It's never too late (to awaken)

Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala.com); Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly COUNTDOWN (TO EXTINCTION) CLOCK: -15

Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream (onmarkproductions.com tenbu-montage).

Dreams of nightmares (fortytwotimes.com)

When I was about ten, my best friend started having nightmares:
 
She'd be running through a huge dark building pursued by hideous monsters. She'd get to a door, struggle to open it, and no sooner had she closed it behind her than she'd hear it opened by the rapidly approaching monsters. Finally she'd wake up screaming and crying for help.
  
One day we were sitting in her kitchen talking about her nightmares. When I asked her what the demons looked like, she said she didn't know because she was always running away. After I asked her that question, she began to wonder about the monsters. She wondered if any of them looked like witches and if any of them had knives. So on the next occurrence of the nightmare, just as the demons began to pursue her, she stopped running and turned around.

Q: Where The Wild Things Are? A: the library

It took tremendous courage, and her heart was pounding, but she put her back up against the wall and looked at them. They all stopped right in front of her and began jumping up and down, but none of them came closer. There were five in all, each looking something like an animal. One of them was a gray bear, but instead of claws, it had long red fingernails. One had four eyes. Another had a wound on its cheek. Once she looked closely, they appeared less like monsters and more like two-dimensional drawings in comic books. Then slowly they began to fade. After that she woke up, and that was the end of her nightmares.

Awakening

There is a teaching on the three kinds of awakening:

1. awakening from the dream of ordinary sleep,
2. awakening at death from the dream of life, and
3. awakening into full enlightenment from the dream of delusion.

Deva in garden (WeGoTwo/flickr.com)

These teachings say that when we die, we experience it as waking up from a very long dream.

When I heard this teaching, I remembered my friend's nightmares. It struck me right then that if all this is really a dream, I might as well spend it trying to look at what scares me instead of running away.

I haven't always found this all that easy to do, but in the process I've learned a lot about maitri [metta, the Buddha's teaching of loving-kindness, friendliness, and altruism].

American Vajrayana nun Pema Chodron on "Fearless Nontheism"

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Waking Up to Oneness.

-Special thanks to my friend Jamie over at Progressive Buddhism for showing me this video.

~Peace to all beings~

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My Past Lives as a Tibetan Monk.

I was a bit skeptical about past lives until I had this very, vivid dream--which also party triggered my investigation and interest in Buddhism. I found myself dressed in some kind of colorful, flowing robe. The colors being a purplish maroon and the other was a yellowish golden color. The robe seemed to be an eggplant color with the golden yellow as trim. I had no clue at that point in my life that those are the colors of Tibetan Buddhist monks; in fact I didn’t know much of anything about Buddhism in general!!

A man dressed in similar robes accompanied me but his robes were bluer with the golden yellow trim. He was my guide as we walked up this slope of a massive mountaintop. I could tell that we were very high up because the vegetation was mostly tundra with a few scraggly trees. The sky was a breathtaking shade of crystal blue with only a hint of wispy clouds. A slight breeze was playfully tossing the fabric of my billowy robes about. I felt so at peace with my guide and in my surroundings. I can’t remember his face but I had a deep feeling of connection with him. He felt like a long lost friend whom I had known for ages.

As we rounded the summit of this great peak I saw a large Buddha-like statue with a crisp, clear stream of water gushing out of the statue’s mouth. My guide told me to drink the water, so I cupped my hands and drank. And as I swallowed this cool, clean mountain water I realized that I was very thirsty and I remember it was so refreshing and delicious.

Thus, I drank more and more of this elixir. As I drank my guide informed me that the water I was drinking was no ordinary water. He said, “It is special water. Water that will bring you vitality and long-life” and with that he gave me a warm smile. Then, as I gazed transfixed into his peaceful face I was transported out of the dream with a blink just like someone changed the channel on the t.v.

As it turns out my research shows that blue and yellow are the two colors in the Karmapa Dream Flag. “The 16th Gyalwa Karmapa, well known for his visions and prophesies, designed this flag from a vision that came to him in a dream. He called it “Namkhyen Gyaldar (Victorious Flag of Buddha’s Wisdom).” He proclaimed, “Wherever this banner is flown the Dharma will flourish.”[i]

According to that same webpage cited above, the inner meaning of this flag is that the blue represents vision and spiritual insight, which is exactly what my dream was for me. In addition, the yellow represents our experiences in the everyday world and certainly my everyday experiences were weighing heavily upon me when I had this dream. So I see this dream as a wake up call that the spiritual insight of the dream represented by Buddhism would be the path that would help me find peace and reduce my great suffering (I was struggling greatly at the time in my life on what to do. I was lost in a nihilist fog at the time of this dream).

It seems that the Karmapa’s Dream Flag took the form of my guides robe colors and the pure, clean water was to quench my thirst for peace and stability through the Dharma. I personally feel that the dream overall it was a reminder of a past life that I must have lived as a novice Tibetan Buddhist monk.

I've had a second, as vivid dream about what I see as a past life in Tibet. I was on a journey all alone in a mountainous land. I was again wearing maroon robes and was on some quest of sorts to find a hermit monk off in the foothills near a grand, blue, wind-swept lake. Well, imagine my surprise and shock when I watched the movie Kundun and saw the exact same lake from my dream in the movie!! It was Lhamo I' Latso or the "Oracle Lake. It is a sacred (considered the most sacred actually), famous lake known for visions and thus no surprise I guess why I experienced that past memory in a dream.

I had the dream about the lake before I had seen the movie. I think these dreams are partly why I was initially attracted to Tibetan Buddhism when I began studying the Dharma in this life.

It is because of these two dreams, the reality of the life cycle of the four seasons and the physics law that nothing every disappears but simply changes form. For example, sunlight lives on in the form of electricity transformed through solar panels. It lives on in trees, which are later used to create paper to make books. Thus the sun lives on in trees, paper, books, ink, and on and on.

---

[i] Harderwijk, Rudy. “Tibetan Buddhist Symbols.” A View on Buddhism. Ed. Rudy Harderwijk. 10

October 2006. 8 July 2008. http://buddhism.kalachakranet.org/symbols_tibet_buddhism.htm#

~Peace to all beings~

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Meditation with the Buddha Within

I have been having some awful nightmares of late and was talking with my therapist about it and she had a suggestion. She said that since meditation works so well for me that I should try and do a mini-meditation before bedtime--one that concentrated solely upon getting ready for sleep. So a big part of that for me has been breathing deeply and letting the days events bubble up into my head as I lie there on the bed and physically breath them out of my mind and body. So last night I was doing this and kept letting go of things and felt things really fall away from my True Nature of Oneness and soon I merged into a soft, deep sleep.

The next thing I realized I was sitting on the steps of a Grecian style pool floating out in the middle of the stars. It was Grecian in that it had a couple of steps all around the edges of the pool rather then a sharp wall like a traditional western style pool and the corners of the pool were squared a bit with little landings just above the water level. There were small Cyprus style tress on the outer edges of the four corners and on the very outer borders was a crystal clear, light sapphire colored water that flowed around the perimeter of the pool and cascaded down the steps into the pool at four locations along the sides of the large basin.

In a flash I was comfortably floating in the pool that had no bottom--just more stars twinkling down through the crystal cool sapphire-like water. I was surrounded by beings--all of whom I knew one way or another and they knew me. A few I recognized from this life and others I knew from previous lives but our meeting was like we had never left each other's sides. It was state of pure realization that emptiness is form and form is emptiness. Human bodies were only being presented as means to interact with these various frequencies of energies. It was a joyous reunion for everyone. I have never seen such beaming smiles, sparkling eyes and sincere embracing. It really was energy reuniting with other forms of energy--the various energies of ones karma--pure being reuniting with those of others to form the all-uniting enegry of pure love. The love was so powerful yet soft and comforting--it was the oxygen.

Soon everyone's attention came to these two beings of light that were sitting on chairs at the head of the pool where a second little jacuzzi style pool formed behind them. They took the form of humans but it was easy to tell that these beings were Buddhas. Interestingly enough, one was a barrel chested man with a long, wirery grey beard and tattoos down his arms and legs--my kind of Budda!! The other was a woman who looked very much like my mother in white flowing robes and hair of spun gold that danced like the stars in the background. It seemed from others' reactions, however, that they saw a different man or woman depending on their own experiences and then it dawned on me--the man or woman we were seeing was who we are as Buddhas!! We were looking at our True Natures!!! That realization made my body pulse and vibrate with love, compassion and thankfulness to the Universe and the power that is within all things that has always been and will always be in one form or another.

In the next moment we were all being given various clothing to wear--all the while floating in this water which has some kind of spiritual rejuvenating power within it. These clothes were to be taken symbolically rather then to be taken literal. I was given a lovely suit that had all kinds of sparkles and ruins on it that glowed when I put it on. The minute I laid my eyes upon it I recognized it as a past life--and a wonderful one at that. I can't remember all the details of this life but I do remember it was a powerful one that reminded me of my True Nature and potential.

There were other revelations and teachings during this "reunion" of sorts that I can not remember and I wish that I could. However, sometimes you do not need to know the specifics of something to remember the more important essence behind the teaching--and that is the feeling of understanding and peace that comes with it. From what I can remember however, these were direct one-on-one meditations sessions with your inner self--my inner Buddha. The old tattooed guy with a long, stringy grey bread. Hehe. I seem to recall that there was a joining of minds, a oneness that was achieved to where I could have clear vision, insight and awareness of my Buddha nature. Wisdom that I dearly needed to be reminded of at this time in my life.

Perhaps the reason that I can not describe it further is because there are really no words to describe enlightenment and that floating along the edges of Nirvana. I had no sense of time while I was in that intense union meditation with my inner Buddha so when I ended my session and rejoined the group I was sad to see it was time for everyone to depart company. Tears flowed like water but they were tears of joy--tears that we had had this precious moment--this wonderful, present moment to reunite in form to grow and learn in a "power session" and remember that we do not need form to reunite in the beautiful emptiness of Oneness that is in our nature at all times and places.

I awoke earlier then usual but feeling more rested then I would otherwise at this time in the morning. As I slowly returned to my awakened state I would feel tears of joy slightly leak from my eyes and I realized that my tears were of that same liquid that was in that pool. Our tears are precious liquid--powerful aids in our lives. Those drops of joy were joined by a soft yet resolved half-smile. I then closed my eyes for a time to try and remember as much as I could to write this all down. Then got up, made some coffee and typed this out. I hope that you will find something in this journey of mine that might spur you on or remind you of how precious and wonderful you are and that this moment is. How cherished a gift that this human state is from our Buddha within.

I am so thankful to my Buddha nature and to all those wonderful beings that I reunited with and to all things, beings, energies and Buddhas throughout space and time for giving me that wonderful moment. I had a rough couple of weeks with my illness and I really needed that healing, reminder and retreat to give me the energy to recommit to my practice.

May all beings and energies remember the True Nature of things and remember the beautiful power of Oneness. May we all remember and feel that Oneness so that we can awaken from our samsaric slumber and help each other awaken as well--and remain awake. In order that we realize our Buddha Nature that was always there and always will be. So that we might all merge brightly with the indescribable pure suchness of Mahaparinirvana. The unconstrained, True Self that is said by the Buddha in the Nirvana Sutra to be "indestructible as a diamond."

I bow to the Buddha within you all and within this body they call "James."

~Peace to all beings~

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