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Just as by [ordinary] magic Bhadra can conjure up
Various things out of nothing.42
According to a Mahåyåna perspective, the Buddhist yogi s ability to
perform magical deeds is derived, not from being versed in the arts of
magic, but from his knowledge and realization of the empty and illu-
sory nature of all things. In the development of dream yoga as a path
to liberation, the Tibetan Buddhist tradition expands on relationships
hinted at in Indian Buddhism relationships between dream conscious-
ness and supernormal powers, between the illusory nature of things
and the ultimate state of enlightenment, between deception and truth.
DREAMING AND DYING: THE KARMA ORIENTATION
In Samuel s framework, the Karma Orientation of Tibetan religious
activity is concerned with death and rebirth, and the accumulation of
merit that ensures both good fortune and a good future life. The entire
process of death and rebirth is presented as analogous to sleeping,
dreaming, and waking. According to the analysis set out in the texts
of the Bardo Thödol (Tib. bar do thos sgrol), a dying person experiences
very distinct stages of dissolution, during which gross physical func-
tions cease and mental functions subside until only the most subtle
state of pure awareness remains the  clear light, which, in this con-
text, is called the clear light of death. If the dying person at that point
falls into complete unconsciousness and does not experience the clear
light awareness as the true nature of mind in other words, if con-
sciousness does not recognize itself then the process continues, karmic
forces take over, and the person reawakens to experience the dream-
like hallucinations of an intermediate bardo state between death and
rebirth. Finally, the person once again  falls asleep into the womb
and  awakens to another life in another form.43
The states and stages of death and rebirth correspond to the pro-
cess by which consciousness enters and leaves meditative states, as well
as to the transitions of awareness from waking to sleeping to dreaming,
Dream in the Tibetan Context 83
and finally to reawakening. Therefore, one can also experience the lu-
minous mind that manifests at the end of the falling-asleep process just
before consciousness  awakes into the dream state. This is called the
clear light of sleep. As in death, if it is not recognized then, conscious-
ness enters into a hallucinatory dream state driven by karma.
In the Tibetan popular imagination, the homologies of death,
sleep, dream, and meditation, and their relationship to the merit/
demerit system of karma, are most vividly captured in the activity of
the delok (Tib. das log). The intermediate bardo world is accessible not
only by those who are destined for rebirth, but also by certain excep-
tional people who have the ability to enter into states in which they
can travel through the bardo. Such a person is known as a delok, one
who returns from the dead. Delok narratives are popular accounts
that describe a sleeplike, trancelike, deathlike condition during which
the person experiences dramatic visionary encounters with the beings
traversing the bardo and with the Lord of Death, who pronounces the
destiny of each according to his or her own good and bad actions in
life. The delok sees directly the joyous results of good actions and the
anguish of those whose negativity has brought them to suffering and
despair; she returns to life with an emotional message underscoring
the Buddhist doctrine on karma and rebirth. In Françoise Pommeret s
analysis of delok narratives,44 she notes that the delok herself is usu-
ally one who is intensely religious, and therefore virtuous, a quality
that, as we have seen, in Buddhist dream theory confirms the dream
or vision as significant and true. It is worth noting that the notion that
knowledge gained in dreams or visions is as valid as that gained from
waking experience relates to the Buddhist emphasis on dream as di-
rect perception an attitude familiar to a shamanic worldview.45
It is thought that for an ordinary person the various stages of
both the falling-asleep process and the dying process pass by extremely
rapidly without any knowledge or recognition on the part of the per-
son. However, the one who learns to sleep and dream mindfully,
experiencing the luminosity of sleep, is also practising to die with
awareness, able to recognize the clear light when it arises at the mo-
ment of death. This is the task of the yogi who practices the yogas of
dream and sleep.46 In Tibetan dream yoga the purification of negative
karma and accumulation of merit is presented as a crucial element in
determining one s success. Tsongkhapa, the fourteenth-century founder
of the Gelug school, emphasizes that unless one first trains in both
ordinary and extraordinary practices of purification, and keeps all
precepts, engaging in any of Nåropa s yogas will lead not merely to
failure but to spiritual disaster for both teacher and student.47 Bud-
dhist tradition holds that actions in a dream are generally involuntary
84 Dreamworlds of Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism
and, therefore, do not have the strength to create karmic results.
However, dream actions do reflect and foster habitual tendencies that
bear on one s future, hence the injunctions to maintain a virtuous
mind when engaging in the dream yoga practice, which has liberation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]