In that very body, within that very dream
Soteriological dreaming technique in the tradition of Buddhist yogis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35469/poligrafi.2023.403Keywords:
dreams in Buddhism, Buddhist yogis and yoginīs, six dharmas, dream yoga, yogācāra, vijñāna, nirvāṇaAbstract
The first part of the paper briefly outlines the role of dreams in early Buddhism and their importance in establishing the continuity of the whole tradition, before presenting in the second part entirely new aspects of dreams in the Buddhist eremitic tradition, influenced by the Tantric spiritual horizon, in particular by a transformed concept of the body. The central part of the paper follows an analysis of the soteriological technique of dreaming (Tib. rmi lam) in the tradition of Buddhist yogis and yoginīs, based on the fragments of mahāsiddha Tilopa (Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa), Gampopa’s commentaries, collected in the treatise Dags po'i bka' 'bum, and findings from studies on Buddhist eremitic tradition in Ladakh in the region of the Indian Himalayas. The four stages of dream yoga are also highlighted in relation to other psychophysical soteriological techniques (the six dharmas, Skrt. ṣaḍdharma, Tib. chos drug). The philosophical and soteriological foundations of dream yoga are presented on the basis of the doctrine of consciousness in the yogācāra school, highlighting in particular the three modifications of consciousness presented by Vasubandhu. The last part the paper outlines the significance of training in the dreaming technique in the very process of dying that leads to the unconditioned state beyond life and death, nirvāṇa.
References
Bulkeley, Kelly. Dreaming in the World’s Religion. A Comparative History. New York and London: New York University Press, 2008.
Carter, Ross, trans. Dhammapada: The Sayings of the Buddha. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Nomadology: The War Machine. Seattle: Wormwood Distribution, 2010.
Flood, Gavin. The Tantric Body. New York: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2005.
GRETIL. »Vasubandhu: Trisvabhāvanirdeśa.« Accessed July 22, 2023. http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_vasubandhu-trisvabhAvanirdeza.htm.
GRETIL. »"Vasubandhu: Vimsatikakarika.« Accessed July 22, 2023. http://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/html/sa_viMzatikAkArikA.htm.
Guenther, Herbert V., trans. The Life and Teaching of Naropa. Massachusetts: Shambala, 1999.
Heruka, Tsang Nyön. The Life of Marpa the Translator. Seeing Accomplishes All. Translated by the Nalanda Translation Committee under the direction of Chögyam Trungpa. Boulder: Prajñā Press, 1982.
Heruka, Tsang Nyön. The Life of Milarepa. Translated by Andrew Qintman. Foreword: Donald. J. Lopez, Jr. New York: Penguin Books, 2010.
Kragh, Ulrich Timme. Tibetan Yoga and Mysticism. A Textual Study of the Yogas of Nāropa and Meditation Mahāmudrā in the Medieval Tradition of Dags po. Tokyo: The International Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2015.
Mullin, Glenn H. The Practice of the Six Yogas of Naropa. Ithaca, New York: Shambala Publications, Snow Lion Publications, 2006.
Petek, Nina. “Sopotja zgodnjega puščavništva v Egiptu in Indiji [Counterparts of Early Eremitism in Egypt and India].” In Egiptovsko puščavništvo [Egyptian Eremitism], edited by Jan Ciglenečki, Franci Zore, and Nena Bobovnik, 179–203. Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete [Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts], 2021.
Petek, Nina. Na pragu prebujenja. Svetovi sanj v budizmu [On the Threshold of Awakening: Worlds of Dreams in Buddhism]. Ljubljana: Beletrina, 2022.
Samuel, Geoffrey. Civilized Shamans: Buddhism in Tibetan Societies. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.
Stewart, Jampa Mackenzie, trans. The Life of Gampopa. The Incomparable Dharma Lord of Tibet. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1995.
Torricelli, Fabrizio. “The Tibetan Text on Tilopa’s Ṣaḍdharmopadeśa.” East and West 46, no. 1/2 (1996): 145–166.
Torricelli, Fabrizio and Ācārya Sangye T. Naga, trans. The Life of the Mahāsiddha Tilopa. New Delhi, Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2003.
Vaidya, Parashuram Lakshman, ed. Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Reaserach in Sanskrit Learning, 1960.
Westerhoff, Jan. Twelve Examples of Illusion. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Open Access Policy and Copyright
This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors grant the publisher commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for sale to libraries and individuals.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal’s published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
