"Bamso: The Art of Dreams." A book Review.

I was recently sent a copy of "Bamso: The Art of Dreams" and initially I thought it was more of a manual on how to use your dreams to better your life. And while it does offer some insights in how to use dreams to solve problems in your daily life it reads more like a novel or one person's dream diary. It certainly paints a very wonderful journey of the mind and it's an interesting read. However, personally I find the ideas of astral projection, mental projection and time travel through dreams to be distractions from our ideals as Buddhists of waking up from dreams and illusions.

I have found that the mind in Buddhism is not something to be encouraged. Also, In the book the teacher encourages the student to cultivate his imagination. For many Buddhists such an activity is going against much of the teachings on Dharma to reduce our fantasies and imaginations, which often distract us from the present moment of right here, right now. The Buddha taught that this present moment is all we have and I personally believe that gallivanting off into our dreams can be a really good way to lose focus and become distracted from true awakening.

That said, dreams can provide insights from time to time but attaching too much importance to them (I have found) just leads to more attachments. I have done astral projection before and while it was fun and interesting I didn't do much for me except cause me to attach to the warm fuzzies I often felt mentally traveling through fantasy worlds. It would probably best be appreciated in the Buddhist community by Tibetan Buddhists, who seem to be more open to dream analysis more than other schools. Especially the Dream Yoga and Dzogchen Tibetan Buddhist traditions. I do believe that sometimes dreams replay events from past lives but there is no way of knowing this for sure in a scientifically proven sense. However, I see most dreams as an amalgamation of the days events, worries, fears, hopes, desires and miscellaneous images. If we as Buddhists are too awaken to the illusory nature of our waking state then how is it that we should attach too much importance to our dreams?

The book did explain that if nothing else analyzing your dreams can bring about better sleep and relaxation during the day. Personally, it is quite distressing to have a nightmare and feel the distressing energy throughout the next day. So there suggestion in the book of combining dream analysis with meditation seems useful in letting go of the suffering that often comes with nightmares. Overall I personally wouldn't recommend this book for Buddhists who usually want to wake up from dream states, not enforce them. At least that's how I see it but I'm not a Buddhist master or anything. I know Buddha experienced dreams but somehow it's different, though I can't quite explain why. Perhaps it's that Buddha used his dreams to wake up, not enforce his delusions of the pleasure seeking self. As a Zennist who strips a lot of metaphysical aspects from his practice I'd give this book a 4 out of 10. If you're just looking for a good novel/story though I'd give it a higher rating. That said, I'd be happy to send this to anyone interested in it. Just email me: jaymur-at-gmail-dot-com. UPDATE: This book has now been claimed.

~Peace to all beings~

A Fire Reflected in a Lake.

A fire reflected in a lake cannot burn the water. Neither can emotions disturb the mind when you don’t get involved in them. Don’t identify an emotion as your self. The fear or anger is not you, only an impersonal phenomenon.

Mentally pull back from the emotion and turn your awareness around to observe it. When in the grip of negative emotion we tend to believe it will never end. But emotions are no more permanent than thoughts.

With continued practice you’ll find that you only have to wait and any emotion, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is bound to change.

–Cynthia Thatcher, from Just Seeing: Insight Mediation and Sense-Perception (Buddhist Publication Society)

James: It sure is hard not to identify with emotions--especially when an emotional reaction is so ingrained within the psyche that its emergence seems totally involuntary. However, we know that at some level we have made a conscious choice to react in one way or another. We feel so helpless and at the mercy of these destructive and misery creating emotions. The suffering they engender is so great that it is like experiencing a nightmare.

A nightmare is a pseudo reality where the most ridiculous, terrifying and outlandish events stream through our mind like an all too real virtual reality, interactive video game. The nightmare seems so plausible--perhaps we find ourselves fleeing from a monster in our dream. Or maybe we get ourselves into some crazy situation such as a recurring dream of mine where I end up unjustly thrown in prison--an innocent man. The terror and suffering in those moments are so visceral that they can even cause the physical body to wake up sweating and gasping for air as if the body was in a real fight or flight situation.

There is, however, something called, "lucid dreaming" where a person is aware that they are dreaming--as they are dreaming. I have experienced this phenomenon every so often and it is often like watching things unfold from a third person point of view, which usually lessons the impact of the events. It is a way to step back from what is going on and get a bigger picture view of it all and see that in truth you are not going to die, or get thrown in prison or lose your parent, child or spouse. It is said that a person can train their mind to be able to go into this third person vantage point while dreaming to better deal with and process the events and impacts of the dreams.

In this way, I see meditation as the lucid dreaming of the waking state to be practiced and fine tuned to be a set of tools to enable us to walk through samsara and accumulate less heavy karmic debts.

~Peace to all beings~