Dream Yoga

[明安 Myoan]

I've been reading through "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.
I was wondering if doing this kind of dream yoga, i.e. with the four basic visualizations during the night of the chakras and the tiglés, is something you can try on your own to see if you want to explore it further?
Or is this the kind of thing that you need explicit direction from a teacher, e.g. you have to decide beforehand this is what you want to do and seek guided instruction.
I've been especially struck by the dream-like quality of waking experience lately, and interested in making better use of so much time spent asleep.

Thanks!

[Lhasa]

Here is a webcast teaching with TWR on Dream Yoga from last month. It might help answer your questions.

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/41879690

[Johnny Dangerous]

I've been reading through "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche.
I was wondering if doing this kind of dream yoga, i.e. with the four basic visualizations during the night of the chakras and the tiglés, is something you can try on your own to see if you want to explore it further?
Or is this the kind of thing that you need explicit direction from a teacher, e.g. you have to decide beforehand this is what you want to do and seek guided instruction.
I've been especially struck by the dream-like quality of waking experience lately, and interested in making better use of so much time spent asleep.

Thanks!

I seem to remember In the book he pretty much gives YOU the permission as the reader to practice it..personally with a thing like that I just take the teacher at their word, and ask my own teacher. If both answers are yes seems like no worries.

I believe he actually says something in the introduction like "I am trying something different by making this teaching freely available", it seemed pretty clear to me that he expected you to use the practices.

I was nearly certain that the book was meant to be a practical manual, but I could be wrong.

That said, personally I would look at getting a dream yoga teaching in whatever tradition you practice in, from a teacher, whenever possible. Just for consistencies sake.

[Virgo]

Yes, in the book Rinpoche says it is OK.

Kevin

[dimeo]

Hopefully someone can tell me if I'm off the mark here, but perhaps there's an idea that if we learn to see dreams as somewhat like life and life like a dream, then a whole new realm of potential possibility opens up to us. When in the teachings and sutras, there's teachings about 'emptiness' (shunyata) instead of it meaning the idea of 'nothing', another translation is 'potential' and 'openness'.

Quite typically a person will have a rather fixed idea in the mind toward perception of what is "true" and "real". With dream yoga perhaps this begins to change in daily life as well and we can learn to better see the open potential all around us?

[krodha]

Hopefully someone can tell me if I'm off the mark here, but perhaps there's an idea that if we learn to see dreams as somewhat like life and life like a dream, then a whole new realm of potential possibility opens up to us. When in the teachings and sutras, there's teachings about 'emptiness' (shunyata) instead of it meaning the idea of 'nothing', another translation is 'potential' and 'openness'.

Quite typically a person will have a rather fixed idea in the mind toward perception of what is "true" and "real". With dream yoga perhaps this begins to change in daily life as well and we can learn to better see the open potential all around us?

Śūnyatā is never meant to be 'nothing', the sūtras are quite clear about that. And yes emptiness implies potentiality and dynamism, if things truly existed (because they would exist independently of causes or conditions) then there would be no way for anything have dynamic potentiality.

[明安 Myoan]

From what I've gathered from the book I mentioned, dream yoga is ideal for revealing this potentiality, showing the ways that we partition our experience in very limiting ways. So we only end up ever seeing our take on things, and not much outside it.
There are some very interesting suggestions of things to do in lucid dreams in that book to soften this habit, including making ourselves as huge as a planet or as small as a cell, multiplying objects, multiplying ourselves into many emanations, slowing down time, etc.
So much investment goes into maintaining sets of qualities, from "me the man who has this kind of body" to "me the distracted meditator who constantly battles thoughts".
Dream yoga seems ideal for suspending some of this kind of limitation.
Unfortunately, it takes a lot of hard work

I asked a lama I know about it. He said you could try such practices on your own, but that the results might be disappointing. I don't doubt that a teacher would be invaluable in this.

I haven't tried the four-step process with the different visualizations every two hours yet. I'm a bit intimidated by it.
I'm just keeping a dream journal for now.

[Grigoris]

During the webcast he was asked a similar question and ha answered quite clearly that the practice definitely requires instruction from a teacher. I have received a different (simpler) practice from a Kagyu lama and I guarantee you that the results can be quite disconcerting. Best to have the support and instruction of a teacher on this one.

[Simon E.]

During the webcast he was asked a similar question and ha answered quite clearly that the practice definitely requires instruction from a teacher. I have received a different (simpler) practice from a Kagyu lama and I guarantee you that the results can be quite disconcerting. Best to have the support and instruction of a teacher on this one.

+1

[Virgo]

Yes, in the book Rinpoche says it is OK.

Kevin

I feel pretty stupid. I am looking it over and I think I made an error in interpretation the last time I read the book (a year or two ago).

It may not be permissible without transmission.

I apologize.

May all be well.

Kevin

[Lhasa]

TWR said in the webcast, that if you want to use the mantras, the Goddess and symbols exactly as presented in the tradition and in the book, then you need formal transmission. What he presented/transmitted in the webcast is direct, live instruction on how you can do the Dream Yoga without the traditional formal transmission. You have transmission for the informal practice. You can write to him via ligmincha.org if you have questions. If you go back and listen again, he actually gives you permission to call on the Dream Goddess before you go to sleep.
There is also an online Dream Yoga course on Glidewing.com, coming up later this year, in which you can ask Rinpoche questions as you go through the course.

I started doing Dream Yoga over a year ago just from the book and cds without any permission or transmission. I just wrote to TWR and told him I was doing it. I've had lucid dreams, Dakini dreams, lucid dreams with both Lopon Tenzin and TWR, no problems for me. This practice has deepened since watching the live webcast.

It's best if you ask Bonpo Lamas about Bonpo practices. There is still a lot of prejudice against Bonpos from some of the Tibetan Buddhists and asking one of those Lamas about a practice he's never done from a tradition he isn't in, really isn't fair.
You might have more success if you write to Tenzin Rinpoche and tell him you want to do this practice and ask for his blessing. Maybe we can all ask him to give the formal transmission via webcast.

[明安 Myoan]

Yes, the phase of practice where you deliberately generate wrathful dreams gives me pause.
I'll personally keep things in the realm of trying to recognize awareness in dreams instead of utilizing energies and deities I have no experience or instruction with. It seems like my own skepticism and noobishness would be the biggest hindrances there.
For now anyway.

[Grigoris]

The only instruction he gave during the webcast was the preliminary/preparatory section on viewing waking "reality" as a dream.