reality is like a dream

[ChiForce]

It either is a dream or it isn't. We all know what a dream is. We go to sleep, we fall down stairs, fly, eat a banquet, but we know when we awake that none of that happened. We can determine dream state and waking state very easily. Where is the dualism ? Im completely non dual as should be obvious. A is A, a thing is a thing.

You need to get off this discussion because it is out of your league.  You are not contributing to the topic here.  I have no intention to change your mind.  It is not my job to make you brighter and more enlightened.   

[Karl]

To Karl,

 

Sight...in a highly cultivated mind or with individuals with gifted insights or with good karmic merit, they receive teaching from great masters and immortal beings in dreams...because they are the Sambhogakaya beings and would only manifest themselves in dreams...silly.

 

  I don't expect you to understand why dreams are important...

 

I didn't say dreams were not important. They clearly are otherwise we wouldn't have them.

 

However, they are pure internal generations of a certain state of consciousness. Don't you ever day dream ? Do you ever find yourself having driven a car many miles without being conscious of the distance or time ? Did you crash, or lose consciousness ? No. The mind can cope with multiple states of consciousnes simultaneously. It isn't a black and white thing between full consciousness and unconsciousness, but reality remains reality. Reality remains reality even when we dream. There is no mystery-at least not epistemologically-we can dream, or be entirely unconscious whilst still being able to react to stimuli-that's why a shock will leave the waking person initially confused until the mind can traverse several states of consciousness until full focus and then can apply reason.

 

Reality is that you dream, but reality is not a dream.

[Karl]

You need to get off this discussion because it is out of your league. You are not contributing to the topic here. I have no intention to change your mind. It is not my job to make you brighter and more enlightened.

Your dreaming aren't you, so anything goes. This is what you tell me, that you have no karmic hangovers, so why does it make you angry ? Does a dreaming Karmic accomplished spirit require defence of anger ?

 

You know that answer even if you refuse to accept it.

 

It is not 'out of my league' but my being here might be out of your comfort zone. I can respect that, but that isn't a reason for you to turn to defence. I'm not a threat.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Karl

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[ChiForce]

Your dreaming aren't you, so anything goes. This is what you tell me, that you have no karmic hangovers, so why does it make you angry ? Does a dreaming Karmic accomplished spirit require defence of anger ?

 

You know that answer even if you refuse to accept it.

 

It is not 'out of my league' but my being here might be out of your comfort zone. I can respect that, but that isn't a reason for you to turn to defence. I'm not a threat.

You don't even know what you are talking about...I let you be....have fun...LOL    Comfort zone??  LOL  I don't seek approval and a sense of self worth on the message board..if that's what you meant by the "comfort zone?" 

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[Karl]

Sherlock Holmes said: "Simple minds seek simple answers."

Why don't you tell a quantum physicist how simple reality is...?

Is an atom here or there? A wave or a particle?

 

Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character out of a book. Santa Clause said only good boys get toys. Chicken Lickin' said the sky was falling down.

 

Did I say reality was simple, or even explainable ? No. I said reality was reality and dream is dream. You can know reality by direct perception of it, you can know a dream from a table, a rock from a wave.

[Karl]

Your input is simply unproductive for this thread.

I don't see anyone getting inspired, gaining insight or deriving something else positive from your posts.

That's the problem.

You set the rules. It's a dream. Why would that be offensive. If you take your dreams as being important, then that is where I appear. I must be important to you in some way you just haven't figured out.

 

Anyway I will stay out if that's what you want. I only replied because of CFs baiting. Your call.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Karl

[steve]

I don't have karmic traces, but I do have high blood pressure :-) I have no issues with my past, no regrets, no guilt, absolutely no concern whatsoever. I'm not preoccupied with my past, because it's the past. I can use what I obtained from experience, what is useful and then delete the rest as useless crap. 

 

FWIW, I'll offer a few words.

 

This is a wrong understanding of karma. It is not a matter of holding on to the past or letting it go. Each action and event is related to every other action and event in an unimaginably complex array of interaction / cause and effect that stretches back interminably and stretches forward as time marches along. Every person and thing is what, where, and how it is as a result of this incomprehensible web of relationship. Your karma has brought you to a place such that you do not see truth in the dharma, mine is to see it. Whether that's good or bad is an overlay of human judgement. 

 

It is possible that you are so fixed in a single belief system that it will never change, it's unlikely but possible. Every one of us sees the world through our unique perspective created by this karmic web. This perspective defines reality for us. You may have the perspective that your view of reality is exactly and perfectly correct and every other human is incorrect. Many of us feel that way. Who knows? Maybe it's true. More likely there will (or already has) come a time when you see things a bit differently. It can be a dramatic or very subtle change in perspective but to the extent it changes our world view, it changes our reality. 

 

This is precisely why life is like a dream. Our perspective defines our reality. That perspective changes and it is as if we awakened from a dream. We look back at the way things used to seem and wonder how we could have felt or acted that way. It is as unreal (or real, depending on your perspective) as last night's dream. Because of the inter-related (karmic) nature of our existence, many things are seen in a common way. This is the foundation for us agreeing on what is "real." To the extent that others see things in a different way, their reality is different.

 

The corollary to this is that words generally cannot change someone's perspective. It is frustrating for someone what has "seen the light" to try to help others see it in their way unsuccessfully. It is equally frustrating to have someone trying to change your perspective when you "know" they're wrong. It is only when something shifts inside us that we are open to a new perspective. Why and how that happens is a great mystery, at least to me. Call it karma, call it a blessing, call it an accident. So while we can certainly each share our unique perspective, it is rarely productive to take things personally and attack each other because our views, and methods of presenting them,  conflict. Better to let it go and simply accept it as it is...

 

Sorry for the rant...

Peace

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[Brian]

I didn't say dreams were not important. They clearly are otherwise we wouldn't have them.

<snip>

I really should be copying down some of this stuff. Such sagacity doesn't grow on trees, you know.

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[Marblehead]

The arising of appearances in a dream and their cognition by the dream are simultaneous and nondual.

An appearance in a dream can not be not cognized, or it would not appear.

 

An arising appearance in a dream is empty awareness becoming conditioned awareness (consciousness).

The appearances cognize themselves.

That's an interesting thought, especially about dreams being nondual.

 

Sure, they can be negative or positive (good dreams/bad dreams) but I think you are correct about them being nondual.

[wilfred]

if you become aware of the emotional tones of your dreams, these are the same feelings (energy) running in the background for you in the waking world. they're affecting your perception, distorting 'reality', all the time, each and every day. dreams are an invaluable tool for expanding ones awareness deeper into the subconscious.

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[Junko]

Dreams are balancing your psychological state.

I don't think reality is like a dream.If you have to put it like this, you are saying as if orange is like a banana.

[Wells]

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Edited May 10, 2016 by Wells

[ChiForce]

Dreams are balancing your psychological state. I don't think reality is like a dream.If you have to put it like this, you are saying as if orange is like a banana.

Once you experience Samadhi, reality is like dreams.    Forget about orange and banana...let's talk about some bad experiences you had some 10 years ago.  Is the feeling and experience lingering in your mind and in your dreams?  Is it still real when wherever you look you find no reference to that experiences in your surrounding.  What if you have moved and lived in somewhere else?  When you meditate, do you become to aware a persistent thought while you are trying to realize the emptiness of your mind???  Is the thought real?   

 

Try not to reduce complex mental and spiritual phenomenon down to some still, inanimate objects....because an orange or an apple does not generate karma on and for you!!!!!!      

 

Just want to add a bit of regressing thinking.  It is the karmic force causing you to experience those events some 10 years ago.  The events themselves were never real even though while you were going through them some 10 years ago.  It is simply some set of karmic forces piling on top of another.....     

Edited April 14, 2016 by ChiForce

[Junko]

I don't understand what you are writeing about.

[ChiForce]

I don't understand what you are writeing about.

You mean...you have no feelings lingering on from some bad life experiences you had some years ago??  You don't dream about events happened to you when you were younger?  You don't see the world though some mental prejudice you have because of what happened to you some years ago?  Hard to believe....

 

If you say so.....  Even an apple or an orange isn't permanent either.  Let them sit outside under the sun and they would decay into some organic matter.  How can you call them real when they don't even last permanently. 

[Junko]

What did I say(write)!

Don't even try to make me understand. I am not interested in anything here on this thread any more.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Junko

[Michael Sternbach]

You mean...you have no feelings lingering on from some bad life experiences you had some years ago??  You don't dream about events happened to you when you were younger?  You don't see the world though some mental prejudice you have because of what happened to you some years ago?  Hard to believe....

 

If you say so.....  Even an apple or an orange isn't permanent either.  Let them sit outside under the sun and they would decay into some organic matter.  How can you call them real when they don't even last permanently. 

 

 

What did I say(write)!

Don't even try to make me understand. I am not interested in anything here on this thread any more.

 

You should think especially about the highlighted part of ChiForce's post though, darling.

[Junko]

You should think especially about the highlighted part of ChiForce's post though, darling.

You tell me to think? I am thinking that's why I am writeing.

[Marblehead]

What did I say(write)!

Don't even try to make me understand. I am not interested in anything here on this thread any more.

Funny.  Thanks for the laughter.

[Marblehead]

You tell me to think? I am thinking that's why I am writeing.

But he wants you to think so that he understands what you are thinking.  We men have a hard time understanding women most of the time.