The Sutra of the Father and Son Compendium: Lecture 104

Only the Foolish and Deluded Mistake Dreams for Reality

Hearing a beautiful sound and feeling joy and pleasure in the heart is actually no different from dreaming; both are illusory and unreal. When we hear beautiful music in a dream and feel happy, this is even more illusory and unreal. The dream state is a pratyatmaka (exclusive) realm, a sphere projected by the conceptual grasping of the manas (the seventh consciousness). The Tathagatagarbha, in accordance with the manas's craving and attachment, directly manifests a realm of mental objects from karmic seeds for the manas to perceive. As the manas cannot perceive in detail, it causes the mano-vijnana (the sixth consciousness) to arise for shared perception. The mano-vijnana then applies attention, contact, sensation, perception, and thought to the musical sound, giving rise to feelings. Perceiving the sound as beautiful and pleasing, the heart experiences delight and happiness. In this process, the manas is manifested by the Tathagatagarbha, the dream music is manifested by the Tathagatagarbha, and the mano-vijnana is manifested by the Tathagatagarbha. Not a single dharma is truly existent and indestructible; all are illusory, unreal, and unreliable, neither belonging to a self nor owned by a self.

Upon awakening, the dream music vanishes without a trace, the mano-vijnana ceases, and its sense of pleasure disappears entirely. Not a single dharma can be taken as real. Hearing beautiful music, words of praise, or encountering beloved people or things in a dream—experiences that bring great joy—all amount to nothing upon awakening. Though these phenomena appear in the dream, they are entirely illusory, false, and unreal. If someone regards the people and events encountered in a dream as real, believing the dreams experienced at night to be true, constantly fantasizing about them, recalling them, generating attachment and craving, and remaining immersed in the dream realm, unwilling to emerge—such a person is truly foolish and unwise. To mistake the dream for reality while dreaming is already delusion and inversion; to still regard it as real after awakening is even greater inversion.