One little clarity that can help everyone regarding to Mindfulness; when I first got into Buddhism and first understood the Satipattana Sutta and other such things, I thought that if you got perfectly mindful, you'd get enlightened. And that therefore that was the actual practice in the beginning that I was working on. Trying to just be perfectly mindful to get enlightened. Now it was a surprise to me, some years later, to discover that all enlightened people are not perfectly mindful.
The Buddha, they say, has perfect Mindfulness. To give you the example of his lucidity and clarity of mind, being perfectly mindful, it's inspiring to know that at one time, somebody came to the Buddha and said, "Do you get tired? Do you forget things? Do you get exhausted, you're getting old now?" and other similar questions. And the Buddha was, evidently, an old man at that time. He said, "Bring me four young monks, with shaved black hair, twenty years old. Fresh, strong, in the prime of their youth. Let them ask me Dhamma questions, taking turns, non-stop, for 24 hours a day, never repeating the same question. If that goes for 100 years, they will die before I get tired."
Inspiring?! But only the Buddha could do that. By definition, according to the scriptures, the commentaries and all, only the Buddha had that. The Arahants did not have that sort of level. Some of them did not become perfectly mindful. It's also taught, that an enlightened person could leave their hut and forget to lock the door. They go to the dining hall and then remember the door is unlocked. They then go back and lock the door. Supposedly an enlightened person can do that, but it's not in any way a defilement, it's not an unbeneficial thing that they forgot to lock their door.
It's just that the mind can not pick up every moment, there can still be what we call senility, for old age, in enlightened people. They can forget things, but it will never be something harmful. Now I'm not saying this from experience, I'm saying this by definition of what I've been told and read. And there's a lot of, what I could say, freedom for me in understanding that that's the way it's taught. Because then I would not be so hard on myself to be mindful of every moment.
However, Mindfulness is important! I'm not saying it's not important. If we can be more and more mindful, we are going to develop more and more understanding, we're going to be more clear, we're going to make fewer mistakes, and everything like that. But I just wanted to point out that according to the teachings, Mindfulness by itself does not actually get a person enlightened. It would be good though that we do develop more and more moments of unbroken Mindfulness. Because that's certainly going to help us.
Now, is it possible to extend Mindfulness to the times of sleeping and dreaming? Yes. And if you haven't seen any of your dreams change yet, then you may if you continue practicing more. Rosemary and I have both seen dreams that have changed, where the Dhamma came into the dreams, where we actually knew we were in a dream, and we woke ourselves up because "This dream's stupid, this dream's not making sense." Nightmares are basically non-existent for either one of us.
When I was young, it was a nightmare every month, I mean the Indians surrounded our house all the time! Things like that, it was all the time. Freaking out, people breaking into the house, going to beat me, this and that. You know, it was constant. But with my meditation practice, the first time I saw a change was when I saw something that was totally bizarre in a dream, somebody's ripping our roof off our house, we had just finished painting it. We were going to sell the house, somebody's ripping the roof off! And then I knew this is a dream! I waved my hands and I woke up. That was the first dream which I had in which I have changed the dream, using my wisdom and mindfulness. And I've had more, some where I'm supposed to die. Rosemary's has had these, too. So it's not something unusual just for me. I'm supposed to die in the dream, then I realize, it's just a dream, I'm not going to die. Poof! Wake up.
Now on the other side sometimes I can't wake up, I don't know it's actually a dream. In fact, one was really very similar to this room come to think of it. An airplane's coming, a fighter jet, shooting rockets straight towards the building. Fine, I sat down and started doing Compassion and Lovingkindness meditation, realized that I was going to die. And there's been more like that. Even a double one, that was neat. I woke up really happy after that one. I was going to die because the truck was going off a cliff. Get ready. I started meditating while I was in the truck, the truck hit water! Oh, all of the sudden I was under the water, I was drowning. Oh okay, I was going to drown so I did some more Compassion and Lovingkindness. My mind normally flips closer to that meditation than others. And so it was a double time that I should have woken up screaming, 20 years ago or more I would have. But no, it didn't happen.
To me and to Rosemary, and to other people we know who have had dreams that are different, this is part of the practice filtering in. So when I talk about that on day 3 evening after the Compassion and Lovingkindness talk in the 10-day retreat, it's very true, how you live your life during the day, what you're doing, that is going to affect your sleep and your dreams. So all this being more mindful, being more aware, having the Dhamma come in, starting to meditate in your dreams, it's not like it happens every night. But quite frankly, neither Rosemary nor I remember very many of our dreams anymore. We sleep more peaceful, which is not 100% of the time, of course. And the Dhamma keeps going in there, it just goes in there more.
Now to relate to the question, "Is it possible to extend Mindfulness to the times of sleeping and dreaming? If yes, do you have any advice on how to practice Mindfulness in that way?" No big advice other than just keep practicing what you're doing. Now the fact that in my dreams when I'm supposed to die, my mind automatically goes over to Compassion and Lovingkindness meditation, it's because that's where my tendency is in my normal life, to be more compassionate and more loving. Rather than say, reflecting on death straight away, although I do a lot of Death Reflection as well. But in the dream it seems, I just want to wish everybody compassion and love and goodbye, I'm off. You know, it feels comfortable.
So whatever meditation subjects you favor, that may be the one that comes up more automatically. A lot of people favor the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha Reflection, it's a very good one to have a far as things that could be favorites when you're dying. Because that's a powerful kind of pull towards being reborn close to the Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha. If Rebirth is true, that's where the teaching says that your last moments, or what you're thinking in those last moments, have a very strong kammic effect. It can overbalance your general Kamma of what you have got through your life. Rather what you're thinking of at the end can actually propel a certain direction. So that's also worth working on. Keep practicing.