Dreaming the Real

I love this poem by Linda France, and she has kindly given permission for me to use the title for my next online retreat coming up. I so enjoy the juxtaposition of the unreal dream world with what’s real or true. In a very beautiful way Linda walks us into a world of mindfulness of what is, touching and opening the mind not only to truth, but also to love.

I’ve been thinking about references to dreams and dreaming in Buddhism. In the Diamond Sutra we’re advised to practice by viewing conditioned existence as like a phantom or a dream. Something that is ephemeral and insubstantial and that it is possible to wake up from and realise it is not true.

The aggregates (skandhas) of clinging continue the theme encouraging us to view body, feelings, perceptions, as ‘a lump of foam, a bubble, a mirage’ – all of which are completely insubstantial with no way of holding onto them. It’s as if the Buddha is saying – when you cling you can’t trust your senses or your rational mind; it will all disappear as soon as you reach to hold onto it. Even by holding onto an idea in your mind you’ll alter and thereby distort what is being seen or heard or touched or thought about.

Volitional acts are compared to a banana tree which has no heartwood, no centre. Its leaves are tightly packed and wound around each other so they form a firm ‘trunk’. The fifth aggregate – moments of consciousness that we identify as ‘me’, I’m the one noticing all this stuff happening through my body and mind, is like being fooled by a magician and completely taken in by their tricks.

The Buddha didn’t deny a world or a life that has some relative reality. In the relative world we have responsibilities to keep; we go to work; we manage our finances so we can pay our rent or buy things we need. We have people who matter to us, and we do our best to be a good parent or partner or friend. In this world we have values and our ethics matter to us.

 Unfortunately, when we act in the world without an awareness of its dreamlike illusory nature, we get caught in the net of all the views, opinions, and stories we hold onto. The more we struggle the more suffering we unwittingly cause ourselves and others.

What the Buddha was advising was a perspective, a way to view the world that would help us see everything within it, including our own mind and body, in a more accurate way that would alleviate suffering.

This might sound a bit dry, like scraping the icing off a cake before you get to eat it or fluffing the punchline of a joke in a way that kills all the laughter potential. Or when we tell someone our wonderful dream and what was magical becomes clumsy and prosaic over breakfast.

Having other ways that give us a sense of the freedom from suffering are helpful. We can use intermediaries. After all it is hard to imagine being completely free because we can’t rely on our usual reference points – which is our senses. Usually, we know something because we smell, touch, or taste it. Or we see, hear, or think about it. Awakening is not like that. It’s unknown to us; it’s not like this, or similar to that. It’s something else altogether.

What’s good about poetry (and the arts more generally) is they can point us towards the mystery of life and open up responses in us that are not part of our more humdrum existence. We don’t have to explain why we love a painting or a novel or a piece of music. Instead, usually we feel it.

I find I really enjoy having things in my life I can’t explain with the rational mind. I see a cranial-sacral practitioner every six weeks or so. He touches my feet very lightly and I feel clear sensations in my belly. Or I notice a strong emotion that comes out of nowhere. I ‘know’ there’s a connection, but I can’t explain it, and I quite like that I can’t. It’s enough to just hold it very lightly.

Dwelling in the pleasurable non-rational in these (and other) ways helps loosen my grip on what I think I know, as well as holding onto the world around me. Dreams are extremely convincing, and I seem to have to wake up again and again, questioning their substance and making the connection between the unreality of sleeping dream life and waking dream life.

Sometimes though, we do have access to a more direct knowing of what’s real. As a result of meditating or ethical practice or sometimes meaningful communication we access the beauty of a mind that is true and free. It may well be only partially free, or temporarily free but when we feel the flexibility of consciousness that results from it and the mind that is responsive and equanimous or the heart that is softened and open it feels worth all the efforts of practice.

In the words of the poem

 “I want whatever’s real to be enough, at least.

 It’s a place to begin. And to master the art

of loving it; feel it love me back, under my skin.”