The Difference Between Creating Karma While Dreaming and While Awake

The difference between inside a dream and outside a dream is that within a dream there is no outer representation, and nothing has actually changed, whereas outside a dream there are changes in the outer representation, and real events of benefiting or harming others actually occur. Therefore, karma created within a dream has no substantial and concrete retribution, while karma created outside a dream has substantial and concrete retribution. Apart from this, inside and outside the dream are the same—both are illusory and unreal.

Although in a dream one may give away a thousand dollars, no substantial money is actually given away, and no substantial person receives that money. So in fact there is no real act of giving; there is only a mental action of giving existing, a mental action of being generous toward others existing, a mental action of not being stingy existing—and that is the mental action of the manas. If the manas's mental action in a dream is wholesome, it shows that this person's nature of mind is genuinely wholesome. A wholesome mind generates merit, and there will be blessings and wholesome retribution. The more wholesome the mind, the greater the blessings and the greater the retribution. Giving within a dream shows that the manas's nature of mind is wholesome; a wholesome nature brings wholesome retribution, and after death one will go to wholesome destinies, being born and living in a place corresponding to the manas's nature of mind. Wholesomeness brings wholesome blessings—this is the wholesome retribution of one's nature of mind. If the manas's nature of mind is unwholesome, it will diminish blessings, and one will undergo retribution in unwholesome places corresponding to the manas's nature of mind. This is the retribution of wholesomeness and unwholesomeness.

If outside a dream one gives away a thousand dollars, substantial money is actually given away, and a substantial person receives that money. Together with the act of giving, when all three are complete, the retribution will be fully received. In the future there will be at least a hundred-thousand-fold or ten-million-fold return of wealth, and corresponding merit will also be generated, with wholesome retribution and blessings. If, due to the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness of its nature of mind, the manas directs the six consciousnesses to create wholesome or unwholesome karmic actions, then besides the retribution of the nature of mind, there is also the karmic retribution of the karmic actions. Karmic retribution is an extremely concrete form of retribution, reckoned down to the smallest fraction, and the karmic fruit must certainly be repaid.

The difference between killing someone in a dream and killing someone while awake follows the same principle. In a dream, no substantial person is killed and there is no substantial act of killing, but there is the mental action of killing. Its retribution is based primarily on the mental action; because the nature of mind is unwholesome and evil, it will diminish one's blessings and merits, and one will be reborn in unwholesome places corresponding to the nature of mind, undergoing the retribution of evil and unwholesomeness. Killing outside a dream involves substantial deeds, so there will be repayment of the karmic fruit of killing, and in the future there will also be the retribution of an evil and unwholesome nature of mind. For example, if one violates precepts after receiving them, some violations of precepts involve not only the offense at the level of nature of mind, but also the precept offense at the level of karmic action, and both are received together as retribution. A person who has not received precepts, having created evil and unwholesome karma, has no precept offense, but still has the offense of an evil nature of mind, and will still receive evil retribution. When doing evil deeds, whether or not one has received precepts, there is evil retribution; receiving precepts imposes a certain restraint on one's own mind, which is more beneficial for cultivation.

The manas represents the fundamental nature of mind of a sentient being. The mind consciousness can embellish and disguise itself, but the manas cannot—it cannot pretend, cannot engage in fraud, and absolutely truthfully manifests its own nature of mind. In a dream, the manas is the absolute master, while the function of the mind consciousness is very weak, extremely weak, almost unable to exert any regulatory effect on the manas. Therefore, within a dream one cannot fake or disguise anything; what is manifested is entirely the manas's nature of mind—the most genuine of all.