Reflections on important dreams

What follows are my reflections on different dreams I have had in the past. I wrote most of these after I woke up from the dream.I had a dream which I understood as follows:

Some big ogre type guy came after me with a big hammer. I took it from him and started pounding him with it. Again and again, I hit him in the head and the balls, and he kept thinking he coul take it. But eventually I killed him and Heruka and VY were forced to leave him. I understood this to be J (name here not important). He tried to attachk me with strong workds, but I returned even stronger. They may have caused his mind to permanently close to Heruka and VY. By forcing him to accept me, I may have killed him spiritually.

A second person, more my age, thought he could take me down with a popsicle stick. I quickly overwhelmed him. Then I kept pounding him again and again, throwing him to the ground and finally killing him. This took place at the entrance of the gompa in Geneva. Two beings which I understood to be Heruka and VY were inside the gompa and forced to leave him because he had died. As VY passed me, she was cying about having to leave. I understand this to be D (again, name here not important), who I pounded into a pulp. Because I insisted on all or nothing and my pride in showing I was better, I killed his spiritual life.

These things are my biggest negativities from my past life (my time in Europe) that I need to purify. I need to spend time purifying these. Now!

I had a dream in which I was on a space ship which was about to be destroyed and I was going to die. I developed a very clear intention of where I wanted to go after I died, and it was motivated in part by compassion of wanting to help certain people like my family. As the ship was being destroyed, I just tried to keep my mind single pointedly focused on this intention. I kept repeating it with a short phrase like a mantra over and over again. What was happening on the ship was a distraction, so I kept applying effort to keep my mind only focused on the the intention and phrase. I then died but entered something like a bardo, but more like a hallway. I continued to keep repeating the phrase and keeping my mind single pointedly on the intention. There was then something about trying to disentangle a bunch of spagetti like strings, which I understand to be different possibilities for the next life. Then I woke up.

The main thing I take from this dream is this is what I need to do when I die. I need to not pay attention to anything that is going on around me or with me, but just keep single pointedly focused on a compassionate intention of where I want to go after I die. I should develop a short phrase that I can repeat over and over again like a mantra to keep my mind focused on the meaning of this intention. If I can do that, then there is hope that I will be able to maintain that intention on the other side of death and it will help guide me to my next rebirth. A secondary thing I took from this dream is the idea that perhaps those who are into Science Fiction now are coming from a previous life where such things were our reality. Kindof a silly theory and more humerous than anything else, but possible.

I had a dream where I was falling, but I was holding on to a rope. It got to the point where I almost hit the ground and was hanging on to the very end of the rope. I take this to mean that I have barely enough merit to keep me from falling. I need to focus on accumulating merit. Since I am not teaching now, my best merit accumulation possibility is to really focus on developing my bodhichitta and having that be my primary means of accumulating merit. I need to integrate more robustly bodhichitta into my narrative and make my narrative Omni-present within my mind, guiding and governing all of my actions. Bodhichitta is the best method for accumulating merit and the best method for purifying negativity. It is my real panacea.

I had a dream where I was explaining to Bethany, Tracy and Dania what was going on in my life. Perhaps I should contact them and update them.

I had another strange dream before I woke up. It was not as clear or vivid as the earlier dreams from two years ago, but of a similar nature. I am not entirely sure of the chronological order of these dream fragments either, so this is a bit sketchy.

While they were dreams I was watching, I understood myself to be the main character in the dream. I was a character in some sort of video game, like a fantasy adventure one. I had somewhat completed the adventure, but I had to make some choice about what happens to somebody else. I think I made the decision that he goes to jail. It was then much later after the jail term, and things I think were OK. It then felt like it was like a choose your own adventure, and I was seeing how multiple possibilities could play themselves out and I had some thought about how I should always pick the optimistic or good choice and it will gradually lead in the right direction.

Then I was in a mobile home type thing at the top of a cliff near the ocean. I understood all of my family was below me, closer to the sea level. There were many others in the settlements below there. A giant tsunami came, and it came crashing up to literally just at the feet of our mobile home, but not touching us. We just missed it. As I saw the wave, I knew that my family was down below and that they and all the others were drown. I had a strange feeling that even though they drown, they live. I mentioned to somebody else who was next to us how lucky we were to have just missed that.

I was then inspecting the damage down below. I was in Rockford Bay by the marina. That part of the bay had been effectively destroyed and closed off by fallen debris. All of those fancy houses had been destroyed and there were now only mobile homes. I saw how all of the money people had invested there thinking it was going to last forever had lost their money because now the bay would forever be different.

We then started walking forward and we were intercepted by what I believe to be an Indian couple, but I only interacted with the guy. He gave me some code I had been wanting for a long time with access to some correspondance recording of a course. We then continued walking forward and we were at the beginning of a foot bridge across some sort of chasm. He then requested me to teach, and I explained it was very difficult because it is difficult to find somebody who could babysit for five kids. He said that he knew somebody maybe and I had to think. I understood that my reason for not teaching is not entirely just who will take care of the kids.

At some point, and I can’t remember when it happened, it was long ago like in pre-medieval times, and I was in financial trouble. I had borrowed money from a bunch of friends to get myself back on my feet. It then fastforward to after I had done so and become somewhat successful. I then gathered everyone together and paid them all back. At one point there was some guy who was supposed to pay me back but was reluctant to do so for somewhat miserly reasons. I tried to make it seem like it was OK that he didn’t pay me back, but I wanted him to. He sensed this and then paid me back grudgingly. I then understood that this was taking place before the Tsunami, like I was looking back in time knowing what was coming, and I was thinking why am I paying them back before the disaster. It was a mild tinge of regret but then thought to be the right thing even though it made things more difficult.

This is all of the parts of the dream that I can remember. But when I awoke, I kindof understood this to be like the dreams I had two years ago before the landslide happened. But it wasn’t nearly as dramatic of events or as vivid and clear of dreams. But it had a similar feel of premonition. Our material conditions were dramatically inferior, but somehow we were OK. I am not sure what all of this means, but each story has a little meaning and I think it indicates to me the choices I will need to make when I encounter these situations in the future. Each time I more or less did the right thing, but with some regret about how making that choice would create a mild inconvenience for me. But that I should always make the right choice regardless and we will barely be OK. Please reveal to me what all I should learn and take from these dreams.

I had another dream. I was at something that was kindof like a festival. At one point, we were all waiting in line. I tried to cut ahead, but then instead let everyone else go first. Then later, when I got to the food table, everything was gone except for Cheese-its. I laughed at this, but was somewhat bummed. Then I went back in to where the food was, and the only things that were available were some fruits and salad or some really bad for you donuts. I showed more interest in the donuts. Later in the dream there was something about me having some bad sickness and that since I had it the only thing I could do was accept. I take this to mean that I need to start eating better, and if I do not, I will get some sort of sickness related to how I eat. In particular, I better start eating salads regularly because that helps clean out your system since if I have a problem it is likely to be related to my gastro-intestinal track.

I also had a dream that B was back. But he was just talking and talking like a somewhat arrogant know it all. I was overhearing the conversation trying to understand what he was saying and talking about. At one poin the was talking about how some neighborhood was expanding. Then it became clear he was talking about teaching Dharma to high school students, but the ideas he was proposing were way more than the actual demand from the students. He had big ideas, but it was more than what was being asked for. I understood that for this reason it would not work. At one point, when I was trying to overhear B, I ran into Elise from High School. She was ordained and wanted to talk to me. She really wanted to cherish me in a sincere way, but I was trying to listen to B. Knowing that she genuinely wanted to cherish me I told her the truth that I was trying to do something so basically leave me alone. She understood and I believe just after that B appeared and I was able to exchange a few words with him, but I am not sure what was said.

I had a dream where I ran into Nicolas and Karine from Lausanne. She had given birth to twins, but they were very premature. It fit into my hand. I dropped it, and then later after I picked it back up, it shook violently, burst into flames and became nothing but ashes. This is the second dream I have had where I dropped one of the twins to the severe detriment of the twin. Even though in the dream it was of Nicolas and Karine, my feeling is it is more talking about our twins. I will need to be very very careful with the twins to not drop them.

I had some strange dream, the visual context of which is not important and I can’t remember, but the message I received just before I woke up was ‘with hard work and perseverance, success is guarranteed.’ With external things, I can work until the end of time and there is no guarantee that I will succeed, because it is a question of whether I have created the karma for that particular appearance (and whether or not that particular appearance is what is best for me since I have surrendered my life completely to Dorje Shugden’s management). But when it comes to the internal training of my mind, with hard work and perseverance (combined with correct methods, which I am so incredibly lucky to have), my eventual enlightenment is guarranteed. Ultimately, external things do not matter and do not bring any real benefit or solution to my problems. All it does is change the visual scenery (what appears), but if my mind remains equally problematic, then any set of visual appearances will be equally problematic, just in different ways. So really it changes nothing. In contrast, applying effort at correct internal methods will always bear fruit because it makes my mind more healthy, happy, stable, calm, positive, etc. I then bring this mind to everything I do and whatever context appears. Then, no matter what appears, I will be healthy, happy, stable, calm and positive. Nothing will be a problem for me. Everything will be equally good, just in different ways. Si nce the internal methods are correct and work, if I never give up applying effort, the end result of enlightenment is 100% guarranteed. It will just be a question of time. And enlightenment is a result that does bring real fruit. So applying effort to external things is useless at best (since it doesn’t change your mind, even if you succeed it changes nothing) and counterproductive at worst (since it makes you more stressed and deluded when things inevitably go wrong). But applying effort to internal transformation actually produces real results and its succeess is guarranteed. This does not mean you do not still need to apply effort to do what needs to be done externally given your normal circumstance, but it does mean you can completely let go of and not worry about what happens. Whatever happens, it is equally good (just in different ways), so don’t worry, just keep training your mind with respect to whatever appears.

I had a very strange dream, but it had a very deep meaning. I was debating with K, the topic was health care. The other team ran some normal case, then K was 1NC, and he was completely incomphrensible talking about the reaction of the different parts of the body as it disintegrates at death. It looked like we were completely losing. But then I realized that we could use what he said by doing a Kucheman on them, talking about the nature of the I, etc.

The point I understood was this: the best form of health care is that which prepares you at the time of death to move on to the next life. Traditional health care helps keep people trapped and focused on hanging on to this life. But end of death care that helps people understand what happens at the time of death as the body disintegrates and how to let go and move on to the next life is really the best form of heath care. What Gen Lhamo is doing has enormous value. The Chaplaincy work of the NKT is really great.