You've probably all been there-just as you're gaining wakeful consciousness from sleep, you may catch vestiges from dream you had or even insights that almost seem like a "voice" speaking to you, that has a ring of authenticity that is pointing out something you don't typically grasp in ordinary waking consciousness. Well this am as I was coming out of sleep, (I didn't even remember the images that went with the "message"), had the "authentic" feel of an insight which told me that the reason we take birth in the human realm to use the buddhist term is to make us keep our noses to the grindstone. That is it told me that the astral realm(?), ("'m not too up on esoteric, Theosphist-like terms), the realm that exists between the reality of this world and what's beyond it, operates such that our thoughts cause our circumstances of that world to shift so quickly, (kind of like a hyperactive male who's got a bad case of TV channel surfing), that we literally never stay in 1 "place" long enough to be made to deal with our karma appropriately. While the laws of this world, the human realm is for better or worse our circumstances change very slowly in comparison and that grindstone keeps coming around.
In Buddhist thinking there are basically 6 realms of existence and they always speak of how the human realm is the ideal one for making progress toward enlightenment. Their version of a heavenly realm-the deva world-kind of reads like most Christians idea of heaven: you just cruise along blissfully happy, sort of resting on your spiritual laurels. However, since it is so blissful, not actually an ideal place in terms of completing the journey: not enough suffering to act as leavening/motivation to continue the journey. Of course, Buddhists believe in the "what goes up, must come down" theory of karma: eventually even devas "burn up" that karma and take birth in another realm and continue on until reaching enlightenment. Buddhists also speak of other realms such as hungry ghost, animal, and hell realms, all involving so much suffering that it would be moe difficult for a being to have the "emotional/psychological space" to see through it. I don't buy into traditional buddhist cultures' notions of rebrith as animals, etc. but certainly believe there is metaphorical truth to it and don't discount the possiblity the names conform to actual realms outside of this world-though per Buddhist thought-dwelling there is impermanent.
Getting back to the human realm and my dream...Mahayanist Buddhists love to emphasize the impermanence, "emptiness" of all phenomena and use as 1 of their metaphors for it, seeing all that occurs to one in this life as a dream...i.e. impermanent or empty of solid identity. They use that as a strategy to encourage the practitioner to let go of a grip on their unenlightened views which may be so tight they cannot move that view along. But then I think of that great Buddhist sage Nagarjuna. Vajradhara will have to help me out with the verbatim quote, but said something like he thought it sad those who were stuck in viewing things as permanent, but he felt sadder still for the "hopeless ones" who viewed everything as empty and therefore did not properly attend to the phenomena presenting itself to them-the premature mouthing of a view that said nothing matters since it is all empty.
Jungian notions of dreams are that a dream either compensates for a view that has become too one-sided or complements a view-reinforces it as being the "right direction." Don't know in my case if my view fell to one side or the other of Nagarjuna's notion, but interesting dream "talk" whatever the moral.
Take care, earl
In Buddhist thinking there are basically 6 realms of existence and they always speak of how the human realm is the ideal one for making progress toward enlightenment. Their version of a heavenly realm-the deva world-kind of reads like most Christians idea of heaven: you just cruise along blissfully happy, sort of resting on your spiritual laurels. However, since it is so blissful, not actually an ideal place in terms of completing the journey: not enough suffering to act as leavening/motivation to continue the journey. Of course, Buddhists believe in the "what goes up, must come down" theory of karma: eventually even devas "burn up" that karma and take birth in another realm and continue on until reaching enlightenment. Buddhists also speak of other realms such as hungry ghost, animal, and hell realms, all involving so much suffering that it would be moe difficult for a being to have the "emotional/psychological space" to see through it. I don't buy into traditional buddhist cultures' notions of rebrith as animals, etc. but certainly believe there is metaphorical truth to it and don't discount the possiblity the names conform to actual realms outside of this world-though per Buddhist thought-dwelling there is impermanent.
Getting back to the human realm and my dream...Mahayanist Buddhists love to emphasize the impermanence, "emptiness" of all phenomena and use as 1 of their metaphors for it, seeing all that occurs to one in this life as a dream...i.e. impermanent or empty of solid identity. They use that as a strategy to encourage the practitioner to let go of a grip on their unenlightened views which may be so tight they cannot move that view along. But then I think of that great Buddhist sage Nagarjuna. Vajradhara will have to help me out with the verbatim quote, but said something like he thought it sad those who were stuck in viewing things as permanent, but he felt sadder still for the "hopeless ones" who viewed everything as empty and therefore did not properly attend to the phenomena presenting itself to them-the premature mouthing of a view that said nothing matters since it is all empty.
Jungian notions of dreams are that a dream either compensates for a view that has become too one-sided or complements a view-reinforces it as being the "right direction." Don't know in my case if my view fell to one side or the other of Nagarjuna's notion, but interesting dream "talk" whatever the moral.
Take care, earl