Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
Dream Yoga
15-19th August, Chamma Ling, Aleja Huberta 4, Wilga, Poland

Dream Yoga

It is said that the practice of dream yoga deepens our awareness during all our experience: the dreams of the night; the dream-like experience of the day; and the bardo experiences after death. Indeed, the practice of dream yoga is a powerful tool of awakening, used for hundreds of years by the great masters of the Tibetan traditions. Unlike in the Western psychological approach to dreams, the ultimate goal of Tibetan dream yoga is the recognition of the nature of mind or enlightenment itself.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche's teachings on dream yoga are from the Mother Tantra (Ma Gyud), one of the most important cycles of teachings in the Bön Buddhist tradition of Tibet. During his retreats Rinpoche typically discusses the relationships between dreaming and waking and between dreaming and death. He also instructs in the “four preparations” for sleep and the uses and methods of lucid dreaming.

Program:
15-19th August - teachings in Chamma Ling, Wilga:
7-8 a.m. - morning meditation with Polish instructor
Session 1 - 10-11.30 a.m. Teachings and practice with Rinpoche
Session 2 - 12-1p.m. Teachings and practice with Rinpoche
Session 3 - 3-4 p.m. Meditation with Polish instructor
Session 4 - 4.30-6 p.m. Teachings and practice with Rinpoche

20th August - teaching in Warsaw (more information soon).

For more information:

 

Please register yourself:

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpocze registration

Registered participants will have possibility to download the whole retreat's recordings in mp3 format.

Practical information

Address: Chamma Ling, Al. Huberta 4, Wilga, Poland
Clik to know: how to get there?

Suggested donation for teachings in Chamma Ling (5 days): 375 PLN (100 euro)

Registration for accommodation in the Chamma Ling: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Suggested donation for accommodation (per night):
Big house – 40PLN (=10 euros), Little House – 30PLN (=8 euros), Dormitory ‘Przychodnia’ - 25 PLN (=6 euros) (three rooms with two places, and room 9 with beds), Old Gompa – 15PLN (=4 euros, Dormitory - 20 places - you have to bring your sleeping bag and sleeping mat), Tent - 15 PLN (=4 euros) per person.


About the Dream Yoga teachings — an interview with Geshe Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

On February 19, 2008, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche offered a brief overview of his October 2008 dream yoga teachings.

Voice of Clear Light: You have been teaching dream yoga many times over the past few years since the publication of your book The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep. What will your teachings emphasize at this fall's retreat?

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche: As always, the core information remains the same, but the approach to the information, and particularly how the information is applied, changes from retreat to retreat. The longer I have been teaching and the longer my students have been practicing, the more simplified, direct and effective the teachings become. Hopefully, I can emphasize some of the more essential elements of the teaching with more effective ways of relating the practice to the modern lifestyle and modern individual. Basically, this fall I will be emphasizing the cream of the teachings, the nectar of the teachings.

VOCL: What is a new person likely to gain from attending this retreat? What is an experienced practitioner likely to gain?

TWR: For people who have been practicing, of course this is an opportunity to understand and connect more deeply, to apply the practice of dream yoga in a quintessential way. They can further explore what doesn't work for them and what can work for them. It's an opportunity to reinforce their practice.

For people coming for the first time, the dream yoga teachings may be a way to discover in their sleeping and dreaming hours a hidden time, a hidden space, a hidden way to practice meditation in their life — and through that opportunity, to further their spiritual development. Many people think to themselves, "I don't have time to practice." But if you are able to use sleep and dream as a way of practicing, it is like discovering many more years of time in your life for practice. We spend one-third of our life, or an average of 20 to 25 years, asleep. Depending on how much time you have left in your life, suddenly you have discovered 10 or so more years to do practice.

If you don't use this time for practice, you will be using it instead for the wrong things — for dreams of ignorance, for nightmares.  If you can take over that time, clearly it's a great opportunity for change.

VOCL: How can engaging in dream yoga support the other meditation practices a person may be doing?

TWR:  Many other practices we do, including forms of tantric visualization, require a foundation of feeling clear within oneself. Before transforming into the tummo goddess, for example, we engage in practices to clear our obstacles and obscurations. If I can feel clearer than before, then I can undergo a more complete and vivid transformation. I think dream yoga can be very helpful in that aspect of clearing.

Of course, one must also have a measure of clarity in order to practice dream yoga. That is why we engage in preliminaries like the practices of tsa lung and the nine breathings of purification. You need to have clear, open attention to the four major chakras as you fall asleep.

But dream yoga itself can be very clearing. For example, when you draw attention to the heart chakra while falling asleep, any pain you have been feeling in your heart will be the cause of manifestation in your dreams. Thus, your dreams will manifest in a way that reflects the pain you feel in your heart. During lucid dreaming, then, you are working with the heart chakra in physical, energetic and mental ways to clear that aspect of pain. Once you've cleared it, then the next time you draw your open attention to the heart chakra as you fall asleep, it will have another effect.

VOCL: Who is most likely to find dream yoga practice most accessible and have the best results from it?

TWR: People who have some more sense of light sleep, who have clear dreams, who are able to detach from the stresses of the workday as their evening begins … these people are most likely to be able to connect to the practice with good results.