Dreaming?
Am I Tsem Rinpoche dreaming that I am a guy from New Jersey or am I a guy from New Jersey dreaming that I am Tsem Rinpoche???
I guess if I examine deeper, both do not have real identities and all are projected from my mind. From those projections I build and create my false realities…hmmm.
That’s called illusions arising from delusions the root cause of existing in suffering without control.
Tsem Rinpoche
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I dreamt of great Rinpoche and what does it means la
Hi la Rinpoche.
What do I have to do i i sees a snake in my dream.?
Hlo sir..last night I dream about cherry flowers ..well I want to know what does flower in dream signifies…thank u sir.
Chab su choe
Greeting Rinpochoe,
What all dream tells in our life, what are the dream usually people see, like black snake bite, u are jumping from a cliff suddenly u woke up, u been chased by big snake or any cows with horn burn…like that what’s this all tell us la.
From false delusion about oneself, we continue to create more karma every second.
Looking and thinking deeper in life , everything in this world is impermanent. Only one thing, which is a cause of illusion and sufferings wants to become permanent. It is human EGO, human disease. We always wants to hold to something, to grasp the moment, and to postpone the reality. Everything in human life, all objects, as well as all beings is always changing, inconstant, undergoes the cycle of repeated birth and death. Everything I own and experience in this waking life , will disappear one day. Nothing belongs to me, as I came to this world with nothing, just like a dream…..appearing and disappearing.
Thank you very much for this beautiful reply, dearest samfoonhei. Hope you are doing well these days 🙂
1984 Los Angeles-Left to right: Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen, His Holiness Kyabje Zong Rinpoche, monk assistant to Zong Rinpoche and the 18-year-old Tsem Rinpoche prior to ordination. Read more- https://www.tsemrinpoche.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/category/me
I was walking past a second hand shop on Western Ave selling old things. They had a Japanese-style clay Buddha which was beige in colour on the floor, holding the door open. I thought the shopkeeper would collect a lot of negative karma without knowing if he kept such a holy item on the floor as a doorstop. So I went in to talk to him, but he didn’t look like he wanted to talk or that he even cared. So I asked him the price and he said US$5. I purchased it so he did not collect more negative karma. I was 17 years old and that was in 1982.
I escorted my new Buddha home and washed it lightly and wiped it. I placed it on my altar and was happy with the Buddha. I would do my meditations, prayers, sadhanas, mantras and prostrations in front of this shrine daily. When I left for India in 1987, I could not bring this Buddha along and gave it to a friend. It was a nice size and I made offerings to this Buddha for many years in Los Angeles. In front of the Buddha I placed His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s photo. I remember I was so relieved that the price was affordable. But US$5 that time was still expensive for me but worth it I thought. But I was happy to have brought the Buddha home. Tsem Rinpoche
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Tsem Rinpoche at Kechara Forest Retreat, Bentong, Malaysia
Who am I? Mankind has been searching for the answer to human existence since the beginning of time. Along the way we discovered religions, we pray and worship beings supposed from higher realms who know more about the purpose of the universe than us. Yet is this all an illusion? Are you just an illusion? Is your dream real and your waking moments an illusion or it is the other way around?
If you are told now you live in the matrix. You are just a human battery and everything in the matrix is not real. So you are told the truth, whether you believe or not then what. Is it really going to be life changing now that you know or are you simply going to go back to doing exactly what you did yesterday. If it makes no difference than what does it matter who you are and why you are here?
The beauty about everything being an illusion of one’s mind is that illusion is what you create so it means you are the creator of your own reality.
Upon thinking this deeper, it made me realise that there is actually no me. Our bodies are being borrowed, we might need to return it at any moment, or have another being occupying this body that we have. All the “I” factor that our minds have came up with are all false, it only gives ourselves a sense of identity and that is it.
I dont know if I interpret RInpoche correctly, but what i feel relates is that many episodes of my life felt like a dream. Incidences I experienced somehow felt like they were not real and did not happen because what we were yesterday and today is different. We can’t even remember what we wore just yesterday most of the time. The lesson is things comes and go, experienced and forgotten. I can be someone different now from who I am tomorrow. Everything is impermanent. Only one thing is sure is what we create karma and karma creates us as long as we are stuck in the cyclic existence.
I find this very fascinating. It is proving that all we are ore will be are fake and just like a dream. I am wondering, am I a Malaysian white boy dreaming that I am a Kecharian or a Kecharian dreaming that I am a Malaysian white boy. My mind creates this projections and thus my mind would also be creating false identities of myself in my mind.
On a concept like this, it is not easy for everyone to understand the nature of our very own mind; like what we are, and who we are -and always changing, changing and changing, sometimes even without our own realisation! It is said that if we can realise our mind’s continuity of mental energy, like the flow of electricity from the generator through the wires until it lights a lamp, then we will be more able to control and understand it better and more precisely. Eventually, we be able to analyse our mind through meditation more easily, and could come to understand the difference between our body and mind, recognise the continuity of our own consciousness and even finally able to realise our previous lives too. Neverthless, as a source of consolation, like the Dalai Lama said, if we continue to contemplate on it again and again, in time realisation will definetly emerge.
Dear Rinpoche
It’s amazing! I have been going to several countries and purchased Dharma books on the way without much thought. I collected them. Last week, I stumbled across Sogyal Rinpoche’s The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying in my own book rack. I just finished chapter 4 and it discussed your thoughts above!!!
But anyway, it will really be amazing if I can just absorped this with no difficulties. All my suffering will be gone. But sometimes when I read Dharma books, although I understand it intellectually and have no doubt about its value, it’s just very hard to apply it since distractions and monkey thoughts that disturb my mind keep coming back. Analytical reasoning only calm me for a short period of time. I feel like fighting a loosing battle sometimes.
But anyway, I’ll keep trying. it’s my own karma to purify.
Much love
Valentina
Upon examining my life at a deeper level, most are unreal and things I take to be solid and real are in fact temporary and insubstantial. If we are not really who we think we are, then what are we fighting so hard for? The rat race, the corporate ladder is a never-ending spiral that doesn’t get us me anywhere that really matters. Time to rethink my life.
This reminds me of Chuang Chou, whom we had to read at my secondary school, and the story of him dreaming to be a butterfly.
I found it back through the magic of internet:
“Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly.
I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou.
Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again.
Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”
But Chuang Chou did not explain further, or at least not as clearly, as Rinpoche just did above, and it casts a fresh new light on this story I had almost forgotten.
… so,…what is it that I dream that I am or am not…o-ooh..
Thank you Rinpoche