(Half bell)
(Bell)
Dear Thay, dear Sangha,
My question is about consciousness.
I wonder if you could tell us something
about the relevance or the importance of dreams in our sleeping time?
About dreams?
If we remember the dream,
it might be very helpful.
Because some dreams are like other events,
it has a meaning.
Sometimes we are surprised
because during the day we did not think of that at all.
And yet, during the night, it appears like that as a surprise.
Maybe our body, our mind, our ancestors are trying to show us something.
Maybe an ancestor wants us to look into some bad matter.
Suppose you live in a country that is in a war.
People, children enjoy peace.
Whole day long, you speak about peace and you help people to practice in peace.
And yet, during the night, you saw yourself in a war situation.
And you run up to the bomb.
And you are forced into the army and you wake up.
You cannot imagine that.
So if you remember the dream,
you see that there must be a cause that makes the dream comes today.
Maybe you enjoy the peace in the country
but you ignore what is going on outside of the country.
And people continue to run under the bombings.
Children and adults continue to die.
So, we should not only enjoy peace
but we should be doing something.
We should suffer a little bit.
So that has the kind of energy,
we need some mud in order to grow lotus flowers.
And that is why I think each dream has its own message.
We can receive the message from our dreams.
And also during the time while we are not sleeping,
images can come like that, very suddenly.
All of them come from the depth of our consciousness.
There must be a cause.
They may want to remind us of our suffering.
In the practice of mindful eating,
when you stay in line waiting for the time you are served the food,
you practice mindful breathing,
you look around
and you see yourself living in a kind and beautiful environment.
You have brothers and sisters in the practice
And you can practice mindful breathing, mindful walking.
It is so beautiful.
And you enjoy the atmosphere and the energy of peace.
And when you take some food to put on your plate,
you say that: "My plate is empty now,
but in just a few minutes, it will be filled with good food."
And at the same time,
you realize that children in the third world, in a war country,
there are children who are holding broken plates like this
waiting for hours and do not have anything on it.
Suddenly compassion arises and there is some suffering.
The happiness is that, in no time at all, we have good thing out of it.
The suffering is that, there are children on the streets,
waiting and will have nothing to eat.
That suffering is helpful, makes us into a good human being.
So, getting in touch with suffering is good.
And that is why, we speak about the goodness of suffering.
And everything is like that,
a dream is made of non-dream elements.
And our suffering, our happiness is the same.
(Half bell)
(Bell)