Lucid Dream Meditation (June 28 and 30)

Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Meditation Initiative), Crystal Quintero (ed.), Wisdom Quarterly

The mind is different when it finally relaxes.

There are the samadhis, highly coherent states of clarified consciousness. It is a factor of the Noble Eightfold Path outlined by the Buddha and misleadingly translated as "right concentration."

The path has three sections (Sila, Samadhi, Prajna): Virtue, Meditation, and Wisdom. Concentration or absorption falls into the Meditation Section.

Colors were brighter, things were clearer!

The question for us is how best to arrive at these coherent states of mind, states of consciousness between waking and sleeping, an in-between state or bardo, when the body is completely relaxed. One good way we developed is "American Meditation Technique," that is, in a warm bath, but it's too easy to drift off. "Dream Meditation" is different and has four steps.

 

Now the meditator becomes increasingly aware of the inner-world by following verbal instructions. This undistracted state of consciousness can be focused to give one access to deep meditation via intense concentration or absorption as one withdraws from the external world of the bodily senses to the internal world of the mind and consciousness.

1. Relax, letting go of all tension and worries.
2. Listen, drifting off to a state just before sleep.
3. Follow, while in a lucid dream state, as the instructions guide the malleable mind to focus, bringing about heightened awareness and lucidity.
4. Emerge, learning to retain that serenity and lucidity.

Buddhism is about waking up.

Meditators are not fully gone because hearing still connects us to the instructions that guide us in, much in the way the Bardo Thodol ("Liberation Through Hearing During the Intermediate State") guides a hearer out of rebirth on this painful plane when in a transitional state.

Now we have an opportunity to access and develop profound samadhi. It's a balancing act, much like sitting is, because an exhausted body will plunge into sleep until refreshed, and a anxious body will slowly learn to let go.
 

D.M.I. - Disclosure - UCLA - Pasa - Punx

Practice serene "Dream Meditation" this Thursday and/or Saturday, June 28th and 30th, at Dharma Meditation Initiative's FREE Dream Meditation Workshop and 1-Day Relaxing Summer Retreat in L.A.