The Tibetan Yogas Of Dream And Sleep Paperback – January 1, 1998

I found this book philosophical, religious and profound. It's not a philosophical book in the Western sense, although Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche takes on various western thoughts and expounds the Eastern Bon view. Apparently, the Bon Tibetan view predates the Tibetan Buddhist, although both are very similar and inter-connected. I found this book truly impressive, especially where Tenzig touches on certain philosophical ideas.The definition Tenzig states on karmic traces is profound in itself."The Karmic Trace is that of every action - physical, verbal, or mental - undertaken by an individual, if performed with intention and even the slightest aversion or desire, leaves a trace in the mindstream of that individual. The accumulation of these karmic traces serves to condition every moment of experience of that individual, positively and negatively." p. 215His essay arguing against some Western psychologists who oppose lucid dreaming, I found entirely credible, more dynamic in the control needed to direct our lives both in this life and the hereafter. From pages 131-132"Some schools of Western psychology believe it is harmful to control dreams, that dreams are a regulatory function of the unconscious or a form of communication between parts of ourselves that should not be disturbed. This view suggests that the unconscious exists and that it is a repository of experience and meaning. The unconscious is thought to form the dream and embed in it meaning that will either be explicit and obvious or latent and in need of interpretation. In this context, the self is often thought to be composed of the unconscious and conscious aspects of the individual, and the dream is thought to be a necessary medium of communication between the two. The conscious self can then benefit by working with the dream or from the balancing of physiological processes through the dream-making activity.Understanding emptiness radically changes our understanding of the dreaming process. These three entities - the unconscious, the meaning, and the conscious self - are all entities that exist only through imputing reality to that which by itself has none. It is important to understand what is being said here. The concern that the encroachment of the conscious mind upon the unconscious is damaging to natural processes makes sense if you posit the elements of the situation as discrete elements of the individual, working in cooperation with one another. But this view understands only one dimension of the individual's internal dynamics, often to the detriment of a more expansive identity.As mentioned earlier, there are two levels of working with dreams. One involves finding meaning in the dream. This is good, and it is the level of most of the Western psychologies that accord value to dreams. In both the East and the West, it is understood that dreams can be sources o creativity, solutions to problems, diagnosis of ills, and so on. But the meaning in dreams is not inherent to the dream; it is being projected onto the dream by the individual examining the dream and then is "read" from the dream. The process is much like describing the images and they seem to appear in the ink-spot tests used by some psychologists. The meaning does not exist independently. Meaning does not exist until someone starts to look for it. Our mistake is that rather than seeing the truth of the situation, we begin to think that there really is an unconscious, a thing, and that the dream is real, like a scroll with a secret message written on it in code that if cracked, anyone could read.We need a deeper understanding of what the dream is, of what experience is, to truly utilize dreaming as an approach to enlightenment. When we practice deeply, many wonderful dreams will arise, rich with signs of progress. But ultimately the meaning in the dream is not important. It is best not to regard the dream as correspondence from one another entity to you, not even from another part of you that you do not know. There is no conventional meaning outside of the dualism of samsara. This view is not a giving in to chaos; there is no chaos or meaninglessness either, these are more concepts. It may sound strange, but this idea of meaning must be abandoned before the mind can find complete liberation. And doing this is the essential purpose of dream practice.We do not ignore the use of meaning in dreaming. But it is good to recognize that there is also dreaming in meaning. Why expect great messages from a dream? Instead penetrate to what is below meaning, the pure base of experience. This is the higher dream practice - not psychological, but more spiritual - concerned with recognizing and realizing the fundament of experience, the unconditioned. When you progress to this point, you are unaffected by whether there is a message in the dream or not. Then you are complete, your experience is complete, you are free form the conditioning that arises from dualistic interactions with the projections of your own mind."Now you must have degrees of faith to endorse this thesis, but in realty, all philosophies, religious ideals, even scientific analysis, all take in paradigms that require enveloping subjectivity to objectively observe and follow course with the particular thesis. And ultimately, besides this philosophy, written in clear, definable, educated language, it carries the childlike naïve ability in it's required faith in visualizations, verbal mantras and the very idea of existence after death.Ultimately, it is one essay on the Mind and the Rigpa that I personally found enlightening and opening to other venues of thought. And this brings much more meaning to the act of meditation itself, as it reveals there is more to meditative concentration then the benefits in this life, but also in death to either prevent oneself from entering the bardo of becoming or handle such existence with more clarity and possibly bring forth rebirth in higher frequencies of existence.From pages 188-191 "The conceptual or moving mind is that familiar mind of everyday experience, constantly busy with thoughts, memories, images, internal dialogues, judgments, meanings, emotions, and fantasies. It is the mind normally identified as "me" and "my experience." Its fundamental dynamic is engagement with a dualistic vision of existence. It takes itself to be a subject in a world of objects. It grasps at some parts of experience and pushes others ways. It is reactive, wildly so sometimes, but even when it is extremely calm and subtle - for example, during meditation or intense concentration - it maintains the internal posture of an entity observing its environment and continues to participate in dualism.The conceptual mind is not limited to language and ideas. Language - with its nouns and verbs, subjects and objects - is necessarily subject to dualism, but the conceptual mind is active in us before the acquisition of language. Animals have a conceptual mind, in this sense, as do infants and those born without the capacity for language. It is result of habitual karmic tendencies that are present before we develop a sense of self, even before we are born. Its essential characteristic is that it instinctively divides experience dualistically, beginning with subject and object, with me and not-me.The fundamental reality of mind is pure, non-dual awareness, Rigpa. Its essence is one with the essence of all that exists. In practice, it must not be confused with even the subtlest, quietest, and most expansive states of the moving mind. Unrecognized, the nature of mind manifests as the moving mind, but when it is known directly it is both the path to liberation and liberation itself.When the conceptual mind is free of grasping and aversion, it spontaneously relaxes into unfabricated Rigpa. Then there is no longer identification with the reflections in the mirror and we can effortlessly accommodate all that arises in experience, appreciating every movement. If hatred arises, the mirror is filled with hatred. When love arises, the mirror is filled with love. For the mirror itself, neither love nor hatred is significant; both are equally a manifestation of its innate capacity to reflect. This is known as the mirror-lie wisdom; when we recognize the nature of mind and develop the ability to abide in it, no emotional state distracts us. Instead, all states and all phenomena, even anger jealously, and so on, are released into the purity and clarity that is their essence. Abiding in Rigpa, we cut karma at its root and are released from the bondage of samsara."

This is a beautifully written practice manual for Bön Dzogchen (~Buddhist Nyingma or old school) dream & sleep yogas based on the Mother Tantra. The author confirms most Western psychological views of dreams but, though some object, states that lucid dreaming (in which the dreamer is conscious & in control) is of great spiritual as well as psychological value. He states, despite some Buddhist authors, p. 12: "how greatly dream is valued in Tibetan culture & in the Bön religion, & how information from the unconscious is often of greater value than the information the conscious mind can provide." He provides a sensitive, balanced, non-extremist perspective-pp. 25-6: "Cultural ignorance is developed & preserved in traditions...If we are not careful, the teachings can be made to support our ignorance" & p. 94: "It can be healthy to give up worldly life & become a monk or a nun or it can be an unhealthy attempt to escape difficult experiences through suppression & avoidance." He provides explanations easily understood by western practitioners using modern analogies e.g. saying that mind can be like a computer with 2 windows open at once. Since scientists have shown that waking visualization can increase task performance, he logically extrapolates that to lucid dreaming as well. His approach is pragmatic & transportable to the West-e.g. p. 206: "Continue learning & receiving teachings, but develop a deep enough understanding that you can take from them what supports you." He also perceptively observes that awake practice of emptiness/Rigpa/mindfulness parallels lucid dreaming-i.e. viewing the awake state as a dream is analogous to lucid (conscious) dreaming-a yab-yum or yin-yang relationship & relates these yogas' spiritual aspects. This may be the best adaptation of traditional Bön/Buddhist works/methods to the West I've seen (see Traleg Kyabgon's "Mind at Ease" for a Mahamudra one). He recognizes that p. 41: "The concept of self-hatred is alien to Tibetans who do not have words to describe it" & compensates for cultural as well as terminological differences (p. 200: "According to Bön-Buddhism, the conventional self does exist. Otherwise no one would create karma, suffer, & find liberation. It is the inherent self that does not exist. Lack of an inherent self means that there is no core discrete entity that is unchanging through time"). In short, it's a most valuable contribution to both spiritual realization & East-West understanding. His advice that p. 137: "Maybe we should write a sentence on our toothbrush, `after this, wash your mind" has, IMHO, universal application. This book is HIGHLY recommended-as are his other works.

This book is excellent, and rich with great wisdom and knowledge. It just doesn't teach you about mastering dreams, but also mastering sleep. It is both dream and sleep yoga in one book.This book also help clear up some things on the belief of deity yoga, but taught me a little more on karma that other Buddhism books left out. Not I can see the misunderstanding of how many see karma as something one carries, not as a force that is like a boomerang. They mixed karmic trace for karma.That is why many need stop thinking, and meditate for understanding. As for the dream yoga, the teachings are most simple to folow and remeber, it is one's practice that needs effort. For those who do not understand true spiritul being and cosmic reality, such teachings may seem weird. For those who seek truth and true spiritual being, these teachings may make much sense, clear as crystal reflecting sun rays. This book teaches how to master dreams by starting seeing this reality as a dream, since this world is an illusion. While in sleep yoga, it teaches on how to master sleep, and prepair one for enlighten when one times come to depart from this realm in death. Sleep yoga is given as opptional teaching, on can just practice dream yoga. But it is best to learn both, so one can prepair to know what to do when death comes, if one does not want to be earthbound or reborn else where, if not as human in this realm.