See Everything As A Dream

What does it mean to see things as dreams? Are the things we’re holding on to as important as we think? This is from the lojong teachings, a set of mind training slogans from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition.

Transcript

Hello,

I'm Daniel.

I am going to talk about a teaching today and the teaching is See everything as a dream See everything as a dream.

This is from the lojong teachings Which I've been studying and talking about lately See everything as a dream.

That sounds kind of like well,

So are we pretending the world isn't real?

What what what's going on here?

And the truth that it points to is this Everything is coming and going all the time Everything and we can spend time pretending we don't know that and sometimes that is how we deal with life We pretend that we don't know that everything is coming and going all the time including You and me everything right and So that's sort of what we're talking about anything you have can just be gone anything you are paying attention to can just disappear at any time and There's this concept we talked about in Buddhism sometimes called emptiness and I think People really struggle with it and it's not It doesn't mean that that nothing exists Although that's how people interpret it sometimes and they start to think all these teachings are very negative It means there's nothing you can really hold on to or rather anything you try to hold on to You're not going to be able to we're always trying to grab at things We're always trying to hold on to things forever and we can't so It's it's sort of like that Row your boat song life is but a dream life is but a dream in an instant.

It's gone and that's it And one way we can think about that directly is to just Try to catch the beginning of any thought or sensation and see if you can don't We can also try to catch the end of any thought and we just can't when we pay attention to our thinking we realize Oh,

I don't know what's going on in my mind,

Right?

Thoughts and feelings come and go they just show up and then they're gone and some often We don't even know how a certain thought got there Life tends to have a sort of dreamlike quality if we really are paying attention So when we when we train in this teaching when we think about see everything as a dream when we repeat this to ourselves we can it can change things for us when we're When we're depressed or angry When the kids won't stop running inside the house or when the ex is giving you a dream Or when you're having a tough day at work or when traffic is ridiculous we can remember See everything is a dream.

It's sort of like the That aphorism This too shall pass it's sort of the same thing like is this thing that's happening That's making me so upset really that important Is it really that important or is it just Something that's gonna come and go Remember to see everything is a dream when we do this our minds start to have a Clear awareness and maybe we can lighten up a little a lot of the things we cling to actually Aren't that important or aren't as important as they seem?

This is easier than it sounds but we have to work at it,

Too So what I want you to do is practice sitting with this slogan in a Regular meditation for a few days and see how it goes If it comes to mind when you need it if somebody cuts you off in traffic And you think oh see everything is a dream.

This doesn't matter then this is helpful Whatever else is going on I'm gonna go back to my previous video This is helpful.

Whatever else is going on this To shall pass and it's helpful in our meditation practice,

Too you know,

You're sitting on your cushion trying to follow the breath or your mantra and these damn thoughts keep coming up in our heads and You can sit in your meditation and you start to think oh is the timer broken?

It's the timer broken surely.

It's been 10 minutes,

Right?

What am I having for dinner?

I'm bored What's that new thing on Netflix all these things come into our heads and in our meditation practice Also,

We have to see them as dreams as not that important or else we're gonna really struggle through our meditation practice every time We see them as dreams then we realize an important thing about our thoughts every thought we're having every thought we've ever had We create we make our thoughts We do we may feel like we don't have much control,

But we do make our thoughts They come from us,

Even though they could be influenced by the environment.

They come from us and what does that tell us?

Maybe we can have power over them Maybe we can have power over them if we can realize that then we can see that we can have power over them and training the mind is Learning to have power over our thoughts and we feel like we have no power and that is why meditation practice can be so hard for us because we don't like being faced with that feeling of having no power over our thoughts and feelings but The truth is that we can choose If we train our minds we can learn how to choose if we want to come and go through life with a positive mindset Or with a negative mindset we can choose that and once we know we can choose that that is so So empowering that we can choose our thoughts if we can choose to feel good or feel bad today if we can choose to Sort of Obsess over how something all the way something can go wrong or we can choose to focus on what can go right?

We can choose that and So we need to learn to understand that maybe the things we're grasping so much aren't that important Maybe they can be seen as dreams and then we can choose Which aspects of life we want to focus on we don't have to get carried away by our anxieties and our obsessions we can choose What to focus on instead?

We can choose a different thought We can just choose so That's what I wanted to talk about today See everything is a dream is the teaching and it's just So many things in life we get carried around by that aren't that important That's that's the teaching I can see someone say something on Facebook That's wrong.

And then I feel in my mind.

Oh,

I gotta say something.

That's that person's wrong as though Saying anything changes anything for anyone it doesn't nobody cares and I can I'm reminded of this one time I picked up my daughter from school and she says can we go roller skating and I I don't like sudden sudden plans like that So I did say no and she was mad all evening.

Why because she was really Fixated on that one wish to go roller skating and I think we all have things like that in our lives.

We all have where we there's something that we really want to see it happen and Sure,

Sometimes it's something like significant like a promotion at work.

But other times it's being able to go roller skating Many things in life are not as important as we think they are Not everything but many things in life are not as important as we think they are but our minds stick to them Anyway,

It doesn't matter if it's gonna change your life or not.

We Stick to things like it's going to change everything if this thing happens and often we're wrong We're just wrong that's why we call it obsession or neurosis because We get so caught up in little things We get so caught up in this person.

I know votes differently than me We get so caught up in this dinner didn't turn out the way I wanted it to or We get so caught up in nobody showed up to my meditation class We get so caught up in these things but the truth is that we can learn to see all these things as a dream and then Once we learn to do that we can choose where we want to put our focus we can choose where to direct our minds And that's where the real Empowerment is if you can choose where to direct your mind then we can choose to have thoughts that are empowering thoughts that take us where we want to go instead of just Whatever happens you're not a slave to your mind you can learn to control Where your thoughts are directed you can learn how?

So that's it for today,

Thank you for taking the time to listen to me and have a good day