After Awakening, Nothing Stirs in the World

Once, before dawn, I had a dream in which I lost two very important packages. All around me were chaotic strangers, and I felt that these two packages would be very hard to recover. At that moment, my mind was not yet panicked; instead, I was very calm, very clear-headed, and very rational, as if I knew I was dreaming. So I decided to wake up quickly. With an effort of mind, I opened my eyes and woke up. My mind was extremely clear, and I lay there peacefully for a while. Recalling the dream just now, I knew that the loss of the packages in the dream was not a real matter at all—I had not lost anything. This dream was very vivid, and I still remember it clearly. In everyone's dreams, although anything can happen, once you wake up, there is nothing at all. This shows that when one is awake and dreamless, the mind is truly at ease, without hindrance and without burden. 

Such a dream is short and easy to wake from, but the great dream of birth-and-death is very, very long and not easy to wake from. In the dream, people are usually lost in confusion, indulging in greed, hatred, and delusion, with karmic actions unceasing, all believing that everything—people, affairs, objects, and principles—is real. Only after awakening to the Way do they discover that it was all a dream, that in reality nothing happened at all. How wonderful it is to wake up! But how can one awaken as quickly as possible? One needs to have a clear and lucid mind within the dream, to know it is a dream, not to be attached to the dreamscape, to have the aspiration to awaken, to have meditative concentration (samādhi), wisdom, good roots, and merit. Although one cannot yet emerge from the dream for the time being, one must perform many wholesome and pure karmic deeds and refrain from creating unwholesome karma, because unwholesome karma heavily obscures the mind, making it muddled and unable to discern that the present is a dream; then one will not generate the aspiration to escape the illusory dream.

Within the great dream of birth-and-death, all dharmas are illusory projections. They appear real, but in substance they are false. When the mind is not clear and lucid, one takes the false as real and creates all kinds of karmic actions—especially many unwholesome ones—leading to lingering in the dream, unable to wake up. For those within the dream, it is absolutely necessary to perform some wholesome and pure deeds, especially pure deeds, which can make the mind clear and lucid, enable one to see through the essential nature of the dream, avoid deluded attachment, and strengthen the power of the vow to escape. With sufficient meditative concentration and profound wisdom, one will awaken swiftly, living in an age of peace and prosperity, with a pure mind and few desires, calm as light clouds and a gentle breeze, with nothing to do, entirely at leisure. Therefore, do not go looking for trouble when there is none, leaving body and mind with no moment of rest, weighed down by the heavy afflictions and unwholesome karma of greed, hatred, and delusion. In this world there is nothing worth grasping, nothing that cannot be let go, nothing to be hindered by. The matters in the mind are all matters within a dream; grasping at them is useless. Wealth, sensuality, fame, food, and sleep—none of them can be grasped in hand. The world is nothing but a dream. Many people busy themselves feverishly for fame and profit—truly not worth it.