Awareness while sleeping

[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

[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]

[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

[Tai Do]

Thank you for the books suggestion. I will see if I can get them and study this 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, 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]

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]

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

[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

[Jundo]

Here are an analogy I sometimes use that may illustrate the point.

So, imagine that this world is rather a fiction, like a movie on a screen. We sentient beings are like characters in the film and its story. Most folks do know realize this, so get caught up in the storyline ... the violence and love scenes and tragedy and jealousies, the greed and anger etc. etc. When we do so to excess, or in harmful ways, it is bad, it is unenlightened ignorance.

So what some Eastern philosophies do in response (including some forms of Buddhism) is to say that we need to wake up to the fact that this is a movie and story, strip away all the scenes and drama as fakery, and get back to the "Truth" which is the totally pure white screen and bare light. Only that is peace, union, timelessness etc. The point is for the lights in the theatre to come up, the film to be removed from the projector, and one finds themselves in a theatre with naked white light illuminating a blank screen that is the Godhead or Mind or Dharmakaya Buddha or whatever. Something like that.

Many Zen folks, such as our Master Dogen, say that doing so is something of a mistake. The screen and light is the source of the movie, but actually, the movie is the screen and light come to life ... otherwise the light and blank wall are lifeless. An empty screen is not "Truth." In fact, Truth is the whole thing come alive in the story, and each thing in the story. It is not a "falsehood," so much as a "real story, a real movie." The point is the tale happening, and the wall of light moves, laughs and cries and finds its meaning with the characters. (We also realize that the characters ... you and me ... are thus each other in other guise, and the whole thing, all the light.) The peace union and timelessness of the light --is-- all the beautiful and ugly scenes of this world to those wise enough to see.

It may be a "story," but it is our real story, our life. Our task to is realize so (that it is rather a bit of theatre, yes), but then we need to get on with acting it well. If the whole universe went to all the trouble of making this bit of theatre with all this scenery and us characters, the point is probably to live it and act it out with wisdom! We should live it as Truth, even if there is more to it than meets the eye. For us, that means our doing so with less excess desire, less anger and violence, etc. Our life may be a fiction in one sense, but it is a real story, and really our lives. You are your thoughts, you are your body, and they are no obstacles for they are just the light

(However, when you do not realize such fact, and do not know the light, falling into greed, anger and divided thinking ... they are obstacles.)

And, yes, we are the light, we are the screen ... and there is more to this world than meets the eye. Our characters appear in the story suddenly, live for a few scenes, then disappear. However, since we are the light and whole production all along, truly we never really go anywhere or come from anywhere else. It is something like a great DVD which holds the movie, and we are always there even if it appears that we come and go and things are always changing.

So, Zen is a bit more subtle than just realizing the light of some bare awareness.

Gassho, J
stlah

[Jundo]

Yes, I've been leaning Advaita Vedanta for some time. According to spme answers above it seems that I've failed to grasp some fundamental difference between Advaita and Zen

Hi Ester,

I believe that there is much similarity between Advaita Vedanta and Master Dogen's Zen, but also something richer in the latter. It is a subtle, but important difference.

My impression is that, in Advaita, there is some underlying Mind or Brahma or Godhead or Awareness that one is to attain, and it is Real, but the things and events of this world are somehow not real, false, delusion. The things of this world are somehow a block to realizing this Awareness. One must get past the "unreal" things of this world to realize Awareness.

For Master Dogen, Mind and the small things, beings and moments of this world are faces of each other, the Whole Thing. Mind alone would be rather barren, empty (in the bad meaning) and lifeless without the life and chaos of this world to bring it to life. However, most people of this world get lost in the events of this world, so it is delusion for them when they only know that one side. However, when one realizes the Truth, then one knows the things of this world in a new way. The things, people and events of this world are no longer known as they were before. There is no need to "strip away" the things of this world to reach Awareness, but rather, the things of this world are Awareness, and Awareness is the things of this world when realized so. Such has been here all along even if we could not see. Life is something like a dream, but a real dream which we need to dream well. It is much better than thinking of this world and its people and events as just some "obstacle." Rather, they are all jewels.

Something like that.

Gassho, J
stlah

PS - The essay I just posted is about knowing this chaotic world as sacred in such way LINK

PPS - There is a pretty good book by a scholar/practitioner on Zen and Advaita, if you want to dive deep. LINK

[Bion]

Ummm...I guess I'm everything combined and I'm the pillow, and I'm you, and I'm the sky...
But aren't ultimately we-me-us-all awareness?
Is Advaita Vedanta too mixed up with my zen?

Thanks!
Gassho,
Ester
Satlah

I think ULTIMATELY, or at the "core" or "essence" we are emptiness. We are interdependence and a product of causes and conditions. If I start to take "myself" apart I could never reach that 1 specific thing that sits independently from everything else, that 1 thing that everything is built on. Awareness does not reside independently somewhere, just waiting to be inserted into a body. This is precisely what we say in the Heart Sutra : "all things are expressions of emptiness".

Gassho
sat lah

[Houzan]

I'm I not the observer?

Thanks!
Gassho,
Ester

Yes, but YOU are just as much what is being observed. Therefore, there is no you, and that is why you also are everything.

I’ll try to explain my understanding, but I’m probably failing miserably. I am no teacher or unsui, so please bear that in mind.

If there is something you can call fully “you”, that “you” must be something permanent - something you fully control. Something independent. Running the analysis on your mind and body, there is nowhere or nothing you fully control (incl. your awareness). So you are not fully you. Other things and people also partly control all aspects of your body and mind. There is interdependency, there are causes and conditions. Therefore they are also you. It’s the same the other way around. So everything is you and you are also everything. The borders we place on our "self" break completely down.

Sorry for running long.

Gassho, Hōzan
Satlah

[Shoshin]

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)

Thanks for offering this psychological perspective. You are right to suggest we should ask first if we aren't actually aware while sleeping. It's a good point and question.

Gassho,
Ester
Satlah