About 18 months ago, I had a very vivid dream about the end. It had several parts to it, and I will try remember them and get them down.
At one point in the dream we were in what I understood to be the NKT office. It was the end of the world, and I understood it to be the end of VGL’s Dharma in this world. Most everybody was gone or had already gone off to meditate. Completely exhausted, I was leaving myself to go off to meditate at the end, and I passed by a desk and a man who I understood to be Jim Belither was approaching a computer station. He was beyond exhausted, and could barely keep himself up. But despite his exhaustion, he forced himself to keep working. I then turned the corner a bit and came to understood what he and a few others were doing. They were busy indexing and storing all of VGL’s teachings so that everything could be preserved given the fact that it was the end.
Then, I was at what I understood to be my home. I knew they were coming and it was the end. We were under attack by some type of small, but very powerful mystical creatures. Everything was gone except I knew the Buddha statues were still in the gompa. I told Claudine, let’s go there for the end. Then, something happened which caused me to go out into a small field next to the house. When I went to go get whatever it was, the small creatures arrived and started flitting in and out of existence. One finally caught me and started inflicing terrible torturous pain on me. The whole time, I tried to keep my mind paying attention to and focused on the Dhamarkaya instead of my ordinary body. I kept repeating to myself as I was being tortured, ‘my true home is the Dharmakaya.’ Despite the pain, I kept trying to do this knowing if I could I would be all right since I was not my ordinary body and feeling it to be practice for when the real thing comes.
Somehow it ended, and I made it. I then found myself chatting with one of the creatures who was suddenly kind and unthreatening, like an Ewok or a kind Lilo. I was surprised and I asked him, ‘so not everyone dies’, and he said ‘oh, no, no.’
Then, it fast forward to somewhat later, and we were on the cusp of the real end coming. I was in a room with Kiara and one of my other kids, I believe McKenzie, and they didn’t really know what was coming. There were some others who we saw outside the window, who also knew it was the end and they were taking pictures together. Then, it suddenly grew much darker and a terrible cold wind descended over everything indicating that the end was here. I again wanted to go off to meditate at the end, but then I thought about how Kiara, who I was holding, would be screaming in terror at the end and that I needed to be with her at that time. I knew it would be more difficult to do, but that while I was supporting her I could once again try stay centered in the Dharmakaya and I should be OK.
Then, I woke up. In thinking about this dream I realized that I need to be like Jim Belither, who, despite all exhaustion, was so dedicated to working for and the welfare of living beings that he kept pushing on to the very end. He did not go off to meditate, but pushed on in service working for the welfare of others. He was doing this to preserve and store the Dharma for the future, and I needed to do the same by not abandoning my family but staying with them even until the very end and everybody else has already left.
Kadampa Working Dad 
I’ve seen many practitioners pushing too hard, they then get burnt out then consequently leave or give up Dharma. Along with other ‘stories’ from people around the NKT it suggests something is wrong with the perspective of some people in the NKT. Maybe the teachers need to re-emphasize the middle-way approach. GKG apparently has himself said that NKT has been too extreme in this respect.
Our wishes come last on the list so we work and work and forget ourself completely which sometimes means we lose all perspective of our own health. This doesn’t do anyone any favours. This is a type of Dharma obsession, another neurosis. We believe that we are doing so much good, it’s all for the Dharma so it’s all purification. This is not a middle-way approach. This is what causes degeneration because people come off as being ‘cult-like’ and extremists, not ordinary balanced working people.
Of course there are incredible examples of people working immensely hard. Every month i would spend a long weekend in Tharpaland and see the nuns and monks work so hard for everyone it was really something extraordinary but they all knew when to work and play and get the balance right.
I remember a story i was once told:. GKG once told Ven Tharchin, “who are you helping in meditation?” because he wanted to spend his whole life meditating on retreat, so Ven Tharchin went on to teach and has inspired thousands of people in the NKT. Incredible.
I think you bring up some very good points, and we definitely need to avoid extremes.
For me, the point of the dream was not that we should all work ourselves into complete exhaustion on some self-righteous self-sacrifice. We all need rest so we can work even more than we could if we never rested at all. But there are also times in our life when we do need to work non-stop for very long periods of time, such as my life now working full time and having five little kids. Not working all of the time is simply not an option. Maintaining a sustainable rhythm for our practice does not mean we always go the same speed – we just need to balance our pushing it times with our stepping back times.
Rather, the point of the dream for me was I have a tendency to over-value my formal meditation and under-value my practical helping of others. It also meant for me that I tend to overvalue formal meditation and under-value caring for my family. It is these extremes which I need to correct for. The dream also gave me some confidence that even under very extreme circumstances there is some hope I will be able to remember the Dharmakaya at the time of my death and be able to take refuge in its beyond-ness.
Thanks a lot… KR & JM,
I appreciate your reflections,
Trying to be into the 2 perception at the time ,
it seems not easy…like looking through
the Buda´s eyes…
wisdom & compassion …should be together….
i wish all of us could have the possibility
to remember this at the end…
it could be today…
Ok i’m gonna go off on a rambling tangent. Apologies! It’s interesting. When i don’t like to be around other people or would rather be doing something else, i like to assign people a different virtuous mind, when we interact i would try generate the mind, like a game. My daughter (enlightened) taught me how to play it…
My daughter would be ‘sense of humour’ my girlfriend would be ‘love’ my mum would be ‘bodhichitta’ my sister would be ‘divine pride’. Each of them is a teaching since sometimes they generate delusion in me. The guy with pride who is always trying to be better than me, that’s easy, i label ‘self-defeat’ and offer the victory so in his presence i would intentionally point out my faults before he does so that he has no fire power and show where real confidence arises from. ‘Honesty’ for people who are pretentious. It’s hard for people to full of it in the presence of total honesty. etc etc.
So i see it as being with the minds, when i try experience the minds, i see the person more clearly. It’s like using the opponent virtues for each person rather than using a daily lamrim object throughout the day. Since it’s easy to view loved ones through deluded goggles. These experiments lead to further cherishing and so on. My ex-girlfriend was ‘patience’, i enjoyed our time together (she drove me mad) but i tried to choose what to experience and not how i should react. Not all the time. It would be smug of me to say that i did that all the time but as someone who would rather sometimes leave planet earth it’s an alternative.
I totally relate to what you are saying though. There have been countless times when i have over-valued formal practice vs practically helping those closest and it’s easy to justify it as ‘if i can’t change my mind in meditation, then i can’t really truly help anyone’. On one level, this is true. Meditation is just pointless if it’s just a form of escape?
So in conclusion people closest to us stimulate delusion, our real job is to get rid of delusion (which arises from inappropriate attention) and if we choose (appropriate attention) how to relate to people, then we can be more focused and treat each interaction as a meditation. I know you know all of this, just may provide useful for someone, somewhere (anywhere) is there anyone out there? OMG – stands for Oh My Geshe-la! I know, this was quickly written.
Who am i kidding? Seriously. I’ve not done this for ages. What lies ^
One of the biggest delusions is talking and thinking about the ideas of how to practice when not actually putting it into practice – BIG MISTAKE!
Ha ha i make myself laugh, what a degenerate.
Why is it a delusion? Because it’s just another distraction that prevents me from taking real action. A fantasy. The idea of helping people seems great.