Awareness while sleeping

[Green Ben]

Hi Ester

Well, I'm not offering any Zen answers, you've got those already, but from a physiological perspective, I wonder, are we really 'unaware' during sleep?

Although I sleep, my senses still function, so perception is still possible, as are mental formations, the thumping noise from one of the kid's bedrooms enters my 'sleeping awareness' and I wake momentarily to listen for any other sounds from that direction....no, they've gone back to sleep. Similarly, I can 'hear' other sounds through the night. When my sleep lightens, I might be 'aware' of the person next to me in the bed, or of the light rain outside. Were it not for this ability to remain partially 'aware' while asleep, humans may not have made it this far!

No teaching is intended in my comment, as I am a humble novice-priest with no teaching to offer.

Gassho, Tokan (satlah)

Small observation from my personal experience from a time when I was heavily practicing Zazen and lucid dreaming techniques. At that time, I would prepare for sleep by going into the yoga corpse asana and meditating. Frequently I found I was maintaining consciousness, or at least felt like I was maintaining consciousness, as a steady thread that continued into sleep.
I no longer aggressively practice lucid dreaming, so experience this less often now.

Gassho, Ben

sat today

[Tai Do]

Hi Ester,
I'm not a priest, just a lay practicioner, but from my reading and experience of sitting zazen since 2008, I found that the very identification of the self with any of the skhandas (form/body, sensations, perceptions, formations and consciousness/awareness) is a non-Buddhist view because it denies a foundational Buddhist teaching: not-self. It is not only a theoretical positions, but a deep insight given both by zazen and by the sutras ever since the earliest suttas. I can be wrong, bu the very idea of searching for a self in any of the skhandas (or really anywhere in the phenomenal world) is the very thing that lead us to dukkha. The self is nothing but a conceptual fabrication of the little mind (not the big Mind, the Absolute, Emptiness itself). Hope I could help with the discussion.
Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

[Jundo]

Hi Ester,
I'm not a priest, just a lay practicioner, but from my reading and experience of sitting zazen since 2008, I found that the very identification of the self with any of the skhandas (form/body, sensations, perceptions, formations and consciousness/awareness) is a non-Buddhist view because it denies a foundational Buddhist teaching: not-self. It is not only a theoretical positions, but a deep insight given both by zazen and by the sutras ever since the earliest suttas. I can be wrong, bu the very idea of searching for a self in any of the skhandas (or really anywhere in the phenomenal world) is the very thing that lead us to dukkha. The self is nothing but a conceptual fabrication of the little mind (not the big Mind, the Absolute, Emptiness itself). Hope I could help with the discussion.
Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

Hi Tai Do,

This is true, but is often misunderstood to mean that we are to strip away the self and find the Absolute/Big Mind and stay there, for "Big Mind" is Truth while this provisional world of samsara is false and an obstruction. That is not quite right.

Remember: Mountains are mountains, mountains are not mountains, mountains are mountains again.

At first, folks are lost in this world of division. Then hopefully, in practice, the emptiness of all divisions, and Wholeness are realized.

But, in fact, to the wise, both are then known as "not two," as two sides of the no sided coin.

The whole of reality, all Truth, is realized as fully held in every separate things, including you and me ... all faces of Buddha.

Thus, this "provisional self" of the skhandas is like a fable, a dream ... but it is a true fable, a dream that is the real dream of our life.

There is self, there is no-self, there is True Self which is each little self again.

The little self may have Dukkha, and True Self not ... but little self is True Self in other guise, thus there is Dukkha that is Liberation, Liberation in Dukkha, at once as one.

This is a Mahayana insight of the Hua-yan teachings as embraced by Zen Masters such as Master Dogen and the others.

Buddha is Three Pounds of Flax, you and me, each and all of the most ordinary things ...

Gassho, J
stlah

[Tai Do]

Thank you, Jundo. I don't want to hold and spread non Soto Zen ideas. I will look more about Hua-yan teachings.
Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

[Jundo]

Thank you, Jundo. I don't want to hold and spread non Soto Zen ideas. I will look more about Hua-yan teachings.
Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

This is an excellent book on Hua-yen, which was very influential on Zen Buddhism ...

https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02190-X.html?srsltid=AfmBOopq-sFi3rhtzOTDmYONyPgLWl7b1XII2NsuzBrFagOCkK9ecrFe

Another ...

https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-01179-3.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqGmY5e9wWbvlQcYQJEvxoAZ0y2S7l 9TNG_i4vdpjseJievLZ_l

And a short introduction from Wiki Roshi ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huayan

Chinese Chán was profoundly influenced by Huayan, though Chán also defined itself by distinguishing itself from Huayan.[76] Guifeng Zongmi, the Fifth Patriarch of the Huayan school, occupies a prominent position in the history of Chán. Mazu Daoyi, the founder of the influential Hongzhou school of Chan, was influenced by Huayan teachings, like the identity of principle and phenomena.[77] He also sometimes quoted from Huayan sources in his sermons, like Dushun's Fajie guanmen (Contemplation of the Realm of Reality).[78] Mazu's student Baizhang Huaihai also draws on Huayan metaphysics in his writings.[79]

Dongshan Liangjie (806–869), the founder of the Caodong [Soto] lineage, formulated his theory of the Five Ranks based on Huayan's Fourfold Dharmadhatu teaching.[80] The influential Caodong text called Sandokai, attributed to Shitou, also draws on Huayan themes.[79] In a similar fashion, Linji, the founder of the Linji school, also drew on Huayan texts and commentaries, such as Li Tongxuan's Xin Huayan Jing Lun (新華嚴經論, Treatise on the new translation of the Avatamsaka Sutra).[81][82] This influence can also be seen in Linji's schema of the "four propositions".[79] According to Thomas Cleary, similar Huayan influences can be found in the works of other Tang dynasty Chan masters like Yunmen Wenyan (d. 949) and Fayen Wenyi (885-958).[79]

Gassho, J
stlah

[Tai Do]

Thank you for the books suggestion. I will see if I can get them and study this teachings.
Gassho,
Tai Do
Satlah

[Shoshin]

Thanks everyone,
I'm finding the thread very interesting.
I guess I´m kind of integrating, kind of feeling it, that everything is one. Provably I'm not expressing it the "buddhist way" (I heard Jundo say that there is no "one" because for "one" to exist "two must exist too", and it makes kind of sense to me) but I hope I'm explaining myself clear enough.
Not identifying with "my" thoughts and emotions seems pretty easy to me lately. Although when I´m doing zazen "my thoughts" come "asking for tea" and I tend to fall into serving them a good cup, these thoughts appear out of the blue in the same way as the sounds of the street appear out of the blue. So, none of them seem more "mine" than the others. But I find it not so easy not to identify myself with my awareness.

I guess the trick here is the "my" in "my awareness": If "I" am not only "me", then I cannot be only "my" awareness. I cannot be only the awareness within "my" body". So, "I" am my body, "I" am the computer, "I" am you and therefore "I" am "your awareness" too. And here is when my brain goes because this awareness inside "my" body", this observer really, really seems real to me and independent from any other possible "awareness".

I guess that the answer is.... to do more zazen.

Thanks again.
Gassho,
Ester
Sat lah

[Jundo]

[StephenB]

I don't know if others who have had similar experiences with sitting zazen, and then going to sleep. There are times where my awake and intentionally conscious mind is a barrier to seeing myself as I truly am. When I fall asleep in a meditative state I find that I continue to process information throughout my rest, which includes dreaming. In some of my dream states I enter what I would describe as a state of Satori. Were the labels and mental constructs that I use to define myself are no longer a barrier. I have moments when I see myself as an integrated interconnected part of all that is. That all things come together in unity to make the experience of consciousness possible. It's a profound sense of calmness and well-being, as though there isn't a single atom or action in all of existence that is doing and being and behaving like it exactly should. I appreciate these moments of lucid clarity when I'm sleeping. While I have had this experience experience from time to time sitting zazen, it more frequently occurs while I sleep.

Gassho,
Stephen
stlah

[Jundo]

I don't know if others who have had similar experiences with sitting zazen, and then going to sleep. There are times where my awake and intentionally conscious mind is a barrier to seeing myself as I truly am. When I fall asleep in a meditative state I find that I continue to process information throughout my rest, which includes dreaming. In some of my dream states I enter what I would describe as a state of Satori. Were the labels and mental constructs that I use to define myself are no longer a barrier. I have moments when I see myself as an integrated interconnected part of all that is. That all things come together in unity to make the experience of consciousness possible. It's a profound sense of calmness and well-being, as though there isn't a single atom or action in all of existence that is doing and being and behaving like it exactly should. I appreciate these moments of lucid clarity when I'm sleeping. While I have had this experience experience from time to time sitting zazen, it more frequently occurs while I sleep.

Gassho,
Stephen
stlah

Lovely. You description resonates.

I do not know if I have had such a dream or not, as I rarely recall my dreams. I have had such moments on and off the cushion, however.

Lovely.

Gassho, J
stlah