Dreams of surrender

Jeroen

I had a strong dream last night. I was standing outside a village on a hill, I knew it was where I lived, and on the road outside there passed a column of soldiers in armour, with spears and things. I could have chosen to fight them, I have regularly had many dreams of battle and fighting, but I did not and instead I kept quiet and went back to the village, and I listened to the villagers talk about it.

Then I kind of half awoke, and i sensed a ball of light on the crown of my head. It said to me, “thank you for raising the sign of surrender”, and then it disappeared in a shock of awareness. But for a few moments just after waking up it felt real. It reminded me of a series of dreams I had several years ago, of being repaired at night after the stresses of the day.

Buddhism doesn’t have much to do with the importance of surrender, it’s perhaps more a Tao thing, Osho also often spoke about the path of surrender. In any case it hit a nerve with me, I’ve been thinking about surrender all morning and trying to gain some insight into what it means to me.

Often we fight all kinds of things during the day... we struggle to do our shopping, we fight systems during our work, we don’t admit to people how we feel for fear of being thought weak, we struggle to follow the dharma and be friendly to everyone. Life seems to be one big fight and even when we sleep we still struggle in our dreams. Only in meditation do we truly come to rest.

adamcrossley

@Kerome, it’s posts like this that drew me to this community to begin with, and that have made me very happy to stay. What an interesting dream, and your interpretation was very insightful.

Thank you ?

Shoshin

@Kerome said:

Often we fight all kinds of things during the day... we struggle to do our shopping, we fight systems during our work, we don’t admit to people how we feel for fear of being thought weak, we struggle to follow the dharma and be friendly to everyone.

Dukkha ...First Noble Truth...

Life seems to be one big fight and even when we sleep we still struggle in our dreams. Only in meditation do we truly come to rest.

People can (to begin with) also struggle with meditation...for some it can create great unrest, as defilements arise and depart...

I am under the impression that to develop mindfulness both on and off the cushion will balance the mind leading to a contented/restful state of awareness & alertness...

lobster

Surrender is a form of humility. So yes a Tao thing, central to many inner development models ...

... good post from @Shoshin
As you both mention, the letting go/surrender in meditation is a relaxing or softening. Not-being, not-identifying.

Peace in our time ...