Mikey Old Friend - I don't think there was any need to add to what has already been said, but knowing me I love to share what I have met/experienced on the way.
When I first started exploring my dreams back in January 25th 1967 - I kept a journal - I had a dream that I still find impressive - it was the third dream I had remembered. It outlined a path for me to follow, and what it described was very difficult for me to accept. The advice was to give up all my searching and go back to living an ordinary life and doing ordinary work, because it implied that life itself when we really experience it is the ultimate teacher.
This next one is from June 1992. Here is the dream.
Remembered a dream from last night or early this morning. I had got hold of a book of photographs of Japan. It was printed in the thirties or earlier and was externally worn and dog-eared. I opened the book to look at the pictures. They were all black and white. The first one was spread over the two open pages. It was of a beach, taken from a hillside. The day was cloudy but bright. One could almost feel or see the breeze blowing because there was a sense of movement. The beach was slightly curved, bay like, with the hill rising from near the edge of the sea. Here and there trees growing, not big. On the beach the rollers were breaking, quite big surf. A large rocky shelf ran into the sea from the beach, and this caused the breakers to roll up and around at one point, turning back toward the sea again. In the middle of this, quite small in the photo was the figure of a man sitting in the lotus position facing the land. Waves were breaking around and slightly over him, but he sat at peace, undistracted, in Zen meditation. It was so simple, so beautiful. I realised I had read somewhere of the man who sat amidst the waves.
I explored my Japan photographic book dream with a friend. It was very rewarding and I felt the emotion involved in the dream. I started as the man meditating on the beach. As him I felt I was in a state of ‘being’ in which I accepted the energy and movement of the waves. I realised that the ‘meditation’ could easily have been a conflict with the waves - a resistance or fight, perhaps struggle. I saw this as related to the way I meet life experience, or the way I am learning to meet it. By this I mean both internal experience of emotion and thought, but also exterior events and their impact on me.
I had my back to the waves because in this position I was not meeting the waves head on, but letting them move me. This relates to what is said above about meeting experience. I also sense this as to do with the ‘way’. It is learning to see the way of things inside oneself and outside. Learning to see how things live and function, and working with the process instead of trying to force things. The sea and waves I experienced as Life itself, not just the experiences but the process of life, as it flowed through me, and I was not turning my back on the land - everyday life. J asked me a question of how long I would stay there, and how long I had been there. My immediate feeling response was that I was still connected to everyday life and duties in a positive way. This meant that although I was bathing in the waves of the ocean of life, I had not lost my connection with everyday life and practical activities. I came and sat with the waves when I could, to bathe again in the ocean of life, to know the joy of ‘being’. There was no need to seek this joy or struggle toward it. It always exists, but is sometimes covered by the activities of the mind, the emotions or the attempt to reach goals.
Tony
