Dreaming is Hard Work

 You have probably heard the cliché before that "life is but a dream". I have heard the expressions in a Buddhist context. For example, Master Sheng Yen remarks in his 108 Adages, "Everybody says life is like a dream, so why does everybody refuse to wake from this dream?" What's interesting in particular about Master Sheng Yen's remark is that it hints at the troubled relationship between the dreamer and the dream. Dreaming is so beautiful and ethereal, so why not just float along this dream and enjoy it? The problem is, as Master Sheng Yen relates, people refuse to wake up from the dream of life, and it's been said that people often have to have a tragic experience to finally want to wake from the dream.
    The point of the adage of life as dream is not to let people coast along through life without any effort. Rather, it's somewhat the opposite: if it's so easy to be lulled into this ephemeral, insubstantial set of images and thoughts, then waking from it is all that much harder to do. This is so because people like myself often wish to live with less discomfort and more ease in life. In this case, the tendency is to sometimes just live to survive rather than truly understand the dream itself. To thoroughly know life as a dream is to take a very different stance on what happens: to see that suffering comes from taking the dream to be solid (and thus desirable).
        Why do I say "Dreaming is Hard Work"? I am thinking that it takes hard work to see that one is really dreaming. And I have noticed that times of heavy work or scheduling can be wonderful opportunities to see how fleeting life can be. Think of it this way: if I didn't have so many requirements, I may take the way of resting but eventually I might also cling to something that substantiates who I am. Having things to do can ease the burden of looking for ways to 'be somebody' to the world (as it were), which then frees up the mind to serve all other beings. Once I am really (and honestly) working, I am no longer distracted by a sense of self. Now of course, it could go the other way, and I can start complaining that I have too much work to do! But the principle is not to get angry at the work, but to see it as there to open the mind up to new possibilities of seeing, as well as to devote oneself to things which are not oriented on self.