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Chris's Crazier Question #3
Earthninja
WandererWest Australia Veteran
in Philosophy
Namaste Hello!
I was having a ponder about this, I like a good ponder so I thought I would share.
3 How do you know, when you wake up, that what is going on is real? Could this all just be your own personal dream with none of it being real? How do you know you are actually "you" and not just dreaming this whole universe and story. 
1
Comments
"Regard all dharma as dreams" http://www.elephantjournal.com/2009/02/buddhist-lojong-slogan-regard-all-dharmas-as-dreams-commentary-pema-chodron/
On an absolute level, everything IS a dream. But I also currently live on a relative level, so I still have to roll my bones out of bed and wash the dishes. Perhaps we are all living The Truman Show.
Now "me" being me is a whole other matter. I'm really not sure about anything, however.
I think people have to give themselves credit and they can't do that if they are always questioning their own reality.
...All Dreams Will Cease Of Themselves !
The eyes are your awareness. The instant you lose awareness of just what you are doing at the moment, you are dreaming. Dreaming means being carried away by your wandering thoughts and unable to stop them. As in actual dreams, these wandering thoughts are either connected with the past, or anticipate the future. They are not concerned with the present, because the present is just keeping your mind on your method.
People often concentrate intensely on the method for a short time and then say, "Well, I'll take a break now. I'll just put the method aside and let my mind wander a little bit." This is a wrong way to practice. Using the method can be liken to pumping air into a tire. The minutes you stop pumping, the air starts to leak and the tire will eventually go flat. You may think that by putting down the method for awhile, you are re-charging your energy. In fact what you are doing is letting the air out of your tires.
This is common amongst beginners. They often make the mistake of exerting physical energy to fight against wandering thoughts. As a result their bodies become tense and the blood rushes to their heads, and after a time they feel a need to relax. But those who know how to work well summon up their concentration in a clear, relaxed manner. They do not belabour themselves with excess of physical energy or struggle with their method. Instead, they maintain a natural moment-to-moment awareness.
~Ch'an Master Sheng-yen~ "Faith In Mind"
I know nothing
Is that a toe-tapping claim to fame or the most abject confession of failure?
Why ask me??? I know nothing
@Earthninja
Your question reminds me of .....
Zhuangzi Butterfly or Man
"During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream."
Yeah exactly, we could all be butterflies dreaming life as a human!
Why do we think this is all real? Quantum physics is pointing that everything exists as potential only.
Nothing, emptiness, formless and form.
I'm telling you guys, this is a dream!
That's why they call it awakening!
Who or what is dreaming the dream ?
And
Who or what is it that awakes from this dream ?
@Earthninja have you seen The Matrix ?
You can't ever know. The dream can not know itself.
Nobody wakes up, there is simply nobody there anymore. Just aware this is a dream. But nobody or nothing is being aware.
Sanity
The nature of our projection is dependent on our physical existence, brain function, emotional state, interaction with other phenomena. That is the dream.
Some early bikkhus being informed of this 'nature of reality' committed nihilistic suicide after a misunderstood Buddha sermon.
Wake up to sanity not to deluded projections ...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhyamaka
.....Apart from awareness itself
I can feel an Alan Watts coming on:
"There was a young [wo]man who said though-it would seem I know what I know-What I would like to see is the "I" that knows me, when I know that "I" know that I know !"
Too much corroborating info such as reading news or minutiae of all soaps (in shower) in same position etc and no weirdness/nonsense of a dream.
I do not know upon waking what is real, nor do I find the Real at any time during the day, nor do I return to it when I retire to my bed at night.
I can only know what is relatively real; absolute truth eludes me absolutely. My whole life is my dream and mine alone. Of course, this life of mine would all just be my own dream with none of it being real, if I defined the real in absolute terms, and not in relational ones. Relationships create meaning, and meaning points to substance, and substance seems to have some inherent worth, or reality. Tossed out alone into a void by ourselves for an eternity, the word "reality" would cease to make sense.
How do I know I am actually "me" and not just dreaming this whole universe and story? I cannot. I cannot know that my life is not a larger dream which makes all the other details of my life appear to me —in much the same way that I cannot know that the solar system in which I exist does not make up an atomic particle in some larger, over-bridging universe.
Where I come from, being called a Dreamer is a good thing, though.
Sometimes it feels like this...
It's all just a dream within a dream, and we are just lost socks in the laundromat of oblivion. But there is still ice-cream.