I say sentient beings are like dreams and magical delusions.
— Subhuti, Prajnaparamita Sutra
Having fully awakened from a dream, if our dream greatly caught our attention, we would sound foolish to tell our friends of our wish to go back to the dream and live there. Our friends would tell us that our dream, including the landscape and the people in it, do not ultimately exist. Nothing in the dream can be obtained, in other words. Its reality consists in shunyatâ (emptiness/barrenness).
According to the Bhavasankrânti Sutra the ordinary worldling (prithagjana) is in the same boat as our foolish dreamer who desires to return to his dream, believing it to be real. But nothing of the ordinary worldling’s world is real—it’s a more intense dream we could say. Still, it is as unreal as a dream. Its reality is also shunyatâ when viewed from the attainment of pure Mind which alone is real.
We cannot underestimate the importance of ‘awakening’ from the worldling’s dream world. It is the end of being mesmerized by phenomena which are never other than illusory and empty (shunya). By awakening, we see for the first time the non-illusory noumena from which our dreams are spun. It is an introspective cognizance (pratyâtmavedya) of the highest order.
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