Tonight’s meditation was a bit choppy in some places. I was torn between being very strict in my
practice and allowing wandering thoughts to arise, sometimes even observing how
strange or irrelevant the thoughts really are. And over time, when I was able
to see the thoughts for what they are, they had far less power over the
practice. Interestingly, once I could see the impermanent and ‘dead end’ nature
of wandering thoughts, they had much less power than, say, repressing thoughts.
Quite the contrary, ‘repressing’ thoughts tends to make them seem much more powerful
than they are. This is why I relish the middle way when it comes to having
thoughts in meditation. But I also noticed something interesting: the more I
observed my thoughts coming and going, the more it almost seemed like the
thoughts were dreamlike, and not at all connected to anything permanent.
There is an interesting relationship
between ‘dreaming’ and spiritual stories and practices. G.S Kirk devotes a
whole chapter to his Nature of Greek
Myths (1974) to expounding (and challenging) the connection between
mythological stories and dream states. Some thinkers which Kirk mentions, such
as V.W. Turner suggest that myths represent ‘transitional’ or liminal states
between two distinct stages of life’s maturity, similar to how dreams can
mediate between conscious and unconscious life. Quoting Kirk, Turner maintains
that myths function to “interpose a sacred interval in the flux of profane experience
in order to facilitate the sharp transition from one condition to a totally different
one.” (p.88). Kirk also notes the similarity between myths and dreams, when he
mentions that the myth’s story often “depends on the dislocation of normal
sequences and expectations; something that leads beyond paradoxicality to a
kind of dream-like, sometimes nightmarish, other-worldliness.” (p.90)
Kirk contends that myths can be
powerful aspects of spiritual life, precisely because they offer temporal and
spatial ‘disruptions’ from habitual ways of telling a story. “Sacred” and “profane”
elements often intermingle in myths, such as the interaction between gods and
mortals, or between spirits and animals. These in turn can lead people to try
out new possibilities, or experiment with a variety of perspectives on a
situation. Kirk also seems to like the idea hinted by Levi-Strauss that myths
offer ways to mediate between untenable contradictions in human life, by
creating and exposing conflicts in a safe and experimental, multi-levelled way.
I wonder, could this description perhaps equally apply to all art forms, or at
least literary forms?
From a perspective of Buddhist or
meditative practice, do dreams have a value? Dzogchen Ponlop offers a
compelling argument in the book Mind
Beyond Death to suggest that dreams are close to the ‘bardo’ or
transitional states between life and death, and could therefore offer grounds
for practitioners to ‘practice’ equanimity prior to death. He also suggests
that dreaming is an apt metaphor for the impermanence of all things. In one
powerful passage, he reminds us:
One of the ways to
understand the dreamlike quality of our present experience is to look at the
experience of yesterday from the perspective of today. When we do this, we see
that everything that happened yesterday exists now only as a memory. Our
conversations, actions, thoughts and feelings,
even the sights and sounds of yesterday, are no more real than the
images that appeared to us in last night’s dreams. (p.68)
For Dzchoghen Ponlop, dreams can indeed be the way people
can understand, perhaps by analogy, the transitory nature of their experiences.
This way of looking at all one’s experiences can, from a Buddhist perspective,
prepare one for the letting go that comes with the ending of life. This Is
maybe a far cry from traditional ways of trying to divine the symbolic meaning
of dreams. But it tries to look at the similarities between the ‘stream of
consciousness’ offered in dreams and that of waking life itself.
To go back to the experience of meditation: if I can start
to look at thoughts as a form of ‘awake dreaming”, I can learn to place less
emphasis on the content or the ‘dramatic’ pull of thoughts, and more emphasis
on the awareness which has the thought. I am also seeing that the thoughts are
bound to arise and pass away again, there is less attachment to habitual turns
of thought. This way of looking at thoughts
can also provide a healing space for upsetting thoughts to be observed, without
the sense that these thoughts are enduring. At the very least, dreams can offer
analogies for how to see things in
everyday experience with more creative play and less attachment.
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