Using Dreams to Show the Thinning of Ignorance and the Weakening of Afflictions

Ru Chun: During this period, both my life and my practice have hit a bottleneck. Some problems in life cannot be resolved, and my practice has made no progress. I reflected on where I had gone wrong. No matter what problems arise in life or in practice, in the end they are all problems of that "self." What is wrong with my "self"? After careful analysis, I found that I am too fond of being affirmed and acknowledged. In life, liking to be affirmed and acknowledged makes one strive to become a strong person; becoming a strong person brings more power, status, fame, wealth, resources, and so on, gaining a sense of superiority, security, and a feeling of close connection with the world, along with being needed, respected, flattered, valued, envied, complimented, and all kinds of wonderful feelings, in order to satisfy the deep inner self-affirmation and self-acknowledgment.

Yet these feelings both nourish the self and are important components in forming that "self," and that "self" is the root of saṃsāra. So liking affirmation is liking the self, liking ignorance, liking saṃsāra, aggravating bondage, and taking suffering as joy. Practicing with such a mental disposition runs contrary to the Path, to no-self, and to emptiness—how could one practice well? Painful feeling, pleasant feeling, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling: people habitually choose pleasant feeling, without realizing that the very premise of this multiple-choice question is wrong. Where there is feeling, there is a self; where there is a self, there is suffering. Out of compassion, our Buddha taught: the ocean of suffering is boundless; turn your head and the shore is there.

When I thought of all this and resolved to change, I had a dream. I dreamed that I had diarrhea, and in a daze I felt my head had become somewhat clear, my belly had emptied out a lot, and my whole body had a refreshing feeling. If I change a bit of my cognition and a bit of my mental thought, can I transform a bit of my karma?

Assessment: Dreaming that you have diarrhea means that the self has been dissolved somewhat, and some of your afflictions have been expelled. A clear head in the dream indicates that wisdom has advanced a step, and a refreshed body indicates that the burden of ignorance has lessened somewhat. When the mental thoughts of the manas change, past karmic obstructions are eliminated somewhat, and the obstructions in the mind diminish. Such a dream is very good. Bit by bit, removing the obstructions of ignorance, practice will progress; the dawn of seeing the Path is not far ahead, and the distance is growing ever closer.

Dreams are a presentation of the manas's thoughts, arising from the manas's mental activity, manifested by the manas's mental disposition. When the manas's views change and its thinking transforms, He will display it through dreams, because He cannot express Himself through language, writing, or sound, so He expresses it through dreams. Therefore, whenever a Buddhist practitioner makes any progress in practice, eliminates karmic obstructions, enters the stage of the four aids to penetration, subdues afflictions, cultivates to the stage of heading toward the first fruit, realizes the Path of the Great or Small Vehicle, passes through various barriers and bottlenecks, or ascends step by step, the manas will express it through dreams. So those who have practiced for a long time yet have no dreams to show are almost certainly those whose manas's mental disposition has not changed much; even if they feel they have realized the fruit, if the manas shows no indication at all, then it is certainly a false realization of the fruit.