Tibetan Buddhism is unique among Buddhist schools in teaching us how to awaken within dreams and how to practice spiritually while sleeping. This is the essence of Tibetan dream yoga, and the focus of all the practices associated with it. Dream yoga teaches that we can learn five spiritually significant wisdom lessons through assiduously practicing this path of awakening:

-Dreams can be altered through will and attention
-Dreams are unstable, impermanent, and unreal - much like fantasies, magical illusions, mirages, and hallucinations
-Daily perceptions in the everyday waking state are also unreal
-All life is here today and gone tomorrow, like a dream; there is nothing to hold on to
-Conscious dream work can lead us to the realization of wholeness, perfect balance, and unity. 

Like any spiritual practice, Tibetan dream yoga will reveal more substantial benefits the longer and more consistently you practice it. In the Buddhist tradition, discipline alone is not enough to bring your practice fully alive. Motivation, the reason you practice in the first place is considered as crucial as technique and commitment.

Modern scientific research into lucid dreaming draws a sharp distinction between the waking state and dreaming, and it has developed practical methods for inducing lucidity, namely, recognizing that we are dreaming while we are dreaming. 

The aims of the Dream yoga course are to bring mindful awareness into all stages of dream, sleep and waking life. It will cover the primary purpose of dream yoga; lucid dreaming, its method and uses; cultivation of the four qualities; clarity, peacefulness, power and fearlessness.

H.H. Gangri Karma Rinpoche will also discuss the relationship between lucid dreaming and dream yoga and guide participants in daytime and night-time practices of dream yoga, interspersed with time for discussion.

To gain a complete understanding of dream yoga, it is taught in 3 stages and all 3 courses must be attended:

1.    Foundation: Everyone welcome (Buddhist and non-Buddhist). After attending the introductory level of dream yoga, the individual must become lucid or wake up in the dream state, that is, they become aware they are dreaming while they are dreaming. Second, the dreamer must overcome all fear of the contents of the dream and realize nothing in the dream can cause harm. For instance, the lucid dreamer should be able to put out a fire with their hands and recognize that fire cannot burn them in their dream.

2.    Intermediate : Students who register for Level 2 Dream Yoga need to reach the stated goals of Level 1. At the intermediate level of dream yoga, students will need to attain the clear light illusory body during their practice of dream yoga. The illusory body is like a reflection on a mirror and is reached as a result of the successful completion stage of tantra taught at the introductory level. 

3.    Advance : Students who register for Level 3 Dream Yoga need to be experienced in both Levels 1 and 2. The advanced level dream yoga course will include the four mahamudra yogas. 1) the yoga of single pointed concentration on the nature of mind 2) the yoga of realizing the mind as being free from conceptual elaboration 3) the yoga of realizing the sameness of the appearance and/of mind 4) the yoga of no more meditation.

Please note: The advance level course cannot be described in detail as interested people must obtain the Vajrayana empowerment. This is necessary to receive the highest teachings of Vajrayana and the Oral transmissions of Vajrayana. 

Date of the event: 9th/10th May 2020
Time: 1:30pm-5:00pm
Location: Martsang Kagyu London Buddhist Centre