This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Afternoon or evening, coming where you might be. Good to see you, old friends and new. I recently offered a Zazen and study retreat on an essay of Dogen Zemji, 13th century founder, an essay called Within a Dream, Expressing the Dream.

[01:12]

And so since this is on my mind still these days, I thought I could share with you a kind of summary of these teachings of Dogen and the Buddhas and Zen ancestors on the dream-like nature of all experience and how we can express this dream within the dream. All of us, dreams when we're asleep. So we all know what that's like. Some of us don't remember so many of them, like myself.

[02:15]

Some remember very vividly all their dreams. And yet everybody knows what that's like to have both unpleasant, sometimes horrific dreams, and sometimes pleasant dreams and sometimes very bizarre dreams. And I think this fact that all of us know this very ordinary experience of dreaming while we're asleep makes it an especially great analogy or metaphor for the Buddha's teaching that all things all events, all experiences are like a dream in various ways. Seems that the Buddha first started talking about this dream analogy in the Prajnaparamita sutras.

[03:25]

the perfection of wisdom scriptures, of which there are hundreds of thousands of verses and teachings on the emptiness of all things. And Uri uses metaphors and analogies often in his teaching, and This dream analogy is very prominent in these perfection of wisdom sutras. Over and over again, looking through them, we find the Buddha saying that all appearances, all experiences are like a dream. For instance, in the large Prajnaparamita Sutra, In its Chinese translation, the Buddha says, all things and all events are uncreated.

[04:42]

They don't really come to be. However, they do appear to exist. They appear to be created. like a person expressing a dream within a dream. This may be the origin of Dogen Zengi's essay called Within a Dream, Expressing a Dream. The Buddha used this phrase in the sutras. Not only Does the Buddha live in a kind of dreamlike world with us? But the Buddha can talk about the dream within the dream, express something about dreaming while dreaming.

[05:45]

And I think one of the great... of this particular analogy for how things are, is that in a dream, an ordinary sleeping dream, not only do the things appearing before us appear to be solid and substantial and real and separate from ourself, but also the subject in the dream. appears to be a real person having the dream. This is something we often don't notice in dreams because we're so used to in our waking life, perceiving the world as a subject, as an experiencer with a particular location, looking out at a world of objects and sights and sounds and different types of experiences.

[06:54]

Because it's like that in Awakening Life, we maybe don't notice that when we're dreaming, there's also not only an objective world of things, but there's a subject, isn't there? Like an observer, an experiencer in a dream. This is a wonderful thing to notice. It's not like a dream is just happening... In some unlocated space, it's as if we are an observer in the dream. Sometimes kind of a passive observer. I mean, I know that I sometimes have dreams where I'm just kind of like a bystander witnessing various events as if I'm not participating really in the dream. I don't know if you had that experience. And sometimes, maybe more often, I'm like an active participant in the dream.

[07:56]

I'm walking around and I'm relating to people in the dream as if I'm a kind of subject relating to those objective people separate from me. Isn't it like that in our dreams? I think it's worth reflecting on that not only does the world appear to be kind of over there in a dream and three-dimensionally, vividly, existing in the way that it appears in the dream. Not only is that true, but the sense of subjectivity, the observer, myself, also seems to appear within the dream as, you know, in a particular location and within a body that can move around and walk around and talk and see and hear in the dream. If we stop and reflect on this moment, I think it's quite amazing that this is possible in our ordinary dreams.

[09:07]

Because while we're asleep, our senses, our five senses are all kind of shut down for the night, right? Our eyes are closed. Our ears are not really hearing the sounds around us. And and smells and tastes and tactile sensations and so on are not functioning as they do or as they appear to in waking life. And yet, in the dream, we're usually completely convinced that we are seeing colors and hearing sounds apart from us, the observer. But the miracle is that all of this, this entire play of observer and observed, subject and object, person and world, that whole appearance that's so convincing in the dream is completely created by mind.

[10:12]

Is it not? There is no room, dream room that's appearing as it is in the dream. and made of actual physical stuff, external to mind. And not only is there no world like that, there's no observer walking around in the room relating to the dream room. In the dream, both the subject and the object are manifestations of one mind. One mind dividing itself into the sense strong sense that we just take for granted of being the observer and a strong sense of an observed world. I think this is amazing. I mean, it's completely ordinary. We all have such dreams and yet amazing that the mind is so powerful that it can create an objective, three-dimensional, colorful,

[11:23]

auditory world and a sense of an observer walking through that world and create the sense of a kind of division or separation between the observer and the observed, between the dreamer and the dreamed world. The mind creates all of that very easily, effortlessly for all of us in a dream. So it creates this illusion, not only an illusion of an external material world, but creates the illusion of an internal, subjective, located, particular dreamer that can walk through the dream world. And it creates the sense of

[12:25]

separation or division between the observer and the observed. All that the mind naturally teacocks, conjures up effortlessly and naturally in a sleeping dream. And then we wake up from the dream and sometimes we're amazed and relieved that it was just a dream. Maybe in that dream, it was a nightmare. And I was being chased by a dream dragon. And I was terrified. The dream observer was terrified of the dream dragon. And upon waking, sometimes there's a little transition, right? If it's a really intense and vivid nightmare or any kind of dream. It takes a little time to kind of warm up to the fact that it was a dream.

[13:27]

We're in our bed now, awake, and maybe our heart's racing from that dream, but we feel like, oh, wait a second. Actually, it's okay. Depending how normal the dream is, sometimes it takes a little longer. Sometimes I have dreams like being late for events, but kind of normal, like I'm at an airport running to catch a plane or something. And I wake up and I'm awake, but I still feel like I still have to catch that plane. And then it takes me a little while. No, no. Actually, it's okay. I don't. And then we see that the whole scene, the airport, the plane, the person, me, running for the plane, and the thought of I have to catch it, and the physical kind of tension in the dream. And the worry in the dream, the emotions in the dream, all of it is completely just a dream.

[14:32]

It's conjured up out of this one mind expressing itself as a subject relating to an object. And based on that split of subject and object, there's some issues, there's some problems, there's worry and concern and fear. or sometimes a great dream. Something wonderful and blissful is happening, you know, wake up and we're up and they get a little disappointed that it ended. In any case, we see that the whole scenario was just the mind's creation. And I just want to emphasize, again, This point that I think is worth reflecting on that not only is the objective world in the dream just a mental creation, but the subject, dreamer, is a mental creation.

[15:33]

So it's a normal experience we all have when we're asleep. And another Buddha in these Perfection of Wisdom Sutras keeps bringing it up as a kind of analogy and saying, it seems to be... And he's saying that our waking life is like this also. Of course, our waking life is slightly different in various ways than a dream, a sleeping dream. But I think the Buddha is pointing out it's maybe not as different as we think it is. And why the Buddha emphasizes dreamlike nature of our waking life, apart from the fact that it's kind of an interesting, different perspective. The Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas are always trying to help relieve the discontent of sentient beings, particularly humans like us.

[16:42]

So they're looking for all these skillful ways to help point out how we create our own discontent needlessly. That's the basic gist of Buddha Dharma. How could this dream analogy help relieve our discontent? Sometimes we talk about, well, if If things are not as substantial and real and external to ourselves as they appear to be, then we won't grasp at them as strongly. They're still appearing, just like in a dream. Things can still appear without being actually the way that they appear to be.

[17:45]

And this kind of loosens up our... grip on things a little bit. If we open to the dream-like nature of appearances of sights and sounds and the world external to ourself, it might loosen our kind of strong grasping for some part of the world that we don't have. And it might loosen our strong aversion to some part of the world that we do have, but we want to get rid of. So I think that's a valid explanation. If the world that's appearing is not quite as substantial, fixed and separate as it appears to be, then we can relax and play with it a little bit more freely. This is true. But also, just as I'm emphasizing this sense of subjectivity in the dream,

[18:46]

the me that appears in the dream. If that's just an illusion, then maybe the sense of subjectivity in waking life is also not quite as fixed and substantial and separate as it feels and seems. The sense of me being kind of located in this body, behind these eyes that are seeing the world, behind these ears that are hearing the world, as if there's some me located there, if we loosen up our kind of grip on that located subjectivity, that me-ness that's somehow connected with this body or even this head, that also may be even more than loosening our grip on the external world, that loosening our grip on the subject of experience. as a kind of real entity, frees us from even more discontent.

[19:52]

The Buddhists say that we naturally, inevitably, effortlessly feel ourselves to be this body and these thoughts and this located experiencer. We identify with this subject. this experiencer as ourself in relation to an experienced world. And this being an experiencer over here to an experienced world over there, the Buddhists say, this is the source of our discontent. They talk about... the source of discontent in different ways at different times, because there's many teachings. But this is one version of that, a subtle version, I would say, of the source of discontent, that sense of duality, of separation into subject and object.

[21:05]

Sometimes we hear that the world might not be as substantial and solid and as external as it seems. And we work with investigating the world of appearances, but maybe even more important to investigate the subject, the sense of the experiencer. And we feel that it's so real and it's so... located, and it's so who I am. I am the one over here. I'm not you all on the screen over there, right? We feel that so strongly and deeply. We're kind of wired to think such a way and to feel such a way. So much so that even when we're dreaming, we think and feel such a way. We take it for granted. But then how wonderful that

[22:07]

When we look at the dream upon awakening, we see that that subject in the dream did not exist in the way that it appeared to. That me that was running from the dream dragon and terrified of being swallowed alive by that dream dragon, that one, upon awakening from the dream, we see was an illusion created by mind. And what a relief to wake up from the dream. Interestingly, we might wake up from the dream and be relieved that the dragon's not there. But again, we could look closer and see that, is it really that we're relieved because the dragon's not there? Or is it that we're relieved because The sense of me, the one the dragon is chasing, is not there the way it appeared to be just a minute ago in the dream.

[23:14]

And could it be that our waking life is similar to a dream like this? That the mind has this power, and we know it has the power, because we all experience this incredible power creating three-dimensional world. in the dream, and the power of creating the subject in the dream, and the power of creating duality, the illusion of a separation of subject and object in the dream. That's a powerful mind. It creates a completely convincing sense of a separate subject and object, whereas it's one mind manifesting as the appearance of a separate subject and object. It's one mind expressing itself as a separate subject and object. It's one mind taking form as the feeling and sensation and experience of separate subject and object in a dream.

[24:29]

So Buddha means the awakened one. We often talk about awakening, as the Buddha discovered. So that's a nice metaphor, like awakening from sleep or dream. But today, I'd like to explore more of this possibility of not actually awakening from the dream, but remaining in the dream, but becoming lucid in the dream. You may have heard of lucid dreaming, which simply means that while you're dreaming at night, you suddenly remember or you notice that you're dreaming. You somehow recognize the fact that you're dreaming while you're dreaming, and you don't wake up. You continue to dream. It's lucid dreaming.

[25:35]

And I've seen some studies say that most people sometimes, at least once in their lifetime, will have at least one lucid dream just naturally. And it seems that some people are just naturals. They have a lot of lucid dreams naturally. And also studies say that kids, younger kids, are often more lucid in their dreams. And as they grow older, they lose disability, which kind of makes sense to me. that kids can live in a kind of imaginary world much more freely, and maybe as we get older, we're told to, like, in various ways, we're trained, and we're trained to treat things more solidly and more real than we did as a child. And maybe that's part of the reason you lose this lucidity and ability.

[26:38]

But so some people just naturally have lucid dreams once in a great while or sometimes regularly. And there's also practices to cultivate lucid dreaming. There's a whole world of lucid dreaming practitioners, a whole community of lucid dreamers that using it as a as an entertainment, as a practice, as a kind of therapy, all kinds of ways. And if you start exploring the internet, there's many, many, there's all kinds of apps for your phone that are kind of have tools and methods to help you develop lucid dreaming. And then on top of that, in Tibetan Buddhism, there's the practice of dream yoga, which is basically lucid dreaming, cultivating and practicing the ability to dream lucidly.

[27:44]

And then to not just use that as kind of entertainment and fun, but to actually start developing Dharma practice while you're asleep in your dreams. Which is a nice possibility because we're asleep like a third of our lives. If we lived to be 90, we've been asleep for 30 years. That's no small... So if we could use that time as a kind of Zen practice time, how wonderful. Not so easy, I think, but there is this possibility and there's a whole community of dream yoga practitioners. Once you become a little bit more proficient at entering lucidity and dreams, then you can start to kind of like test the edges of of beliefs and fears and so on in the dream state that actually kind of carries over into the waking state.

[28:52]

That's like a very shorthand version of dream yoga as a Buddhist practice. Zen, we don't talk about this so much. We just, we do talk about the dreamlike nature. all experience while sleeping and awake. But I bring up this issue of lucid dreaming because I see it that bodhisattvas, let's put aside the fully awakened Buddhas who might actually awaken from the dream and no longer experience a world at all. I think the bodhisattvas, that's the path I'm devoted to at this time. They kind of like a vow to remain in the dream because that's where there's all these discontent beings appearing. But they also vowed to become lucid in the dream.

[29:54]

I would even say that that's one version of the Bodhisattva vow when we're talking about dreams. It's a kind of two-pointed vow. One is to stay in the dream, in order to benefit others in the dream land that we humans and other sentient beings live in, but also to become lucid in the dream. In other words, to recognize it as a dream also. So both of those. And some would emphasize more the importance of becoming lucid in the dream, and some would emphasize more the importance of It just doesn't matter for that usage as long as we're staying in this world and benefiting beings there. Really, they're both important for the Bodhisattva path. And one could even say that the reason why the Bodhisattvas vow to become lucid in the dream of their life, to recognize it as a dream, is so that they can be more effective.

[31:09]

benefiting dream beings. For example, in a kind of extreme version of the dream dragon chasing us in a sleeping dream, if we're not lucid, we're just going to be totally terrified and just trying to get away. And our sense of the separate self is going to be more and more solidified and contracted as we look for any escape route to protect me. If we were to become lucid in such a dream, maybe that's an especially challenging one to start with. But just to make the point, if we were to become lucid in that dream, in other words, this dragon is actually a dream dragon. And I, the one running from it, am a dream runner, escapee. If the whole thing is a dream, maybe without waking up from it. can start to become even a little bit more kind of playful and maybe stop running for a second and turn around and look at the dragon and say, may I help you?

[32:23]

Yes, may I help you? I would love to be able to face dragons in such a way. whatever our particular dragons are chasing us. And it might not be in a lucid dream that the dragon just disappears. The dragon is actually in a sleeping dream, our own mind's creation may still continue to talk to us. That's what the world of lucid dreaming is like while asleep. We stay in the dream means the mind keeps conjuring up all this world of dragons and so on. But the, and even the relationship, like, there's me over here talking to the dragon over there, but I know it's all just one mind manifesting that way in a lucid dream. And now I can have a conversation, one part of the mind with another, in a kind of skillful way.

[33:29]

Maybe in waking life, it could be a little bit like this. Now, It's good to remember here that in awakening life, we're not saying that all of you are just my mind, are just Kokyo's mind. In a way, the version of you that I'm experiencing, I would understand, is my mind's version of you. And yet, the Buddhas teach that there are many, many different minds. that are interactive, they're dependently arising, they're interdependent minds that are all creating their own dreams. And the dreams are miraculously, amazingly overlapping and affecting each other. Even in some Buddhist traditions, even the material world that we share,

[34:36]

We can both look at a tree and say that's a tree. Some Buddhist teachings go so far to say there really isn't any material tree there at all. But because our minds are very similar in projecting worlds, we're seeing a very similar projection, a similar mental projection. But there's nothing behind it. There's no physical stuff. It's just many, many different minds with their own unique patterns all interacting. Whereas in an actual sleeping dream, it's really, for the most part, just our own minds creating all this stuff. So that's a little difference between the waking dream and the sleeping dream. If anyone's ever seen the movie Inception, That's where they start to play with.

[35:38]

In the dream world, within lucid dreams, there can be different minds interacting. And maybe, some people might say, maybe this is possible in actual sleeping dreams, that different people might be dreaming something very similar. But I don't think we want to go too far in that direction now. But just to reflect on the power of the mind in a sleeping dream to create the sense of duality into subject and object and the possibility of lucid dreaming, like you can know that you're dreaming and the mind can continue to create this illusion of a subject and an object in the dream. That's like proof that it's possible for all of us. to know what that's like or sleep.

[36:44]

So it's not saying that that's exactly how it is when awake, but it's proof that the mind can create such a convincing reality. And so maybe the waking life could be quite similar. I think that's why the Buddhas in these perfection of wisdom sutures keep bringing up that all things are like a dream, like an illusion. It doesn't mean that things don't exist at all, have no reality at all. It just means that they don't exist the way they appear to. Their reality is not the way that they appear as separate from ourselves, for example. So... All that is some background on Prajnaparamita dreaming. Then in Zen, we have some stories about this too.

[37:48]

Like one of the Chinese Zen ancestors, Yangshan. One time he dreamed while asleep, I think this means, but it doesn't specify exactly. But he had this dream that he went up to Maitreya, a future Buddha's celestial palace, and was sitting in the second seat next to Maitreya. And one of the practitioners in Maitreya Buddha's assembly struck the mallet and said, today it's the turn for the one in the second seat to teach the Dharma. And Sayangshan, in his dream without missing a beat, said something like, the great vehicle, the Mahayana, is beyond all ideas of existence and non-existence and so forth.

[38:54]

So that's a Zen koan. And in the In The Gateless Barrier, a collection of koans, the compiler wrote a verse about this story saying, in broad daylight, under the blue sky, he expresses a dream within a dream. How totally absurd. He deceived the entire assembly. So it's saying that Yangshan, dreaming he was up in Maitreya's celestial, taught the dharma. And when he was asked to teach the dharma, and in his dream, he said that in the great vehicle, this Mahayana is totally free from all ideas of true existence and non-existence.

[40:02]

So he expressed how the dream is within the dream. You could say a dream is free of truly existing dragons, but it's also free of totally non-existent dragons. The dragon does appear in the dream. It's not that there's nothing at all. It's a dream appearance. So it's kind of free from the two extremes of total non-existence because it appears. and free from the extreme of truly existing because it's just the mind's manifestation. So Yangshan's great practitioner was when he was dreaming and he was asked to express something. He kind of expressed something about how dreams are while he used to. And later, another Zen story is that Yangshan's Teacher Guishan was taking a nap one time, and Yangshan walked in.

[41:07]

Yangshan, remember, he was able to express the dream within the dream of Maitreya's palace. On another occasion, he walked in and he found his teacher taking a nap, and he was about to leave, and his teacher sat up and said, wait a minute before you go, listen to this old monk's dream. Listen to my dream for a minute. And his student, Yangshan, stood there in attention, ready to hear his dream. And Guishan, the teacher, said, please interpret my dream for me. And Yang Shan went in the other room and brought a bowl of water and a towel and handed them to his teacher. And his teacher, who had just arisen from his nap, washed his face and dried it.

[42:09]

Like that. And then another student, Shan Miem, came into the room. And the teacher, Guishan, said, Yang Shan and I have been... sharing miraculous activity. I asked him to, like, interpret my dream. He did it so well. And the one who just walked in showed me and said, I know, I know you were. I was listening from the other room. And the teacher, Guishan, said, well, now you try it, interpreting my dream. And Xiangyang went in the other room and made a bowl of tea and brought it back and offered it to his teacher. And the teacher said, you two disciples are like Shariputra and Maldayayana, the greatest disciples of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[43:13]

You are amazing, you two. That's another Zen story. Expressing a dream within a dream. Very, very ordinary. Interpret my dream is just these ordinary activities being played out. It's playing. He was sleeping and having some dream, but actually now he's awake. And will you interpret the dream that's happening right now? And interpret in Zen maybe means like actually enact it. Enact the dream. Bring the teacher some water and a towel. Bring the teacher a bowl of tea. What a perfect enactment of the dream they all share. You're sharing miraculous activity of sharing a lucid dream. And Dogen, we don't have much more time really, but...

[44:23]

This was all a warm-up to Dogen's essay called Within the Dream Expressing the Dream. Dogen. He says, you know, this is a page of Dogen essay that you can read on your own called Within a Dream Expressing the Dream. Dogen says, the place where the dream is expressed within the dream is the land of Buddhas and ancestors. is the assembly of Buddhas and ancestors. This Buddha land, this Zen Buddha land, is the land where people express something about a dream within the dream. In other words, these bodhisattvas and Zen ancestors are lucid dreamers. They have some sense that they're actually dreaming. but they're able to express something within the dream, even something about the dream, within the dream, to kind of help others become lucid within their dream.

[45:33]

One could say that's the Bodhisattva vow. The place where the dream is expressed within a dream is the land of Buddhism, Zen ancestors. It's the assembly of Buddhism, Zen ancestors. And Dogen says, every dewdrop manifested in every realm is a dream. And this dream is the bright, bright chips of the hundred grasses. Then he's saying, the bright, bright chips of the hundred grasses is like each particular manifestation is worthy of attention. It's not like, well, it's all a dream, so it's all just a murky, hazy kind of dream and whatever. It's not like that. This dream of the Buddhas and Zen ancestors is a very vivid and very lucid dream to the tip of every grass tip.

[46:47]

A hundred grasses is Zen for like... all appearances, all things of the world, and the radiant, glowing tips of the grasses. This dream is the bright, bright tips of each of the hundred grasses. I think he's expressing, within this dream, we're paying attention to every detail and particularity. Logan says, An ancient Buddhist said, now I express the dream within a dream for you. All Buddhas in the past, present, and future, and all the Zen ancestors are within a dream expressing the dream. So an ancient practitioner said that not only all the bodhisattvas and Zen ancestors, but even the Buddhas are within a dream.

[47:48]

They haven't really awoken. They're within a dream, expressing a dream. Because if they woke up from this dream, they might not be able to relate to the other dream beings because there wouldn't be any. I mean, in a sleeping dream, when we wake up from the dream, the dream is gone, gone, completely evaporates. So the Buddhists don't want to enter such a gone realm. as that kind of waking up in a dream. There are various stories how even waking up in such a way that you might be able to benefit dream beings, but I think for most of us, at least for myself, I can relate more to staying in this dream, continuing in this painful and joyful dream, and with all the other dreamers, a really... trying to find ways to remind myself that it's a dream.

[48:52]

In the lucid dreaming community, that's basically the practices to become lucid in the dream are while you're awake, you're cultivating various practices that will help you to question the validity of a dream while you're dreaming. The basic one that could apply to our conversation now is all day long, if you're really into cultivating this lucid dreaming, every hour, stop and ask, am I dreaming? And really, not just in a roadway, but look around the room and question, am I dreaming? And maybe check something to see if you might be dreaming. Say, like, what I like to do regularly is try to push your fingers through your palm in waking life. Because in a dream, If you were to say, I wonder if I'm dreaming now, and you do that, your fingers usually go right through your palm. So if you get used to this check while you're awake and when you're asleep, you made it a habit and something's a little funny in the dream, stop and check.

[50:01]

And then that's how you enter lucidity in the dream. We have to become questioners while we're awake. We have to start questioning our status quo perception. We're not just talking about projected thoughts and grosser delusions of like, that's, I don't like that person because they're not nice. Yes, we work on that stuff too, but here we're questioning our sensory perception. In the Mahayana, the Buddhas are saying our sensory perception, just direct perception of colors and sounds is faulty, is illusory. So we're question it in waking life, maybe we can question it while we're dreaming. And Dogen says there is no liberation other than expression of a dream within a dream. This dream is the entire earth.

[51:03]

The entire earth is balanced. And then this whole process of practice of first aspiring to become lucid in the dream, practicing lucid dreaming while we're awake, and realizing this dream as a dream, and so on, are all happening in a dream. So this kind of gradual progression of a lifetime of practice is all happening in one dream. So Dogen says it as Shakyamuni Buddha, And all the Buddhas and Zen ancestors each arouse the aspiration to practice for all beings. They cultivate practice and they realize complete, perfect awakening within a dream. This being so, the Buddha's way of transforming this painful world throughout his lifetime

[52:13]

is indeed created in a dream. Dovin says, all the Buddhist skillful methods are created in a dream to help beings in every possible way, relieve all possible suffering, but particularly the Buddhas are trying to help people become lucid in their dreams. and vow not to completely wake up from this dream, but to stay in the dream world that we share with all these other dreamers, the overlapping, interdependent dreams, and find skillful ways to playfully, because this dream world is a little more playful than a solid, fixed, separate world, playfully encourage the other to at least question whether it could be like a dream, particularly our own self-concerns.

[53:20]

And I think, I hope that it's clear that we can take care of dream beings as long as we're in the dream in all possible ways, in addition to helping people become lucid. Sometimes dreamers want to hear about lucid dreaming if they're really hungry or oppressed or something right so first we find out these skillful ways to help relieve suffering in more conventional ways and then the dreamers are a little more satisfied but they're not totally satisfied and that's where the buddhists say yeah because So it seems like you're over there and I'm over here. I'm over here and you're over there. That's like always going to be a little bit dissatisfying. So you have further teachings like all Buddhas and all Zen ancestors are expressing something about a dream, hopefully skillfully, within a dream.

[54:39]

dream can go on and on and will go on and on. I kind of have the feeling this is the kind of dream I don't feel like I'm going to wake up from this dream anytime soon. So I vow to become more and more lucid with it. These particular expressions our dreams within this ongoing dream can now come to an end and we can descend from Maitreya's palace and wash our face and have a bowl of tea if you'd like. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive.

[55:46]

Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[56:07]

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