Dharma Dreams: The Middle World

The dream:

I woke up in a hotel room as someone ran in yelling, "We have to get out now! Armed men are taking over the hotel! They are killing and torturing people!"

I could hear them scream. This must be what it’s like to be in hell.

A group of us made a run for it down the hall. We found a fire escape and then traversed down a steep rocky cliff to the narrow beach.

I felt terrible leaving all those people behind.

We walked for several hours along the narrow shoreline.

I worried that the armed men had seen us escape and would follow us.

We came across a rope ladder in the cliff side. Figuring we were far enough away, we should find out where this leads and try to send help back to the people held hostage in the hotel.

We helped each other up the flimsy rope ladder, slowly, steadily, and anxiously.

At the top, we saw a vast courtyard and a white temple in the distance. It looked inviting.

As we approached, there was a helicopter at the entrance to the temple grounds. The pilot was motionless and emotionless, like a mannequin. He said we could enter if we wanted, but that once we did, we couldn’t leave. I asked him about helping the others left behind in the hotel. He said, “They are learning to bleed.”

The temple was busy with people walking around, chatting, smiling and eating ice cream. Everyone looked extremely happy, perhaps too happy. This must be what it’s like to be in heaven.

“Would you like some ice cream?”

Something didn’t sit right with me. If heaven and hell are two extremes in duality, then how is either the correct place to be?

I knew we shouldn’t stay there. It was tempting but I knew if we stayed too long, we would be stuck there. We had to find the way back to the middle world, where it was not like hell and not like heaven.

We started looking for an invisible door back to our middle world where we belonged. I don’t know how we knew what to look for but I knew we would know it when we saw it.

We had to hurry. There wasn’t much time.

Then I woke up.

Dharma Dreams: Agnostic Ascension

The dream:

I had just drowned with many other people in a large house. We began floating up. Water still filled the room but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I was aware of my state and so were the others but I strangely lacked a reaction to my predicament. It just seemed as a matter of fact.

I could see a young boy floating out of the window and his legs were broken and twisted. I figured that must have happened when he died and I hoped that he hadn’t felt much pain, but it didn’t much matter now.

I was curious about something so I asked the person next to me. “Why is it that when we die, we always float up?” She replied, “Because we are dead. That is what we do, we float up.”

Then I woke up.

Dharma Dreams: Getting the Hell Out of Hell

The dream:

I felt excruciating pain then I was dead.

I was in a large flooded room with extremely high ceilings like the lobby of a fancy of modern bank building. People were lined up filing through a doorway into hell. Of course, everyone looked miserable and the mood was a bit bleak, much like standing in line for a bank teller.

As I approached the door, a man waiting at the door told me I didn’t have to be here. He said I could leave anytime I wanted. I asked him how. He pointed at the large doors on the other side of the room where we had just entered. He said I could just go through them. I felt slow and sluggish as I turned toward them. They closed. I felt discouraged and doomed.

“It’s too late,” I said.

“No, it’s not,” he replied.

“The doors have closed.”

“Just push them open.”

I wanted to believe him, but was it that easy? Wasn't my fate sealed? Was it a trick? Could I really leave? Should I really leave? Didn't I have an obligation to follow the others?

Then I woke up.