Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (37)

Chapter Five  Three Dream Similes

Original text:大王。诸根如幻。境界如梦。譬如有人。于梦寐中。与诸婇女。共相娱乐。大王。于意云何。彼梦觉已。忆所受乐。为实有不。王曰不也。

Explanation: The Buddha said: Great King, the six faculties are all illusory transformations, and the realms of the six sense objects are just like objects in a dream. For example, suppose there is a person who, while dreaming, plays and amuses himself together with many courtesans. Great King, what do you think? After that person awakens from the dream and recollects the pleasure he experienced in the dream, does that dream realm truly exist? King Śuddhodana said: It does not truly exist.

The six faculties of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind are just like illusory transformations. Out of the emptiness in which nothing exists, the six faculties are conjured up, and their functions are likewise illusory and unreal. The master of these illusory transformations is the tathāgatagarbha, which is like a magician. As for the realms that the faculties confront—form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects—the Buddha said they are like a dream, just like things in a dream, utterly impossible to grasp. In a dream, the mind consciousness can still discern the dream realm, come into contact with the people and things in the dream, and give rise to feelings of joy, pleasure, sorrow, and anger; but after waking from the dream, there is nothing at all—nothing can be found. Sentient beings living in so-called reality are likewise as deluded and inverted as if in a dream: they seem to be able to contact the realms of the six sense objects, and there seem to be the feelings of the six consciousnesses, but in fact all of this is illusory; after waking from the dream, nothing can be found. Sentient beings have not yet awakened from the dream; bodhisattvas are half asleep and half awake, not yet fully awakened; the Buddhas, however, have already completely awakened and are no longer in the dream—they can fully recollect the affairs of the dream—while ordinary sentient beings are all talking in their sleep.