Regard Everything As A Dream | Atisha's 7 Point Mind Training

Just for a day, consider everything that you are experiencing as a dream. This is a powerful meditation technique to awaken consciousness and move a step closer to reality. This live meditation session is a part of a series on Atisha's 7 point mind training which forms the Tibetian Buddhistic practice called Lojong.

Transcript

Namaste and welcome to this daily live meditation with me the answer Joining these 30 minutes every day these live meditation sessions Will take you one step closer every day to inner peace to silence to self-awareness to happiness and to putting your life slightly back in order yesterday 7th of June we opened a new chapter we entered into the seven point mind training by Atisha which is a part of Tibetan Buddhism a practice called Lojong let me say that I'm not a Buddhist and I'm not trying to make you a Buddhist when we enter these practices when we enter these sutras the effort here is for us to learn to inspire and to take what we can for our daily lives for our practice of meditation and also to enhance the daily experience of our life yesterday we established the first pillar the first point out of the seven points of mind training by Atisha the first pillar the first point was to remember to have an awareness of four points of four truths if you will the first truth that Atisha brought was that life is precious so we have to have this remembrance throughout our daily life that life is precious the second truth the second reminder is that life is impermanent this impermanence of life this birth and death the impermanence of life we must remember throughout our daily life as well third reminder that every action every thought every movement in your consciousness counts it has an implication in your life please remember that the fourth don't be obsessed about anything neither trying to be pulled towards something obsessively not trying to run away from something obsessively so these four reminders which we discussed yesterday are the preliminaries of mind training are the first pillar of mind training these are the reminders which we should have throughout the day as well in our daily life if you wish you can set notifications in your mobile phone in your smart devices anywhere which gives you these quick impulses to remind yourself of these four basic truths today we enter into the second pillar here the training starts towards Bodhi Chitta let me take a moment to explain what is Bodhi Chitta Bodhi Chitta by its name it means Buddha consciousness it is also the same if we say Krishna consciousness or Christ consciousness or in very simple words pure consciousness it is a state a pure awareness a pure consciousness state which is our true nature but when we go through our life we we are not living this true nature this pure consciousness so this training is to move towards this pure consciousness this Buddha consciousness another interesting thing to understand here is even Buddha the name Buddha from Gautam Siddhartha to Buddha happened when Siddhartha's consciousness became pure consciousness and then the name changed to Buddha Buddha consciousness means pure consciousness which also means that the buddhi the intelligence its sources its energy from consciousness these concepts of buddhi consciousness chitta we will explore more in detail when we will start the series on yoga for now we in this series on seven point mind training by a tissue let's take this second pillar as a movement towards Bodhi Chitta as moving towards your consciousness the sutra for today to move towards pure consciousness let us hear what a tissue has to say to that it's a very small sutra Ahtisha says regard all phenomena as dreams although experience may seem solid they are passing memories let me repeat regard all phenomena as dreams although experiences may seem solid may seem real they're passing memories very potent sutra very potent slogan if we enter into this slogan consciously if we understand this sutra consciously meditatively and try to implement this in our life everything changes in Tantra in Tantra this is also a meditation technique regard everything every phenomena as a dream notice that Ahtisha is saying regard he is not saying everything is a dream just to tell you the truth that everything is a dream does not mean much does not have much value but for you from where you are to move to Buddha consciousness you have to start with first of all regarding considering giving it a shot being open to the idea playing with the idea of that everything every phenomena is a dream imagine if you spend just a day in your life today because we are practicing the sutra today if you spend today reminding yourself being aware that all what you experience all what you go through the whole day is just a dream if you regard it as just a dream if you are sitting on a chair working regard this as a dream if you're eating regard this as a dream if you're taking a walk remember that this is a dream what this does is when you regard all the phenomena that you go through all your experiences it starts melting the experience it starts opening up the consciousness unfolding the consciousness allowing the consciousness to move out of the dream Ahtisha says although experience may seem solid they are passing memories although experience may seem solid meaning no matter how real it is for you no matter how real the food that you put in your mouth the experience that you have while you're going through your daily life all this solidity of the reality only if you consider even for a short while as a dream this solidity starts to melt and your consciousness starts to slowly slowly move out of this dream it is almost also like when you are in the night when you are having a dream only when you are slightly aware that it is a dream only then you are out of it otherwise you're in it otherwise it is real for you I'm reminded of a Zen master called Chuang Tso he said once that I had a dream in the dream I was a butterfly moving from one flower to the other only remembering conscious as a butterfly happy as a butterfly and enjoying my life as a butterfly then I after I had played enough with my flowers I sat on a leaf I rested and I woke up I woke up once again as a human as myself as Chuang Tso now I asked myself whether I am a human Chuang Tso who dreamt of being a butterfly or a butterfly who rested who is dreaming of being a man this is significant to understand so take a moment to contemplate over what is really a dream if I were to say something to Chuang Tso about this dream about his question whether he is a man who had a dream of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man I wish I could tell him this that both are a dream being a human being a butterfly both are a dream what you are the reality is your pure consciousness which takes manifestations of a dream of being a human of being dream of being a butterfly for us we just have to regard this consider this as a possibility use this as a meditation technique who knows if this is a reality if it manifests as a reality let it be if it doesn't manifest as a reality beat like that use this as a technique as a meditation technique for today to regard consider everything as a dream for today's meditation session we will practice this considering everything as a dream and then move into silence from there on I invite you to close your eyes and take a posture where your back is straight your head is rested relaxed your face is relaxed you take a nice deep breath inhale from the nose exhale from the nose you allow your body to settle you Allow your mind to settle.

Imagine your awareness turning inwards towards your inner space.

As your breath settles,

The mind also settles.

In your awareness,

In your consciousness,

Whatever arises,

Consider it as a dream.

The thoughts,

These slight movements,

Colours,

Images,

Sounds,

Whatever arises in your consciousness,

Consider it as a dream.

Whatever you observe in your inner space,

All thoughts,

All these movements,

Fragments,

Consider them as a dream.

No matter how solid the experience,

Consider it as a dream.

No matter how solid the experience,

Consider it as a dream.

This inner chatter is also a dream.

Slowly,

Your awareness shifts,

Brightens,

The silence arises,

Shifts from the dream to the silence.

Remain silent.

And aware.

Let go of everything in this silent awareness.

Let go of all dreaming.

And absolute stillness.

In absolute stillness,

In pure awareness,

You're awake.

Everything else is a dream.

Maintain this awareness and inner silence and gently and slowly open your eyes.

As you open your eyes and perceive the world again,

Remember to consider this as a dream.

Just for today,

Take this technique in your daily life for just for today.

And whenever you get a chance,

Consider,

Regard,

Remember,

Whatever is happening,

All phenomena as a dream will continue tomorrow.

Thanks for joining and sharing your silence with me and listening to me.

Namaste.

Reviews

I love the concept, everything is a dream. With love 🥰

Great teaching! Thx for sharing on this platform.🙏❣

Watch everything as a dream...10 years ago I attended a ten das lojong Retreat in India. Thanks for your Teaching and your guidance now.i love the contemplation and the stillness afterwards. Extremly powerful and heart opening ..thanks for sharing 💓

With gratitude 🙏🏼

Life is but a Dream...
Absolutely loved this and opens up so many new spaces for exploration of this existence.
Much gratitude for this offering ♾🙏💕

Great practice. I am looking forward to do the other 6.

This entire series of livecasts is well worth listening to and working with. (Haven’t heard the whole thing myself yet, but hoping to, thanks to these archived episodes.

Very good thank you 🙏🏻

Thank you 🙏 look forward to continuing this practice. Many blessings.

Beautiful meditation! I wasn’t sure how I was going to be able to get through such a long meditation but it was actually amazing, and I was able to go so deep, I didn’t want it to end. Thank you! 🙏

Thank you 🙏🙏🙏