Mindfulness Slogan 2 - Regard All Dharmas As Dreams

This slogan is this processes first attempt to get us to reflect and see that our minds, without mindfulness training, can end up being too 'tight' and closed minded.

Meditation and these slogans are about opening those minds up quite like how a can opener works.

We end up perceiving everything as too real with regards our personal and conditioned perception. We need at times to lighten up and this slogan repeated to ourselves helps us do just that.

Al our experiences are fleeting.......so lets stop with all the pressure.

Reality and what it is, is such a huge topic in Western philosophy never mind Eastern. One commonly spoken maxim is that 'there is perception and there is reality'. Are people speaking about how they perceive a situation or reality. So many women, as TV star Gok Wan repeatedly shows, perceive themselves as bigger in size than what they actually are.

In reality they are 25% less in size than what they perceive.

Sometimes our maps of the world are not the world. All experiences are fleeting. Once they happen they are over. But we have an amazing capacity to replay them over and over in our minds dousing ourselves with stress biochemicals such as adrenaline and cortisol which cause us to age faster.

Bad enough an argument happens once but do we really need to replay it in the YouTube of our minds seven times over?

Our untrained minds are like glue! They just keep sticking to things. Starting in meditation we constantly have to keep trying to detach our minds from all the things it has become attached to.

Dharma  is a  Sanskrit word for phenomena. So therefore we should regard all phenomena - both good and bad as being dreamlike.

In other words we could be slightly detached from our attached way of perceiving things that can be quite rigid. This can lead at times to 'my way or the highway' type attitude.

What you think might be good for you may not be for someone else. By this I am not speaking of 'idiot insight' like enabling an alcoholic and therefore not applying this slogan correctly or indeed any slogan.

What this slogan is trying to do is introduce again and again to your mind is - openness.

To keep us out of our ego hedgehog curling by rolling up in a ball and keeping the world out and sometimes even a better way of doing things.

Discovering a sense of openness, a natural quality of your mind, is such a landmark moment in mindfulness training and practice. We don't have to take everything so seriously. Or be so reactive we can have some space....

This slogan will also help those with the Lifetrap of 'Unrelenting Standards'. 

Our choice if we are stressed is between continuing with being attached to things or start to detach and let go and trust and get some space and serenity.

The more attached to things we are we will have little peace.

We still have to operate but this slogan is speaking of operating with an openness of mind.

An open mind can accommodate more for it is - when you examine it and not take my word for it - vast like space but with one defining quality which you have to discover through your own meditation practice.

The key thing here is to reflect on the experience of the dreams that we have.

One thing to note is that we WATCH the dream - mostly. We even WATCH ourselves in the dream in a few cases. Who is that? What part of the mind is doing that? Is it thought? What is it?

We observe from a distance which is natural detachment. So if we can be detached naturally from it all in a dream then we can do the same in the waking life as if it is all a dream.

The more and more you investigate this slogan and reflect on it the better. You will see how much of what we experience is dreamlike.

The Aboriginal wisdom culture of Australia has an understanding similar to this in terms of what they call dreamtime. They understand this state of mind as more real than the waking life and they have spiritual reasons for saying so that you will discover the more that you study and practice. Here is an example of their art depicting what they see and perhaps where they go in their dreams.

This slogan of Regard All Dharmas As Dreams is so relevant to the current pandemic crisis. Thousands are losing their lives. This leaves us with more ethical responsibility to live our lives to the fullest in their memory and not waste it worrying about things that don't matter and to now, while will still have the chance, to deepen our practice which will give rise to wisdom and compassion which will enhance our lives and those around us.

The current COVID-19 pandemic will give many who have learned to meditate time to practice and even have a retreat. Take stock of their lives, prioritise what matters and wake up from the DREAM of all the human doing and return to be a human being and to.....

Discover Their Beautiful Mind....