Selected Lectures on the Sutra of the Gathering of Fathers and Sons (Part 37)

Chapter Five: The Three Dream Metaphors

Original Text: "O King, the sense faculties are like illusions, and the perceived realms are like dreams. For example, suppose a person, in a dream, enjoys amusement together with many palace maidens. O King, what do you think? After that person awakens from the dream and recalls the pleasures experienced, were those pleasures 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 manifestations, and the six sense objects (form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental phenomena) are like objects in a dream. For instance, a person in a dream frolics and entertains himself with many palace maidens. O King, what is your view? After that person awakens from the dream and recalls the happiness felt within the dream, was the dream realm real?" King Śuddhodana replied, "It was not real."

The six sense faculties—eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind—are like illusions. They emerge from the emptiness of voidness, and their functions are equally illusory and unreal. The master of these illusions is the Tathāgatagarbha, which is like a magician. The perceived realms of the sense faculties—forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and mental objects—are said by the Buddha to be like dreams, just as objects in a dream cannot be grasped. In the dream, the dream consciousness can still perceive the dreamscape, contact dream people and objects, and give rise to feelings of joy, pleasure, sorrow, or anger. Yet upon awakening, nothing remains; it is utterly unobtainable. Sentient beings living in so-called reality are similarly deluded and inverted, as if in a dream. It seems they can contact the six sense objects and experience the feelings of the six consciousnesses, but in truth, it is all illusory. Upon awakening from the dream, nothing remains to be grasped. Sentient beings have not yet awakened from the dream. Bodhisattvas are partially awakened, not yet fully awake. The Buddhas, however, have already awakened completely and are no longer in the dream; they can fully recall the events of the dream. Ordinary sentient beings are merely talking in their sleep.