For now, don’t worry about the dream; first, take care of your worldly life. After all, it’s a dream—just treat it as a dream for now. That dream still affects you. You’re attached to living a worldly life in the dream, aren’t you?
But you’re not clear enough in the dream right now, so you can’t use wisdom in the dream to live another kind of life. It naturally and instinctively dreams of that. So, since you still don’t have the ability to remain aware and clear in the dream, you can only leave the dream alone.
Everything that happens is a false mark, an illusion; whether in the dream or outside it, you can only contemplate it as empty. Since it is a dream, it cannot affect you much. So don’t worry about it. A dream is a dream, isn’t it? What’s wrong with playing around a little? Why cling to the dream? Why must there be an “I” in the dream, ruling it? What do you want to change? Do you even want to turn a dream into another kind of life? Aren’t you clinging to the appearance of a life of cultivation? What kind of life, ultimately, is one in which enlightenment is attained?
Walking the path of cultivation is one way to use this tool to awaken to the Way. It is not the ultimate way. Nor is this state the only state after you attain enlightenment. Someone who has attained enlightenment—who has realized Buddhahood—can live all kinds of lives.
Your question is: “In the dream, perhaps I don’t like that state; I’ve let myself go, and I can’t control it, so I can’t cultivate in the dream.”
Yes. The issue is that you really cannot cultivate in the dream right now; you haven’t reached that level of strength, so don’t regret it. Treat it as a dream. At this point, the only thing you can do is treat it as a dream. This is cultivation; this is a Dharma door. If you don’t get hung up on it, that is the Dharma door; that is cultivation.
《梦就是个梦》#20259@20130819
Note: This text was prepared from a teaching video by Yang Ning. If it differs from the video, the video takes precedence. Watch the video.