a biography of Keizan, the 4th ancestor of Soto Zen in Japan), especially Chapter 5: \u201cDreaming.\u201d Keizan, the author of the Record of Transmitting the Light<\/em> or Denkoroku<\/em>, was an \u201cinveterate\u00a0dreamer,\u201d recording many of his dreams, and even basing important decisions (e.g., where to site a monastery) on dreams.<\/p>\n How we regard and interpret our dreams may tell us as much about ourselves as the interpretation itself. Just as in the modern world with our many ways of interpreting dreams (psychodynamically,\u00a0archetypically, cognitively, random synaptic firing, etc.),\u00a0there were also lots of views on the subject in the old days.<\/p>\n In medieval dharma circles, some divided the dream world into false dreams and true dreams. False dreams, I suppose, were like our normal anxiety dreams \u2013 finding oneself about to teach a class but not having prepared for it and whoops! what happened to my pants?<\/p>\n True dreams, occurring during the last watch of the night, included dreams as signs, supporting self-ordination, for example, which was apparently quite common \u2013 a political end-around of the powers that controlled ordination. Dreams as signs also gave credence to a teacher\u2019s authenticity. Keizan was in good company when he dreamed that he received transmissions from Bodhidharma, Maitreya, and Shakyamuni.<\/p>\n