dreams – ROBERT VAN VALKENBURGH

I had a dream last night that still has me contemplating its meaning. In my dream, I was arguing with a plain-clothes police officer because he had unjustly harassed and detained someone. He then turned on me and began harassing me and trying to detain me.

As I struggled to resist detainment, I saw that the police officer had a set of Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist. I grabbed the prayer beads and said to the officer, “Is this the kind of dharma you are trying to create? Is this the kind of sangha you are trying to create? Is this the kind of karma you are trying to create?”

In Buddhism, dharma is thought of as the way or the path, the wisdom teachings that lead a practitioner to enlightenment. Sangha is the community of fellow practitioners with whom a person shares the spiritual journey. Karma is the spiritual law of cause and effect wherein a person’s actions have a direct correlation to the type of life that person will have.

In my sleep, these questions, “Is this the kind of dharma you are trying to create? Is this the kind of sangha you are trying to create? Is this the kind of karma you are trying to create?” just kept repeating in my mind. It felt like I asked them over and over again for hours before finally waking up. Once I woke up, I was in that strange post-dream state where I knew I was awake and my dream was just a dream, but I could still feel the dream as if it was something that I had actually experienced in my waking hours.

Experiences like this make me question which is more real, our awakened state or our dream state. I suppose both are equally real, but it’s easy to dismiss dreams as less real or even imaginary because they happen when we sleep. Dreams like this, however, that have a profound and lasting emotional and psychological impact because they feel just as or more real than what is experienced in our waking hours.

I’m still meditating on the significance of and the meaning behind this dream, but the questions it left me with feel like a spiritual puzzle not easily solved with reason alone and which will, therefore, require prayer. For example, who was the plain-clothes police officer in my dream? Who did he detain? Why was I challenging this unjust detainment? Why did he then try to detain me? Perhaps most importantly, however, what kind of dharma, sangha, and karma am I trying to create?

Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity

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I often think about how much I would have missed out on if I’d gotten what I thought I wanted when I was younger. My life would be so small and I would be so lonely if I’d have had my way.

In my youth, when I first got clean and sober, in my depression and my pain, I had given up on hope and on happiness. I hated people and I wanted to hide. I did hide.

I hid in my anger, my pride, and my self-centered fear. I did my best to push everyone away and I longed for the day when I could be alone and independent enough to stay that way. I wanted my life to match how I felt inside.

But over time, as I did the spiritual work necessary to get and stay clean and sober, my life started to change. As I healed and began healing my past to the best of my ability, my heart started to open up, and my world started to open up.

Now, many years later, I look at my life in disbelief. It hasn’t been all great. There have been some really difficult times over the years. I’ve experienced pain, loss, and even moments of spiritual and emotional desperation.

Through everything though, I can honestly look at the life I have now with a sense of amazement and gratitude. It is so much different than I hoped or imagined. I am so much different than I hoped or imagined. At times it’s more complicated and more difficult than I would prefer, but it is also more full and rewarding than it would be if I’d gotten what I thought I wanted.

Left to my own devices, I would have sold myself short. God knows I tried to.