Commentary on The Sutra of the Compendium of Father and Son: Lecture 77

Are the palace maidens in a dream real?

Original text: O King, all sense faculties are like illusions, and the realms of perception are like dreams. For example, suppose a person, in a dream, enjoys amusements together with many palace maidens. O King, what do you think? After awakening from the dream, when he recalls the pleasures he experienced, were they real? The king replied: No, they were not.

Explanation: The Buddha said: O King, the six sense faculties (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind) are all illusory transformations. The realms of the six sense objects (form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects) are like things in a dream. For instance, someone in a dream amuses himself with many palace maidens. O King, what is your view? After that person awakens from the dream and recalls the happiness he experienced in the dream, was the dream realm real? King Śuddhodana said: It was not real.

The six sense faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—are like illusions. From the emptiness of nothingness, the six sense faculties are transformed, and their functions are equally illusory and unreal. The agent of this transformation is the tathāgatagarbha, like a magician. The objects perceived by the sense faculties—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects—the Buddha says are like dreams, equivalent to things in a dream, fundamentally ungraspable. In a dream, the mind-consciousness can still perceive the dream, contact dream people and objects, and give rise to feelings of joy, pleasure, sorrow, or anger. Upon awakening, nothing remains; it is utterly unobtainable. Sentient beings living in so-called reality are also deluded and upside-down, as if in a dream. They seem to contact the realms of the six sense objects and seem to have the feelings of the six consciousnesses, but all of this is illusory. After awakening from the dream, it becomes utterly unobtainable. Sentient beings have not yet awakened from the dream. Bodhisattvas are half-awake and half-asleep, not fully awakened. The Buddhas, however, are fully awakened, no longer in the dream, and can completely recall the events of the dream. Ordinary sentient beings are all speaking in their sleep.

Original text: The Buddha said: O King, if this person clings to his dream as real, would he be considered wise? No, World-Honored One. Why? Because the palace maidens in the dream are ultimately non-existent, let alone the act of enjoying amusements with them. It should be understood that this person, by recalling the dream realm, vainly wearies his mind, for the dream can no longer be regained or obtained.

Explanation: The Buddha said: O King, this person regards the dream he experienced as real. Is he wise? King Śuddhodana said: This person is not wise. Why is that? Because the palace maidens in the dream are ultimately not real, let alone the act of enjoying amusements with them, which is even less real. It should be understood that this person, by recalling the dream realm, only vainly wearies his mind, for the dream cannot be regained or obtained.

Clearly, everything exists in the dream, but upon awakening, nothing remains. Yet after waking up, he still takes the people and events of the dream as real and clings to them incessantly—such a person is not wise. The Buddha used this method to alert his father not to cling to the pleasures of the five desires (wealth, sex, fame, food, and sleep). The pleasures of the five desires are like things in a dream; they should not be clung to. Clinging to them will only result in suffering through the cycle of rebirth.