Originally published at: http://nightclub.andrewholecek.com/webinar/webinar-questions/webinar-37-questionar-qa-session/
EPISODE 37
“Questionar”
Members Q+A Session
Q+A Session
This webinar was devoted entirely to Q+A for Night Club Members.
Here is a list of the written questions that Andrew addressed:
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If consciousness means experience pure and simple (and experience is constrained to contact/recognition/reaction to physical phenomena), how does that “repeal and replace” the materialist view? Also, how does panpsychism account for cause and effect in the individual mindstream?
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What is happening when I am in bed, awake and asleep at the same time? Thoughts are sequential.
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I have had few dreams, three or four, in which I say, write my name in waking state, give details that coincide with what happens in my waking life. All of them are Non-lucid dreams and at the back is an observer – a third person. How can I understand them? Are they daytime memories released in a dream? Any other suggestions?
- Why is it that I do reality checks all day long and they never show up in my dreams, but I think about a donut one time and I have a weeks worth of dreams about bakeries and donut shops?
- I am very intrigued by the 3yr retreat that you participated in and would love to hear more about what it was like and your experience with that and what effects it had on your Spiritual growth. Did you spend that time in a Monastery?
- I have heard it said in Buddhist teachings that we and the world are perfect. In your interview with Christopher Wallis he said something to the effect that all manifestations are beautiful. I struggle reconciling these views with the violence, natural disasters, etc that plague humanity. What am I not seeing?
- What recommendations do you offer for someone interested in working with dreams spiritually who has been unable to become lucid, and stay in the dream? I would like to hear more about nyams. How do you know what is a nyam & thus maybe a mind trap and what is a skillful means or even beneficial positive mind states worth generating? What leads to an insight being transformative and lasting as compared to the more fleeting or vague ‘insights’ in nyams? Is it a high state of concentration that generates the sufficient power for an insight to land in a way that reorders the mind, in a way that it truly, deeply sticks & isn’t forgotten? Basically I guess I am asking why you can have these types of liberating insights in nyams but they don’t actually liberate the mind?
- I have been meditating since last year. I am having many insights. There are two things or events that got me confused. First: I noticed that I can focus my attention in many places inside my head. For example, 1. between my eyes, 2. pineal gland (where I think it is), 3. scalp, 4. just in the middle. The point is that depending on the place I focus my attention I feel different. It is like focusing on chakras. What arises is different. The question is: shall I begin with one place? Wouldn’t I miss something if I choose the wrong place Second: many times I feel an expansion in my head, like an openness. Blissful. Twice that sensation expanded to my spine, like an energy going through (up and down and vice versa). I know meditation can make you feel many crazy and/or beautiful things so I did not give those two experiences too much credit. But then I read in your book “Dreams of yoga” about the subtle body. May it be something related? Is there anything I can do to deepen my practice to recognize my subtle body?
- Like you, I began my meditation journey many years ago with Transcendental Meditation. Do you feel this is an effective daytime meditation for the purposes of Dream Yoga, or do you think that the mindfulness meditation that you teach is more effective?
- I suffer due to the klesha of anger/aversion/hatred. The thing is, now it has become my nature! I am always on the ugh!/argh! mode. I find it very hard to deal with the emotion the way we are taught in meditation i.e. observing the sensation/energy. And, the anger stays for days on end and it’s not just a 90 seconds affair! So, with that kind of mindset, the idea of practicing metta seems almost absurd! I simply can’t. When you say that, there comes a stage, when we go deep in meditation, that we are able to see the other in us…you know what? Maybe, I don’t want to see the other in me simply because I hate the other, because for me the other (persons I hate) is justifiably/morally wrong! At the same time, it’s my observation that when my meditation is on a regular basis, I become worse, my tempers flare, I get agitated/irritated almost instantaneously! It’s as if I am better off without meditation and I actually take a break from it!
- I was wondering if you could share your opinion on if Lama Shenpen Hookham’s teachings on Formless Meditation would be an appropriate pairing with lucid dreaming/dream yoga training?
- I do have a question about Ilusory Form. In many ways it feels counter-intuitive. For many months since I started the practice back in March (beginning of Quarantine) I had been doing regular reality checks, thinking questioning “is this a dream” made sense. Hey my finger won’t go through the palm of my hand so I am obviously not dreaming. Then when I had my first ( and maybe only, so far) lucid dream after only 3 weeks of reality checks (and after re-watching “The Matrix”) and my finger DID go through my palm, I thought “OMG! It works , I am in a dream, I am LUCID”. I then, of course , got so excited, I woke right up. Now, if I understand it correctly, I am constantly saying “I am dreaming, this is a dream” all day. But then if I am thinking I am dreaming all day (conceptually), how do I recognize that I am dreaming in my REM sleep and “go lucid” since I am not Ever questioning whether or not I am dreaming.
- What is the true purpose of lucidity both in our dreams and in waking life? Yes, we can become lucid in our dreams as well as in our waking life to change the dream, thereby asserting our own will. But there seems to be a direction to evolution and to the evolution of one’s own being. For instance, when we are not following our inner knowing, there is trouble. As we follow our own inner knowing, we align with the one true autonomous will of consciousness. In this way, isn’t lucidity really the conscious participation of what is autonomously happening and going to happen? Not so much the ability to do whatever you want for the heck of it. I’m grateful for your thoughts on this!
- What are the benefits of lucid dreaming?
- I’m now studying both of your last two books, I am also learning from the graceful entry and exit workshops – I’m behind due to other programs I enrolled this summer, where do I jump in with regard to practices ? Is there a list of books to read in order ? Like can we have a mini curriculum, since we’re having opportunities to take these deep dives with you…
- I accidentally ran into some articles discussing that some medical drugs can induce lucid dreams (Firas Bazzari, Cairo … and some others as well). Just curious, what can you say about this issue, Andrew? Thanks
- I want to learn Dream Yoga and feel that learning lucid dreaming is the first step in this process. I’ve started your Foundations of Lucid Dreaming course. Would this be the best place to start, versus watching your webinars #11-20? Also which book that you’ve written would be the best starting point for me to read?
- I have a lot of dreams where I’m receiving Dharma teachings. How do dreams like this fit into the lucid dreaming spectrum?
- What was the reading Andrew promised to send to Daniel Love?
- Isn’t the fault of the extreme of the Cittamatra school that it reifies mind/consciousness, ignoring the empty nature of mind (lucidity/clarity)?