1. In a dream we could commit negative actions due to a belief that it causes nobody harm, or does it?
Your question got me curious to search for an answer. this is what I came across. What do you guys think?
Does it affect our karma to engage in negative actions during dreams?
Source from FPMT's site:
http://www.fpmt.org/education/programs/discovering-buddhism/faq/360-faq-module-6-page-2.htmlA student writes:
Buddhism states that intention is everything. Our motivations need to be positive, our intentions good in order to plant virtuous seeds in our karma. Bad intentions or motivations plant negative seeds that will later ripen.
But what about dreams? In dreams sometimes we do terrible things, with horrible intentions, and wake wondering . . . Was that really me?? Do these dream intentions affect our karma at all? They can be really intense and so real, it seems like they would have an impact on the mind. I know sometimes they are very disturbing they feel so real.
T. Y. responds:
…I sent your email to a friend, Jampa Ignyen. JI has been the tutor for the Basic Program at Chenrezig Institute on several occasions, studied for many years at Sera Monastery up to the point of being able to take his geshe exams which he decided not to do, got his PhD in Australia last year with a dissertation on Abhidharma...in other words, a highly qualified Australian.
He replied:
"This is certainly a favourite topic of debate. In general it is regarded that dreams are wrong awareness (log shes) since the objects that appear in dreams do not exist though they appear to be real. For instance in a lucid dream one realizes it is a dream though the vivid appearance of its reality is compelling. Though dreams are illusory they can have a message, or teach us important things, or be 'true,' it is just that the landscape is fictitious.
"Actions committed in relation to illusory dream objects are incomplete actions because the four parts of an action: motivation, basis, preparation and conclusion are incomplete. Here since the actual basis or the object in relation to which the action is committed does not exist only three parts of the action are possible. For instance if one kills a dog thinking it is a human one does not obtain the karma of killing a human, since the object is not a human. If one kills a dream human it is not actually killing a human since a dream human is not a human etc. Or if one were to shoot the image of a human on a movie screen thinking it was really a person, one would not be killing a human. In these cases the discrimination or recognition of the object is incorrect, and it must be correct to complete the four parts of an action. However since three parts of an action form a significant measure of a complete action, it has the potency to lay down karmic seeds in the mental continuum especially when the intention is strong. Therefore dream actions are significant. And for that reason in vinaya, actions committed in dreams need also to be purified by applying the four opponent powers etc."
Hope this answers your question.
Best wishes,
Thubten Yeshe
Garry Benson adds:
In terms of karma a dream does not necessarily indicate an intention to commit a bad deed if you dream it - in some cases it represents a deep-seated test of the quality of your vows. The dream simile occurs over and over in the sutras to teach about emptiness - the sutras say, "Dreams are false and illusory." A consciousness perceiving these is nevertheless mistaken because, for example, a mirror image of a face or a dream of a face appears to be a face, but is illusory.
So dreams are classed as imaginary forms.
Dreams appear in the earliest Buddhist writings, and played no less an important role in Buddhism than in our lives today. For example, in the well-known "Vajra (Diamond) Sutra", the Buddha taught that:
"All conditioned dharmas are like a dream, like an illusion, like a bubble, like a shadow, like a dewdrop, like a lightning flash; you should contemplate them thus."
According to the Prasangikas a dream consciousness is solely a mental consciousness appearing in the aspects of the five sense consciousnesses. Dreams symbolise the changing and impermanent nature of all things known to the senses. Sights, sounds, smells, flavors,
sensations of touch and thoughts are all dream-like, fleeting, and ultimately unobtainable.
In "The Great Wisdom That Crosses Over Sutra," Nagarjuna's presentation of dreams represents the available knowledge of third and fourth century India. When Buddhists in India dreamed they dealt with their dreams in a variety of ways. Certain types of dreams occurred frequently enough to the ancients to merit listing as separate categories for dream-analysis.
The categories show the following different kinds of dreams. The most distinctive use, for Buddhists, was
1) seeing dreams as a simile for emptiness, the ultimate nature of all things.
2) seeing dreams as portents of things to come, which overlapped with another type of dream:
3) as messages or teaching by the gods, spirits or bodhisattva.
4) Buddhists in India and in China thought, like Freud and Jung, that it was possible to diagnose aspects of the dreamer's mental and physical health from the symbols of dreams.
5) Buddhist psychologists saw dreams as the return at night of things thought on during the day.
6) Finally, Nagarjuna explained dreams as a standard for testing the quality of a bodhisattva's vows.
