Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamanasūtra) (110)

The karmic actions of body, speech, and mind themselves have ceased, and then, at the time of death, in the very instant before one's last breath, the karmic retribution one should undergo on this physical body—the karma one has created—flashes past rapidly like a movie being played. The deeds of a whole lifetime flash by in an instant, and one clearly understands the karma one has created: which actions were wholesome, which were unwholesome, and what retribution one should undergo—all becomes clear. But at that point one can no longer speak; there is no way to express it, no way to tell one's family members to help dissolve one's karmic obstructions, to perform deliverance rites, or to make amends for one's transgressions. One cannot tell one's family where one is going to receive one's retribution—the words just cannot come out. When one is still able to speak, karmic actions do not manifest. When karmic retribution manifests at the time of death, we will feel that this entire life has been like a dream—it has passed and is over. While we are alive in ordinary times, we cannot experience the state of mind of that moment; only then do we feel that this life has ended just like a dream.

When we study Buddhism and cultivate practice, upon reaching the stage of the ten dedications (daśa-pariṇāmanā), we will feel that not only is this life like a dream, but past lives were also a dream, and the next life will likewise be a dream. From now until the attainment of buddhahood, all future lives are within a dream—life after life, we dream of birth and dream of death. When bodhisattvas perform buddha-work, delivering themselves and delivering sentient beings, it is all within a dream, all unreal, like dreaming—all is performing buddha-work within a dream.

At present we can only understand this intellectually; without realizing it ourselves, we cannot experience it and thus have no genuine, personal feeling of it. Therefore we do not know that since beginningless kalpas we have been undergoing one great dream of birth-and-death after another, linked together into a continuous series of dreams, and that before attaining buddhahood we remain within the great dream of birth-and-death. Beings with segmented birth-and-death are dreaming dream after dream, segment by segment. After segmented birth-and-death passes, there remains transformational birth-and-death—subtle birth-and-death—during which one dreams an especially subtle and long dream, and one still has not fully awakened from the great dream of birth-and-death. Only upon attaining buddhahood does the great dream of birth-and-death come to a complete end.