We Are the Music Makers: On Unborn Awareness

"Roots Examination"

Not sure if I've gotten the hang of regarding all dharmas as dreams just yet. I understand that teaching in the academic sense of the word "understand," but I'm not living it yet. The truth is that I got wrapped up in my stress responses more than once last week. I am practicing my awareness and mindfulness, but it (like everything else about me) is a work in progress. So, even though I haven't gotten it mastered, I want to move on before I lose momentum.

As a sort of aside, my thought that I should wait until I've got a handle on one teaching before writing about the next is kind of laughable, even two weeks after I made that suggestion, since I know I'll never completely understand/live these tenets.

That means it's time to discuss the third lojong teaching:

Examine the nature of unborn awareness.

 Unfetteredmind.org gives the same translation as the cards I have, and then this explanation:

"Look at what experiences the dream. Don't analyze or speculate about it. Just look and rest in the looking." (Source.)

Is it just me, or does that not help at all? Now, I know that last week's, this week's, and the next three tenets all fall under the banner explanation of, "Awakening to what is ultimately true." But at first blush, it sounds like some more mumbo jumbo, Buddhisty-Wuddhisty talk. It does to me, anyway.

But after sitting with it for a moment, spending a little quality time with my cat, and coming back to it, I had the following conversation with myself: if I'm supposed to see all experiences as dreams, then isn't "what experiences the dream" me? My own consciousness? Should I be looking at my reactions and my triggers? Examining the roots of why I can get so stuck in my stress?

Next, because this is how my brain works, I realize that I do have context for examining the nature of unborn awareness: a quote I've long known by heart. Admittedly my exposure to this quote came via the lickable wallpaper scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, but I know it's really the first couple of lines from "Ode" by Arthur O'Shaughnessy:

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

With that realization, things clicked into place a bit. So that means this week, I'll concentrate on watching without judging, this dreamer of dreams.

Until the next time, namaste and all that.