Manas Discerns All Dharmas Within and Beyond Dreams

If the state within a dream can be connected to the state outside the dream, it indicates that the manas is capable of discerning all dharmas both inside and outside the dream. Moreover, the manas first discerned the state of the external, real world, paying particular attention to that state, thereby transforming the external state into the dream state, allowing the consciousness to also participate in discerning it.

Although a person is asleep and the six consciousnesses cease functioning, the manas can still rely on the tathagatagarbha to discern all dharmas. The manas can even hear the sound of the Dharma being taught from the external tape recorder. However, its wisdom for discrimination and discernment is not particularly strong, and being interested in the Dharma teaching, it creates a dream for the consciousness to discern the Dharma teaching within the dream. Yet, the manas does not discern the external state very clearly. Although the dream state is related to the external state, there are still some differences, indicating that the manas has not fully comprehended many states.

From this, we understand that whether awake or asleep, the manas is aware of all dharmas within the six sense objects. The key lies in the level of detail and accuracy of its discernment. If it concerns matters the manas has been extremely familiar with since beginningless time, its discernment is very fast and very accurate. If it concerns matters it is not very familiar with, its discernment is slow and inaccurate, with many errors, resulting in dreams that differ somewhat from reality.

When I first encountered the Buddhadharma, one afternoon at home, a video about liberation rites was playing. It showed several Vajrayana masters performing liberation rites for large herds of cattle awaiting slaughter in Tibet. The number of cattle was immense. The liberation rites at the beginning were very solemn, while the scenes of slaughter later were extremely tragic, with streams of blood, the cattle terrified and crying out piteously. The video played for about half an hour to an hour. As I was not yet a complete believer in Buddhism, I fell asleep while it was playing. While asleep, I could still hear the sound of the video playing, and then a dream appeared. The dream was identical to the content playing on the video outside. Wherever the video reached, the dream followed. I tried to wake up in between but simply couldn't. I was aware of the video's content; the dream presented bloody scenes and the pitiful cries of the cattle, with some cattle even kneeling down before people.

This dream was entirely induced by the manas. Although asleep and the six consciousnesses unable to perceive, the manas was very interested in this matter and thus produced the dream, transforming the external objective realm image into a subjective realm, allowing the consciousness to also discern it. The manas could simultaneously grasp the states both inside and outside; it knew the content of the external video and also knew the dream state. Within the dream, the scenes of liberating and slaughtering the herds of cattle were vividly described. The states inside and outside the dream were almost identical. Mentally, I also knew those scenes were constantly changing one after another, but while wanting to wake up, I simply couldn't.

When dreams have no connection to the external, real situation, it also indicates that the dream content was something the manas was interested in, concerned about, and focused on during the day. At night, the manas then produced the dream. As one thinks during the day, so one dreams at night. The manas focuses during the day and also focuses at night, hence dreams appear. From dreams, one can judge a person's level of spiritual practice. Therefore, some dreams still hold a certain significance.