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Dream Yoga

ANCIENT WISDOM

Nyingma Teachings on Dream Yoga,

Meditation and Transformation

Releasing Oneself from Essential DelusionNotes on the Written Instruction in the

Vajrasattva Mind Accomplishment of

Dreams

To take advantage of dream yoga, the ngondro needs to be complete.

From the completion stage practices and should be worked up to instead of just jumping into the

practice without preparation.

- Progresso Topics must be studied and understood and confidence must be gained in

foundational practices

Refuge Paramitayana Detailed reasoning for the path must be resolved

o This is part of the completion stage practices and is connected in the Kagyu schoolto the 6 yogas of Naropa (practices of illusory body)

In the context of meditation during the day, this practice is used to continue the retreat into the night.

Aspirations are made during the day and as one falls asleep in order to support the dream practice.

"Tonight may I dream many dreams - clear dreams, good dreams- and may I recognize the

dreams as dreams," or "May I apprehend my dreams."

As one falls asleep you use visualizations and aspirations, augmented by body positions.

At night strongly disciplining yourself in the quintessential instructions

Lie down to sleep with the resolve to apprehend your dreams.

Let your behavior be unhurried and calm, and as for the mind:

In your heart (imagine) a white, stainless AH

Sending forth varicolored rays of light,

Which melt samsara and nirvana into light and

dissolve them into the AH.

Fall asleep with the sense of a clear vision,

Like the moon rising in a stainless sky.

It is sure your dreams will be many and they will be clear.

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Various trainings are undertaken in the dreams, there is purpose beyond simply having a lucid dream.

Training in transforming the dream

When you apprehend (the dream) like that,

Reflect that all the appearances of the dream

Can be transformed in any way.

One can be increased to many,Many can be reduced to one.

And peaceful and wrathful can be changed into

each other.

Training in illusory liberation

In the pure and impure realms,

Dissolve beings and other phenomena and observe

their mode of existence.

Attend like that, and apply it to the nighttime.

Whatever you see, bring forth your imagination.

The absorption of unification with the pure illusory body

Then look upon your divine body as an illusion

And fall asleep strongly imagining this.

If, while sleeping, appearances of ferocious animals,

Fire, flood, and other dangers arise,

With the sense that they are non-existent and merely appearances,

Meditate on them as being merged with your mind and on your divine body as an illusion.

The absorption of unification with the clear light

During the day, (think) 'This is a dream;

It is emptiness, like space.

And place the illusion in the nature of clear light

That itself is empty and clear, like space.

From the sphere of lucidity you arise in divine form,Increasing and transforming yourself and so on.

Maintain this awareness during the day without distraction,

And at night apply the immutable essential oral instructions.

The absorption of unificatio1J with tire intennediate state

If, during the night, you familiarize yourself with

the inseparability

Of the illusory body, the dream and the intermediate state,

Imagine the play of the spiritual body (dharmakaya)

through the gradual dissolution

Into the ultimate clear light of death.

Imagine all self-arising deceptive appearances

As the arisings of the ill usory fulfilled body (sambhogakaya).

Attend to the emptiness and lack of true existence

of the entrance ways,

And thus train in the displays of the emanation body (nirmanakaya).

Be mindful in that way again and again,

And look upon the environment and its inhabitants

as a palace and deities.

Finally you will arise as an illusory body,

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But you will have personal freedom in the intermediate state.

Having heard and retained the oral transmission

of the profound meaning

Of the practical instructions, from the platform of my senses,

I offer the turning of the wheel of dharma

To the glory of fortunate trainees.By the merit of receiving this, may all animate beings

Purify the two obscurations and all mental imprints,

And may they swiftly, without difficulty, attain

The primordial awareness of clear light and the illusory body.