I just had a dream with Geshe-la that began where I heard Geshe-la is teaching this Spring Festival. We were late in arriving at the temple and things had already begun. They let us in the back and I had to quietly make my way to an open seat in the back. I passed by somebody who I didn’t know and they looked at me and said, “you look good, what are you on?” I said, “nothing,” but felt like I was lying about it despite actually not being on anything. I then found my seat, it was like an old couch cushion thrown on the floor and then I fell asleep.

When I arose, everybody was arising to do the prostrations after the teacher sits on the throne and then, even though I knew he had passed, I saw directly Geshe-la up there on the throne. He looked old, but was very much right there. I was surprised at how few people were at the Festival and thought about how I missed the last Festival Geshe-la taught at.

We then sat down, and the music for Liberating Prayer started. We then all sang “O Blessed One, Shakyamuni Buddha…” and then Geshe-la interjected and said, “Ohh, happy.” The music then somehow continued and was a long pause without words, just different melodies, and at first I thought something was wrong with the recording, then that perhaps they changed and simplified the Liberating Prayer since Geshe-la was teaching the festival. Then during this time, I started feeling powerful waves of blessings and understood why the pause. Geshe-la was sending out healing blessings to everyone. As they started to fill me, I couldn’t help myself, I just started crying and all my pain that I have been carrying around started coming out. It was painfully deep, wounded crying, but was simultaneously good to be getting it out. I worried about my wife seeing me cry, about how she would take it because I feared she rejected the Dharma and my practice of it. But I then thought I should let go of such worries and allow myself to have whatever reaction I had. I was reminded of how I cried so much when I first saw the Buddha Shakyamuni play at the festival. I cried almost the whole way through. I then thought, faith in Buddha Shakyamuni has this healing, expelling of deep wounds and sorrow effect. Then I woke up.

Normally, when I do blog posts of my dreams I then write what it meant to me. But here, I don’t think that is necessary.

I just had a dream in which Geshe-la explained to me how the eight dissolutions work. I write my dreams down so I don’t forget and in case they prove beneficial to others. When we die or during completion stage meditations, our inner winds gather into our central channel at our heart. As they gradually do so, we perceive eight different appearances.

In the dream, Geshe-la was quietly seated off on the side while all sorts of other activities were going on and there was lots of noise as people were talking or doing whatever. I was seated there paying attention to all these other activities and didn’t really notice Geshe-la there. But then somehow he got my attention and was asking when something happened during the eight dissolutions, so I started speaking with him about it and I would guess thinking I knew the answer to his question but not sure, “during the smoke-like appearance?” and he would say, “no, no,” and then I would guess feeling like I was getting closer to an answer, “during the sparkling fire-flies like appearance?” And he said, “no, no,” but he was getting more excited. And then I said, “when the wind element wind dissolves?” And he said, “almost!” And then it clicked, “ah, during the transition between the candle-flame like appearance and the white appearance, and he said all excited, “YES!”

He then called me over to him so he could show me. He then was showing me these very tiny boxes like Russian dolls, with one inside the other. They were floating in space going downwards, and he showed how when we transitioned from one appearance to another as the winds dissolved, it was like a rocket shedding its booster rocket where it left behind one of the bigger boxes and one of the smaller boxes emerged out from within it (but it was moving downwards at an angle, not upwards). When one of the smaller boxes emerged out from within a larger box, it would release a new powerful appearance as the next appearance. It was understood that a new smaller box would be released when all of the previous wind was absorbed, and as the new box (which was felt to be ourself at increasingly subtle levels) emerged, it would release the appearance.

Then he drew me really close looking at the boxes and he showed me what happened when we made the transition from candle-flame like appearance to white appearance: no new box came out, but we nonetheless emerged like a phantom box that had no form whatsoever and when we did it released the white appearance, and then Geshe-la said almost like some cool teen would, “it’s A-MAZING!!!” And then he started laughing all happy. (Note, it is when we make this transition that we enter what is called “the four empties” of white appearance, red increase, black near attainment, and then clear light).

He then said, “it is like this,” and he folded some scripture he was writing in half to write on the back what he wanted to explain, but he didn’t have something hard to write on. So I said, “oh, I’ll go get something hard to write on,” and I went and found some coffee table picture book and brought it over to him, he put the scripture paper on the book and was about to write, and then I woke up.

I then thought, “woah, I need to go write that down in my blog,” but I then fell back asleep.

I was then in the dorm at a festival and I had to go take a shower. I went into the shower room, which was in this wood cabin type place, and I turned the water on and at first it came out strong, but then only a trickle. I then looked for something to hook the shower head on, but it wasn’t the right fit, but finally I got it to hold, but then the water basically dried up. I then put on my towel to go tell somebody and I ran into some friends who were in an adjacent room in the cabin. They had also just showered and were in their towels.

One of the friends then offering to help out, “do you all need another night?” And I said, “oh, that would be great, our single room just ran out” accepting their offer, and then she said in all sincerity, “here, you can use this ring to secure another night,” and she gave me this really ugly, gaudy, gold speckled ring that I could use like something somebody could hold as collateral securing the room for the night. She then showed me her whole collection of similarly gaudy ostentatious jewelry. I remember looking at the ring and thinking, “nobody is going to want this, this is worthless,” even though financially it was no doubt worth a lot, I couldn’t imagine anybody who could offer me a room would want this.

I then woke up again and realized the two dreams were connected, so I came to write this.

What does this all mean to me? In the first dream, I was paying attention to all the noise and clammer of activities in the room and not Geshe-la off to the side in the corner quietly writing scriptures, a metaphor of my life paying attention to the noise of appearance and not the quiet of my guru writing Dharma. My guessing was me thinking I know things and blurting out answers as if I knew, and while my answers I was blurting out were wrong, they were gradually moving in the right direction. This is like me and my social media presence and blog, writing things like I know what I am saying, and what I am saying is not quite right, but nonetheless gradually moving in the right direction.

Geshe-la was trying to explain to me how the eight dissolutions work, a subject that I have really been focusing on trying to understand for about 18 months now. Geshe-la showed me the mechanism where when one wind element dissolved completely, it would release the next box of us at a smaller, more subtle level, and when the box was released, it would release this powerful light of the next appearance. But in particular, the most important one I needed to understand was when the wind supporting the candle-flame like appearance dissolved and I made the transition to white appearance – entering the four empties. Here, there was no form that emerged, just the sky-like empty formlessness. I understood this to mean formless in the sense of the mind is clarity, without form. It is also at this stage that we transition from gross to subtle minds, leaving our gross minds completely behind.

Geshe-la then wanted to write something down for me of what the next thing I needed to understand, but there was no foundation in my mind to understand it (symbolized by the search for something hard to write on), meaning I lacked the experience to understand the next level. My then showing up at a festival indicated to me that I need more teachings, in particular at festivals – something I haven’t been able to physically for a long time. My going for a shower meant to me I needed to purify, but the lack of water coming out was understood to mean a lack of merit. It was my last day at the festival and my friends offered me another night. The fact that we were all basically naked bud didn’t care indicated for me I need to basically almost completely leave behind my sexual attachment to understand what comes next. But they did so offering me some really expensive piece of jewelry from their vast collection of similar jewelry, but this was understood to be worthless. This meant to me how I have been using up my merit on worthless external things which is of no value to those who can enable me to stay another night to receive the teachings I need.

All of these are powerful teachings for me.

I occasionally have Dharma dreams, but very rarely ones with Geshe-la. I had one last night. I’m writing it down so I do not forget it and sharing it in case others might benefit from it.

It started and I was at a festival with some people from other countries I had just met. Somehow we were told or decided through some strange circumstances to go for a drive. So we went driving, I was in the back seat, and we were just talking about nonsense in a worldly way. We then come out on this country road with nobody around and Geshe-la was standing in the middle of the road like he was waiting for us. I had the feeling in the dream that we had been set up to go for the drive so that we could meet Geshe-la, even though there was no way we could have known he would be on the road.

We stopped the car and he came to the back window where I was sitting. He started greeting us and I noticed he was wearing a very warm ski mask that covered his whole face, except his nose and mouth, and I recalled how he often liked to stay warm, but went into cold climates for us. I then noticed that despite his eyes being covered by the sky mask, he was nonetheless able to see and talk with us perfectly, as if he could see everything. (I didn’t understand this at the time, but I understand this to mean despite from an ordinary perspective we mostly related to his speech, in reality he was omniscient able to see everything).

He then stuck his head in the car through the window where I was sitting to greet each person in the car individually. Each person gave him their name and he nodded as if meeting us for the first time. When it came to be my turn, I told him I was Ryan and thought he should know me, but he didn’t seem to know me which reminded me of the first time I had a close encounter with him at the Creperie at Manjushri, so I then started to describe myself in detail, but realized that was being needy of wanting his recognition, so I just said I used to be a Resident Teacher. He then just took that in stride without any additional recognition of me, and I accepted it didn’t matter if he recognized me.

And then the person sitting next to me started going off about how many people I help. This got Geshe-la’s laser like focus on me, and then he put his left hand squarely on my heart and his right hand on my shoulder and started to pray and bestow blessings into my heart while holding me. I felt like I was receiving a huge empowerment for the future to be able to help more people, and I remember remarking how incredibly physically strong he was despite the fact that I knew him to be seemingly very old and frail, knowing he was going to die soon.

He then somehow appeared to be in the front passenger’s seat in the car, directly in front of me since I was in the backseat (American style car with left-side drive). He then started talking and he gave me two predictions about the near future. First, he said I will soon be tested to see how I respond to some situation about the killing of something like animals, but he couldn’t come up with the word to describe it, and so I suggested the word “hunting?”, and he indicated kindof yes, that could work, but it wasn’t quite the right word. I mentally thought it interesting that his world is so pure he doesn’t even have the word for such things. He then said I will be tested to see if I allow the G20 (something that will preoccupy a good deal of my time at work over the next year) will become a weak excuse for why I am neglecting my spiritual life. I then thought that I needed to mention this to one of my work colleagues at USAID who I work closely with on G20 issues who I also understood in the dream to be a former Resident Teacher now working (she is not, but in the dream she was).

I then woke up and debated with myself whether to get up to write down the dream. I thought if I did so, I would wake up for the day and then be really tired (I have been very and easily fatigued ever since I got COVID about a month ago). So I said I would just try remember the dream and went back to sleep. I then had a second dream where I ran into my work colleague at USAID and I was all excited thinking, “oh, I’ve got to tell you about the dream I just had!” I started recounting the story, and I began by saying Geshe-la had told me to go to sleep, and then in the dream I found myself in the car and we ran into Geshe-la on the road – it was a dream in the dream like I had recently had and wrote a blog post about. I then realized that was not true, my original dream was not a dream within a dream and so I had just lied to make the story sound more impressive than it really was, but then I thought “oh well, I shouldn’t lie, but it doesn’t really matter in this context, so just be more careful in the future to not do that.”

I then started telling my colleague about the dream and mentioning to her the part where Geshe-la was mumbling trying to find the right word for the killing of animals, and she misunderstood the meaning of this and revealed she had a somewhat critical attitude towards Geshe-la because of the way he spoke unclearly and this was one of the reasons why she eventually stopped being a Resident Teacher. I then remember thinking I need to be careful, considerate, and compassionate about how I talk to people who are no longer actively engaged with the tradition, to not assume they have no problem with things, but understand they may have some mental obstacles which prevent them from having a happy mind towards the tradition which need to be skillfully worked through and addressed. I then woke up.

After I woke up, I then started wondering what he meant by the killing of animals, and it came to me that it would be more about what I think about what will happen with the war in Ukraine.

In writing all of this, several themes stand out for me. First, how I still have residuals of excessive concern for recognition by Geshe-la and my spiritual teachers, but I have made a lot of progress since the Creperie about 20 years ago. Second, I struggle to tell stories or talk about myself without my self-importance creeping in, like I am habitually bragging, but don’t want to. Third, Geshe-la doesn’t care about our position, but what gets his attention is our helping people. Fourth, we shouldn’t grasp at how he conventionally appeared, but realize how strong and all-seeing he was. Fifth, I still have tendencies for minor negativities, which is not good, but not something I should overly dramatize or beat myself up over – just acknowledge, course correct, and move on. Sixth, I have been a supporter of Western support for Ukraine for geopolitical and protection of others reasons, but fundamentally it is still like animals killing each other, and perhaps the test will be what I think about some sort of peace proposal that will come in the future – do I support that proposal or support the continuation of the killing. Seventh, I need to be clear where my priorities lie between work and my spiritual life, and not allow the former to become a weak excuse to neglect the latter. Eighth, I will not look at my work colleague the same, perhaps she was formerly some sort of spiritual person who somehow lost her way, and perhaps I need to be skillful in helping gradually guide her back. Ninth, there are all sorts of people who used to have a positive mind towards the tradition, but then had some negative experience or misunderstanding which caused them to leave. Instead of judging these people, we need to be considerate and compassionate with their mental obstacles, accepting them where they are at.

I had a dream two nights ago where I met Venerable Tharchin. He was very, very old, and with the help of about 4-5 assistants holding up each limb, he was doing Tai Chi with what I understood to be him fine tuning his very last last inner winds before his death. I spontaneously went to hug him and did so for several seconds, which I can still feel now like a direct lived experience. Then, in the dream, I thought I had woken up and I ran into a dear Sangha friend who was also very close to Tharchin. I told her that I had just had a dream with Venerable Tharchin and, surprised, she said that she too just had one. I asked her what she had dreamt, and she was about to tell me, but then I woke up from that dream into my normal waking state.

I was then left with a clear feeling that Venerable Tharchin might be near his death (how near, very hard to say) and that I should contact my Sangha friend about this dream. She replied that at almost that exact time of my dream, somebody was falsely accusing her of something, and instead of retaliating as she normally would have done, she felt touched by grace and responded with wisdom instead. Around that time, she also for some reason thought of me and was feeling warm and close (we haven’t seen each other in years and have had little contact).

What does this dream mean for me? Clearly some sort of karmic convergence occurred.

In my dream, I was left with the feeling that he might be near the end, but he was just in the final stages of fine tuning his mind and his winds before he does. With Thich Nhat Han dying and everything else happening in 2020, it wouldn’t surprise me if he soon passed. I’m left thinking perhaps everything happening in the world is actually just pre-purification of them practicing taking and giving in the world before they do. I remember Venerable Tharchin once saying it only takes a handful of truly holy beings in this world to create a safety net preventing the world from completely sinking into samsara. Them dying doesn’t mean this protection will disappear any more than Jesus dying did; in fact, it might be when their protection rises to the next level.

I’m also reminded of what Venerable Tharchin once said about Sangha. He said the inner Dharma center is the realizations of the people who attend the center bound together by the love they feel for each other and the closeness of the karma they have together. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Kadampas have been deeply touched by Venerable Tharchin’s presence in this world. I have always for very inexplicable reasons had a very close connection with many of his former students, especially the Sangha friend of my dream. Tharchin lives on in this world through us and our connections with each other. I think his former students have a responsibility to stay close to one another, even if life takes us apart. We have special bonds.

I’m also reminded of the story of the last time I saw Ven. Tharchin. It was 2 years ago at the Summer Festival. He has terrible Parkinson’s right now. I walked into his room, he was lying on his bed shaking uncontrolledly, drool running down his mouth, he could barely speak above a whisper, etc. We started talking, this went on for a while, and then I asked him, “so how are YOU?” He then said without missing a beat, “despite all appearances, I’m doing quite well thanks.” He had always spoken of, advocated for, and taught extensively retreat. He was on a long retreat once and he felt like he was close to attaining enlightenment, and he went to Geshe-la and said if he could stay in retreat a little bit longer, he could do it. Geshe-la told him, “if you stay in retreat, you could attain enlightenment, but you would become a ‘useless Buddha’ because you have no karmic connections with others.” Geshe-la then asked him to leave his retreat and go teach. From that, many of our most Senior teachers have emerged. I’m guessing in his mind, he was going to spend his twilight years in deep retreat, or at least that is what I had always imagined. Then he got Parkinson’s. But after speaking with him, I felt that learning how to transform his Parkinson’s was his final retreat, just in a different form. Such is the power of his mind and example for us all.

I’m reminded that Venerable Tharchin stayed at my friend in the dream’s house when he visited Geneva for teachings and empowerments, and we all had lunch together once on her patio. My wife was pregnant at the time with our third child, and he blessed the baby. Shortly before my wife became pregnant, a nun and former student of Tharchin’s died of cancer, and after my child was born, another Sangha friend – also a close student of Tharchin’s – said she had a strong feeling our child was this nun reborn. My wife did her Vajrayogini close retreat while pregnant with this child, and literally not 20 minutes after she finished her retreat, she went into labor.

I’m sharing all of this first to record it so I don’t forget, but also I know many people have a close connection with Tharchin and might want to know. My friend in the dream concluded her reply message to me by saying “a dream within a dream.” So many layers of truth in so few words.

I had a dream last night after the empowerment where I was just going about my way, and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, this giant rat came lunging out towards my head. To evade it, I jerked my head fast and then accidentally banged it hard against a wall. My non-dreaming body also lunged and I woke up, and I could feel pain on my waking head briefly before I realized it was a dream and then it went away. The message that then came into my mind from this was, “significant negative karma can ripen quickly and out of nowhere, and even if we succeed in evading it, the quick rection of doing so often comes with its own pain. Karma that ripens at the subtle level can spill over into our waking state, even though it was never anything more than mere appearance to mind. But realizing it is all a dream makes the pain of what appeared go away. This is true for all of samsara.” Then I fell back asleep. When I awoke again this morning, I remembered the dream again and the thought that came was, “even when we purify our negative karma, we sometimes don’t get it all. We avoid the main consequence, but a residual of the negative karma nonetheless ripens (me banging my head). We should accept this residual as ‘catastrophe averted,’ and be happy.” I then thought this whole dream is a metaphor for the pandemic and our individual experience within it.

I just had a very strange, but notable dream. I suspect it is due to the Vajrapani empowerment tomorrow kicking things up. When this happens, I try always write them down before I forget.

The dream started out with me feeling very strong, teenager style love for this beautiful, very kind girl. She wasn’t particularly interested in me, but there did seem to be something between us. We were then in this bed in a hotel room engaging in foreplay, and then it mentally shifted where she had some sort of boyfriend and I was somehow related to her, like a cousin or something. I knew that was really messed up, but I was still attracted to her and we were still in bed. But now her boyfriend was also in bed with us, and she was interested in him, but still allowing me there, but I felt unloved or not worthy of wonderful people being attracted to me. I then stuck my finger in her, but it hurt her, and I was like, “oh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” (sorry for the graphic nature, I’m trying to record the dream). Then, her father came into the hotel room with a gun having caught us all into the act. The boyfriend ran away, and for some reason the father went into the bathroom to prepare to come after me. I then got up and started to head towards where I had a gun myself, but then I thought, “no, I need to try resolve this peacefully and assume the consequences of my bad choices that got me into that situation.” I then put my hands up and surrendered myself to him. I believe the meaning is I need to accept the consequences of and seek to purify all sorts of negative karma that I have on my mind that moves in the direction of wanting girls to like me and sexual misconduct.

The dream then shifted to me at a big party in a very wealthy area. If I’m honest, I have never really fit in or had a lot of friends. Even among Kadampas, I have always felt on the outside. This huge party was filled with young, beautiful people, all of whom were having a good time together but nobody had any interest whatsoever in talking to me. I then started to make my way out to escape from the party, and as I got close to the exit, I ran into my old debate partner – who himself is quite the social outsider – who was similarly trying to escape. I then started crying from deep within my heart from a profound hurt associated with a lifetime of feeling socially excluded. Intellectually, and even to a certain degree practically, in the dream, I recalled all of the different Dharma wisdoms I normally use to just repress my hurt, such as this is coming from my mind and how to transform it, etc. But I saw and felt just how much hurt I have inside over this and that, to a large extent, my total investment in debate and even Dharma in my life has been driven by this hurt of being excluded from normal social life.

Once I had gotten out of the party, some much larger power started tearing everything down with bulldozers and people started scrambling. I was like, “why are they doing that, destroying everything?” When all of the walls were finally down, the party complex was in this desert like area outside of some Hunger Games style capital city and I understood the entire party was just one temporary distraction put on by the authorities, and it was all basically an illusion of social control to prevent us from resisting, but they were demonstrating they are in change and can take it away at a moment’s notice. In the dream, I then somewhat realized I was dreaming and that this was a metaphor for China’s social control mechanisms over their population. I will be going to China for my next posting. Then, I woke up and realized it was a metaphor for samsara.