Hi all,
This is the first time I’m starting a topic. I’m not sure if this is the right section, but I just wanted to ask about how you experience “dreaming” and “awakening.”
I read Jundo Roshi in another section saying that Buddhism helps you see that you are in a dream. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but I sometimes (often) experience life as something “strange.”
In literature, there is a term for this. In Spanish, it’s “extrañamiento,” but I believe the English equivalent is “defamiliarization” (though I could be wrong).
Right now, I’m sitting in my room, looking around, aware that I am alive—and that feels strange. It’s as if my body truly senses that I am on Earth, spinning with it. I feel the movement. Other times, I feel—not just think—about all the people dying and being born at every moment, all around the world. Everything in the room seems full of meaning and presence—each glass, each cushion—like each object holds significance beyond itself. Sometimes, I even avoid buying things because I sense that each item carries so much within it.
I see this room like a scene from a theater—as if it’s not real. Or maybe it is, but it feels both strange and real, so unfamiliar that it almost seems unreal. I don’t feel like I’m part of the play. It’s as if I’m watching from the outside, sitting in the audience, fully aware of being an observer while the world performs its play. Yet, at the same time, I am in the play—I am a character in it, playing a role. But I’ve always struggled to identify with a single role, with just one story, because I could be all the stories, be everyone.
Sometimes, I try very hard to step in and play the game—I talk about all the worldly things—but deep down, I know I’m just playing. It’s as if something within me doesn’t believe in the game.
Thank you for reading.
Gassho,
Noel
Sat-lah
This is the first time I’m starting a topic. I’m not sure if this is the right section, but I just wanted to ask about how you experience “dreaming” and “awakening.”
I read Jundo Roshi in another section saying that Buddhism helps you see that you are in a dream. I don’t know if it’s the same thing, but I sometimes (often) experience life as something “strange.”
In literature, there is a term for this. In Spanish, it’s “extrañamiento,” but I believe the English equivalent is “defamiliarization” (though I could be wrong).
Right now, I’m sitting in my room, looking around, aware that I am alive—and that feels strange. It’s as if my body truly senses that I am on Earth, spinning with it. I feel the movement. Other times, I feel—not just think—about all the people dying and being born at every moment, all around the world. Everything in the room seems full of meaning and presence—each glass, each cushion—like each object holds significance beyond itself. Sometimes, I even avoid buying things because I sense that each item carries so much within it.
I see this room like a scene from a theater—as if it’s not real. Or maybe it is, but it feels both strange and real, so unfamiliar that it almost seems unreal. I don’t feel like I’m part of the play. It’s as if I’m watching from the outside, sitting in the audience, fully aware of being an observer while the world performs its play. Yet, at the same time, I am in the play—I am a character in it, playing a role. But I’ve always struggled to identify with a single role, with just one story, because I could be all the stories, be everyone.
Sometimes, I try very hard to step in and play the game—I talk about all the worldly things—but deep down, I know I’m just playing. It’s as if something within me doesn’t believe in the game.
Thank you for reading.
Gassho,
Noel
Sat-lah
Master Dogen would say that it is a "real play," the play is our world, is your life ... so find a nice role and do beautiful acting! It is "real acting" that is the real life of the world.
If you feel it a positive experience, and not an experience where you are losing yourself in a bad way, then it is probably a good insight.
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