ma ’das sprul sku and Taking Dreams Literally

I have found that if you start looking into things Tibetan that complexity soon arrives.

Today I came upon ma ’das sprul sku for the first time.

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Abstract: A ma ’das sprul sku is a non-hereditary reincarnate lama (sprul sku) who assumes his or her predecessor’s status, but who takes birth before his or her predecessor’s death. This paper presents ten oral histories of ma ’das sprul skus and examines what they and their narrators reveal about the logic of transference in establishing the personhood of a ma ’das sprul sku, how ma ’das sprul sku personhood may challenge conventional understandings of sprul sku personhood and temporality, ma ’das sprul sku and their creators as reflective agents, and what the dearth of ma ’das sprul sku hagiographies may imply.

Marcia Calkowski in The Journal of the International Association of Tibetan Studies.

https://www.thlib.org/collections/texts/jiats/#!jiats=/07/calkowski/b1/

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The notion that a being can have a second incarnation whilst still alive, kind of messes with the idea that one needs to leave the meat before getting some more. She mentions the idea of mandé trülku.

Taken to the limit that could mean that an emanation, similar to that which gave rise to the Dalai Lama, could already be incarnate whilst he lives.

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Literary Sources for Tulku Lines

Successive systems of reincarnation or tulku (sprul sku) are fascinating sources for the study of the social history of Tibet. The tulku, predicated on Buddhist metaphysics of rebirth, is a phenomena in which a person is recognized as embodying a previous person, in their own current body. This is technically referred to in Tibetan as one who is “recognized as having returned to existence” (yang srid ngos ‘dzin or sprul sku ngos ‘dzin).

There are hundreds of multigenerational tulku lines in Tibet. By looking at when such tulku lines were declared, within which contexts, patterns of interpersonal relations, institutional alliances, and regional practices emerge. We are given new visions of these trans-generational social networks and the weblike worlds in which tulkus function.

From The Buddhist Digital Resource Center.

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This suggests that there are so many tulkus that some could be considered common or garden as opposed to the big three.

The naming and interweave is not easily tractable. If I was to start with my recent Tibetan dream, trying to find out who I might have been, there are many pitfalls.

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This dream, if taken literally, suggests that I was being escorted out of Tibet in and around the early sixties / late fifties. Clearly that is a big if. It suggests an importance sufficient to warrant an escort and a rank above common or garden

I could search for a person, lama or tulku, who died in and around that time but the list of tulku lines is not easily searchable by date. The dream suggests that I was not going to make it.

https://legacy.tbrc.org/?locale=en#!persons/tulkus

But I may have made it. Which might make me a co-incarnation of a living person. We share an emanatory source. That co-incarnation could have passed on since and could in principle have been born biologically before me, say ~1940s in order to be old enough to march to freedom.

The feeling from the dream was that I was a youth / young man. Which puts a window ~1935 – 1945. My hands in the dream were soft inconsistent with extended heavy manual labour.

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My eight Tibetan Houses Dream

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Points at Southeastern Tibet / Shigatse/ Shigatze which might geo-locate an incarnation but does not take me much closer to a named individual in the twentieth century.

My Tibetan Buddhist Search Committee Dream suggests that I might recognise a magically inscribed cabinet. It suggests that I might recognise Tibetan martial arts weapons.

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“The carpet on the floor of the hall has been rolled back to reveal a parquet dance floor of some considerable sheen. Amongst the entourage I can hear gossiping. “It cannot be him; he is too coarse thickset and muscular.”

I hear this and whip off my shirt to reveal my muscular bare chest. I say that I will cooperate with whatever it is they must do. Take a look if you must. I am now wearing saffron yellow trousers, training pants, that are “elasticated” at the ankles. I start to do a forward splits on the floor to warm up. I say that given I am nearly sixty I am surprised that being that old I can still do that.

One of the woman in the entourage says to me that I am much older than that both in this lifetime and stretching way back. I am nearly 73 she says. I do the mental calculation that I must have been “born” in the early 1950s. She says, “we tried to wake you five years ago”. You have been “asleep” and we have been waiting.”

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So, the dreams suggest an inconsistency of age or timing.

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The monastery airport dream points at Leh in Ladakh.

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There are a number of dreams with Kālacakra or wheel of time mandala.

In another dream “Tibetan soil dream” I am given my piece of Tibet.

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There are other dreams with H.H. Karmapa and H.H. Dalai lama in.

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If dreams are “evidence” then there is quite a bit suggesting some Tibetan connection. If I were a Tibetan having these dreams then the Tibetans would take them more seriously. A hairy arsed sixty-year old Welsh ex-academic spendthrift is not as attractive as perhaps a younger person linked to the sangha.

It is difficult to explain these dreams cropping up from a Freudian or Jungian perspective.

There is circumstantial evidence. It is pretty unlikely that any conscious imaginations / research makes its way fully into dreams. I did not make any of them up. They were recorded as is the morning after.

I have not tried to visualise this putative life as that is more likely to be prone to prejudice / confirmation bias.

It is possible that having looked at this theme there may be more passive dreams on the way….

Maybe I Was an Alpaca?

This morning’s dream points {again} to some kind of Tibetan incarnation, perhaps some lama-dude. I have long held this possibility at arm’s length because I have had no waking memory of such a thing. The dream indicates a time stamp roughly of 1960 when things were bad in Tibet and a number of lamas left. We hear about the ones who made it. We don’t hear about the ones who did not.

They may have been vulture food.

I did once go to a dzong in London and had an “empowerment” by Tulku Akong Rinpoche. A lama who along with Chögyam Trungpa escaped from Tibet during the Chinese excess.

I have often wondered why no waking recall. The only answer I came up with is that life as a monk is so very boring that there is little to remember, no outstanding dramatic events. Tedium, day after day routine.

If the dream points at a very recent incarnation, then that hints at something like a tulku incarnation, where one life follows quickly.

That does not really impinge on the current health problems and search for a nanna-flat. In a sense it is little more than a phenomenological possibility when viewed from life circumstance. I do not see nor feel that there is much / anything left for me to do.

I have hypothesised that there have been many failures, way more than “successes”. We only hear of the latter because it is they who have ongoing wider significance. In a way quiet failure fertilizes the ground for success.

I am at something of an impasse on the health front and cannot currently see any further steps. There is nothing urgent and I can tolerate the pain and lack of sleep. We need to move house before even thinking about any operation. It is not a complicated equation, for now.

I am currently where I am not seeing medical intervention as something positive and healing. It seems like a necessary thing and to be endured even. It does not fill me with hope for an easier existence.

Do I have to? Well maybe it is sensible.

Who knows what if any dreams will follow tonight…

Tibetan Plateau, Gold, Lama Dream 1-11-2011

Prompted by this morning’s dream I found this one in the vaults, so to speak.

Dream Diary 1-11

I am outside with Charlie. He and I are loading bricks into the trunk / boot of a car. The bricks have curly writing on them, it is not Sanskrit or Tibetan. They are golden and more like large ingots of gold.

He and I are now on a long journey across the mountains on a plateau which is in Tibet. With us is a smiling lama who is our guide, guard and escort. He is showing us the way. The landscape is very sparse and rocky with scree falls. I look at the lama’s physique and it is very similar to mine only that he is shorter and obviously Tibetan. I say that I didn’t know that they built Tibetans like that…

As we continue on our journey. Charlie and I are now wearing saffron and magenta monk’s robes. This journey is to be extensive. As we move forward Charlie is often out in front exploring the different routes. At one stage we need to pick up speed. The Tibetan monk picks up his companion, also a monk, and carries him piggy-back. I do the same with Charlie. I am not sure that I can walk and climb at this altitude like this. After a few steps I realise that I can and easily so.

A little later the trail becomes tortuous and Charlie is way ahead up the hill. He comes down back to me via a slippery and windy route. I find a more direct route. This is a part of a long journey together.  

Back now in London, we are at a Tibetan Dzong as guests of honour. Sat waiting are Charlie , the wife and I. We are offered some western food. I turn to her and say that she had better tuck in before they come out with the yak’s butter….

Dream ends

Tibetan Food Tibetan Caravan Aberfan – Reincarnation – Dream 24-04-2025

Here is this morning’s dream

The dream starts in an airy metropolitan indoor market. The roofs are high and glass. There is a hubbub and the mood is light. There are many trendy food pop-ups. The area is opulent. I am outside a Tibetan food pop-up stall with some upper middle class English people. They are going on about how wonderful the stall is and that it is good to support the exiles, the diaspora. We order some food and sit at a “pub” table. It comprises a semi-leavened bread a bit smaller than a naan, some sausages tied with string and a spicey vegetable side relish with dark green overtones. The sausage is served on a wooden board with a very sharp wooden handled knife to share amongst us. They, in their safe luxury, do not understand hardship.

The scene changes to a harsh barren mountainous landscape. It is cold and we are navigating the sides of a valley. From time to time scree has fallen which makes the path difficult to navigate. We are fleeing, escaping. I am wearing a heavy fleece lined animal skin jacket and pointy hat with ear flaps. My skin is darker and dry. I am Tibetan. I feel windblown and hungry. There are around twenty of us in the caravan which is mostly on foot with some donkey like animals carrying supplies. We have been traveling for days. We cannot light a fire until night fall, because the smoke will be seen. I am armed with a pistol in a holster on my waist. Others in the party are more heavily armed with old-style rifles.

A couple of men who have gone ahead join us. They have found a spot to camp for the night. We round a bend into a flattish area in the valley wall next to a small stream. The men start to make camp, it is heavy work. As has become the custom they set me down on a rock and give me a bag of flour and some bowls. There are some other powders. Before it gets dark, I start making several batches of dough. They joke my soft hands make the best bread. I set the dough aside covered with cloths.

I prepare some wood for a fire and as soon as it is dark, set it alight. When it is hot enough, I get out a wok-like pan and start to cook the breads having greased the pan first. The smell is great and I make batch after batch. The other men are similarly dressed but have a military bearing. They are protecting me. We all gather round and someone gets out some relish which he adds to a bowl. He then gives each of us a length of string-tied sausage which we cut with our own knives, kept in a hip scabbard. There is water to drink from the steam. All of us a weary. There is a sense in the dream that I will die soon and not make it.

The scene changes to black and white. It is a newsreel of early 1960s London. With buses at Picadilly circus and people in suits. It talks of fashion and life in the city.

Next, I am sat with my sister. We are very young less than three years old. We are in my nan’s house in the Rhondda valley. I can hear a vast rumbling from the mountainside. Instinctively I know that it is the coal tip sliding down the mountain. I grab my sister and we go to sit crouched outside close against the wall by the back door. The landslide continues and the house is knocked down but by the door frame remains intact. Coal waste pours past us and we get covered in dust. The slide stops and the coal starts to burn glowing red in the heat. I know that we must sit tight and that it will be fine. I can lift us both up out of the area to fly to a nearby grassy part. In the dream I hear the words Aberfan and sense that it has not yet happened.

I know beyond doubt that this dream is about reincarnation.

The dream ends

Notes

I was born in Cardiff in 1964. My sister was born March 1966.

The Aberfan disaster (Welsh: Trychineb Aberfan) was the catastrophic collapse of a colliery spoil tip on 21 October 1966. The tip had been created on a mountain slope above the Welsh village of Aberfan, near Merthyr Tydfil, and overlaid a natural spring. Heavy rain led to a build-up of water within the tip which caused it to suddenly slide downhill as a slurry, killing 116 children and 28 adults as it engulfed Pantglas Junior School and a row of houses.

Dream Within a Dream, Dream 21-2-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in a central European city with a long and elegant history. It has a feel like old-town central Vienna. I am in an ornate and semi-antique laden room. I am sat at a low “coffee” table in a small leather bound armchair. I can smell the leather.

A man walks into the room. His is nearly as tall as the doorway and well over six feet tall. He moves with grace, poise and elegance. He has long, not quite shoulder length, luxuriant blonde hair which falls partially across his face. He looks and feels like Michael York. {Closest match}

He is expensively dressed though the clothes are not new. He has expensive English shoes on. His air is European of indeterminate nature, though slightly Scandi-Germanic. He is of noble and aristocratic stock. Although I have never met him in person I know him from my Toltec meditations fifteen years ago. He is Toltec nagal of high degree.

He sits in a large dark green leather chair alongside me. I can see a ring on his finger, a gold stud in his left ear and an expensive looking Swiss gold watch.

We are very pleased to see each other and amused at the circumstance.

He tells me that he has had a dream which he would like to discuss with me. I say that I like doing this. He knows.

He says that in the dream he goes to a tailors in St James’s London. There he is ushered into a back room for a fitting. They ask him to partially undress and then offer him a pristine dark, near jet black suit to try on. It is near a dinner jacket but not quite. The material he says was exquisite and the fit near perfect.

He says that the tailor says that they have been saving this suit for him for a long time. They have been waiting. The sleeves are ever so slightly too long. The tailor takes the jacket and scuttles off to the back room. In the meantime, an assistant removes his shirt and fits him with a crisp new white shirt without a collar. He places small ornate cufflinks to the wrists. They have an initial on which he knows is his.

The tailor returns and puts the jacket on. It now fits perfectly. He is encouraged to walk up and down the room and inspect in a mirror. As he does this, he notes in the left lower outer jacket pocket a lump. He reaches in a pulls out a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half. He puts one half in each hand and looks carefully at it. The dream ends on that note.

I say to him that a long while ago I used to frequent St James’s, implicit is not just in this lifetime.

He asks me what I make of it.

I say to him that the feeling of the tennis ball is that of all the cleavages in the world which is rife now with separation and division. That the new suit represents for him a new role which he must step into. He is ready, fit for it. He has been waiting for a long time and it now nears.

He says that this was pretty much what he thought.

He reaches into his left jacket pocket and hands to me a fluorescent green-yellow tennis ball cut exactly in half.

He jokes that wherever he goes he now keeps finding them…

The dream ends.

Entrepreneur – Consciousness Studies – Dream 16-04-2025

Here is this morning’s dream had between 3 and 6 AM.

The dream starts in a non-chain coffee shop similar to one I once went to in San Jose. It has a Berkley – San Francisco feel. There is wooden panelling and stools up to an island style table. They are the same height as lab stools but out of wood with an inbuilt orange-red “cushion”. I am with a young man {~40} who is very excited and energised. He is dressed smartly and known to me though I cannot see who he is. We are to meet an acquaintance of his who is some relatively big shot tech entrepreneur. He is wealthy and now investing.

A man comes in with a small entourage. He is wearing a dark suit with unruly black hair. His shirt is unbuttoned. He spies my companion across the room and motions for his entourage to be seated. He comes over. My companion gets up and they great each other profusely as “bros” in a transatlantic accent. The entrepreneur is also in his 40s. He sits on a stool opposite me and has the air of someone in a rush used to not wasting time.

My companion introduces me as the ex-academic mystic he has been talking about. The entrepreneur is setting up some kind of endeavour looking into consciousness studies. He asks me how I got involved. I explain that my first formal introduction into meditation was during Kyokushin Karate training and the zen meditation therein. I demonstrate a brief series of karate style chudan-ski punches. I explain that I looked into shamanism. And that later I did some very pioneering meditation.

The man decides that he wants me “on board”. I know in the dream beyond any doubt that he has not the faintest idea what he is letting himself in for nor what I am capable of. He has no clue what I am. He is completely unaware of his ignorance and full of bluster.

The scene changes and I am now in a red brick UK mansion in an upper floor large room. The entrepreneur is sat there with some of the people he has gathered. I am there too, near a large sash window. I am standing. A part of the motivation of the entrepreneur is to understand his father, his meditation and what has happened to him after death.

I look out onto the lawn and sat there cross legged is a large white man with a complelety bald head and a massive ZZ top beard. He is meditating in the light rain, his hands in mudras in his lap. The sun is behind him and I can see at the far end of the lawn a faint rainbow lit up in the rain. The man on the lawn and I know each other well. We go way back, lifetimes.

The dream ends.

Wolfgang – Switzerland – Being Slagged Off – Martial Arts Grading – UKE Dream 07-04-2025

Here is last night’s dream. I was on much reduced medication to see how I coped. Sleep was not deep.

The dream starts in a communal office setting. Wolfgang {flat mate – and subsequent employee} is sat opposite me. He has a thin pencil moustache and something of a mullet, neither of which he was accustomed to have. He is upset with me because he thinks that I have been mean to him and reneged on our friendship. I have done no such thing to my eyes. I know in the dream that because I do not do transactional “friendships” I do not have “friends” in the traditional social sense. I am very poor at “normal” friendships. I do not do mutual praise and ego stroking. People cannot relate to me because they do not get the normal feedback they are expecting. I say to Wolfgang that he may have misjudged.

The scene now coalesces to the shared common room area of our floor in the University of Bern. Sat around the table are many of the people from the research group. Wolfgang says in front of them all, that they have all been slagging me off and bad mouthing me, partially because I did not fit in and suck up. He says that I was always the outsider. I say to him that it is in no way new to me to have people gossip and slag me off behind my back whilst pretending to be nice and friendly to my face. I say that people can be very mercenary when they think that I have something(s) they want. I say to him that he needs to get over it, his misplaced upset. I say that his moustache looks ridiculous.

The scene changes to a large martial arts dojo. I am dressed in a judogi wearing a dark green belt around my middle. I am with the sensei, and he is showing me a list of people who are up for their blue belt grading. In this schema, blue is below green. There are a lot of people due for grading and we, the higher grades, are to be uke to their tori. We know that gradings are about form and not real combat. We will be willingly thrown about by numerous people doing their gradings in order for them to learn.

I am up first with four people one from each direction. East, North, West and South.  The people are of ill-defined gender and wearing judogi already with a light blue belt, the colour of which they seek to upgrade. One by one they come to me and holding a fighting stance assume their left hand in an upper block, jodan-uke. I place my arm similarly wrist to wrist. We then start to apply force and ki. They are trying to hold their position. I let them match me for a while and continue to ramp up until I start to sense them falter. Knowing that this is not about me winning rather them having an experience, I ease back just before breaking point. I do this with the first three directions. The woman from the South has defined gender and when she comes up for stance there is no need, because we already understand each other.

I know that there are hundreds more to come in the grading session. On the mat practice continues and we know, the sensei and I, that they have never yet experienced full contact combat which is a game changer.

The dream ends.

Dreaming – I Don’t Mind What Happens

One can find Jiddu Krishnamurti quoted as saying that his secret is that he does not mind what happens. This implies a lack of any goal orientation, preferred outcome, expectation or attachment. He may have omitted, “I do not mind what happens to me.” If one lives in the eternal now there is no concern for past or future, simply moment. One is not chained by the manacles of “what if” or of “if only.” There is a confidence that one can handle everything which life and the universe offers, free of prejudice. Even if that seems unpleasant and challenging. One is confident in ability to improvise and cope.

I have talked about my medical conditions here, which would be rather dramatic for many. It is just a fact of life for me. OMG spinal surgery may be involved… He has seen a brain surgeon and is getting a cancer check up in May….

There is not too much drama in my mind. The pain can be a tad boring. I don’t think there is an exact translation into French. Monotonous is probably close but does not have the nuance.

I am not worried about what if anything happens to whatever it is that I may or may not know. The thought forms exist now and could be accessed in the web of life in due course. If and when the time is due. I don’t currently see a use for me. I am surplus.

The dreaming takes time, decades sometimes.

I have had the first hint, in the dream this morning, that the time in France maybe drawing to a close. There has not been much for me here. The French are not very pro-active. I am in no way integrated. There will be no significant material plane impact should I leave. Only the medics and the checkout ladies will notice.

I have a few more medical appointments programmed. Then, soon, it will be the big summer holidays. Unless the colonoscopy shows anything sinister, that will probably be it until the Autumn. I will get my asthma medication renewed in July. I am not anticipating any solution, any diagnosis and treatment that will result in significant alleviation of symptoms. It looks to me that I dotting and T crossing data collection is occurring.

Following on from the dream we have been looking at on-line estate agents again. Affordability coupled with relative southerly locations limits us to probably South and West Wales in the UK. The property situation in France remains constipated. We need proximity and communications to university grade hospitals.

The problem is that the world is swirling. The web of life has been whacked unnecessarily by orange-boi.  The Nikkei and the Hang Seng could tank further in a few short hours. This is a factor which is against any house moving.

A house move is the dreaming symbol for adopting a new view of the world. Here it is expansive, it has gotten too big. Perhaps the need is simply to shrink and consolidate.

We shall see what the dreaming suggests. It will influence our decisions significantly. The dreaming will show us the way.

I don’t mind what happens – the dreams will suffice.

Emily – Potions – Estate Agent Dream 06-04-2025

Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream is set in a slightly hectic environment. I am talking with various people and they keep mentioning someone whose remedies are good for the back and back pain. Her name is Emily Brouard {sounding brew – yard in the dream.} I am unsure if there is a Y in they name Brouyard. A number is associated with her 354321,{18} it is a partial telephone number. I see three recipes for potions / supplement / meals. One of which has small cubes of beetroot. From the internet I can download two full recipes from her and one for a snack. I am a bit sceptical but the people are insistent that she is good.

The scene changes and we are outside an estate agent in an English speaking town. The shop front is painted in a dark green colour and there are properties on display in the window. We look to go inside. It is locked. The wife notices on the door that it does not open until 2:30 in the afternoon. We are early. We think this odd as we are not in France with its lunchtime witching hour. We decide to go for a tour around the block in our car. The office is situated in / near an urban market hall with dark green painted bollards. In the dream one can feel the hubbub of market days and stalls being set up early in the morning. We drive around the one way system and find a small square the other side of the agency, in order to get through I drive the car over some of the small features designed to deter cars. There is a small clunk but no damage. We park up on the edge of the square under the dark green overhanging roof of the market area.

We go back into the agency and it is now crowded with a few staff at a serving counter and each is occupied with customers. There is a lot of noise. Finally, one of the agents gets free. A woman pushes in front of us to return her sterling cash deposit and key. A new agent comes to the desk,

She is middle aged and with dyed bleach-blonde hair. I put our folder of documents on the desk and immediately she is well disposed towards us because we are highly organised. I thumb through a number of property fliers with a dark green border on, the agency branding, and stop at one for a property which is just on the square to the back of the market. It is a town house. The woman says, “Ah, that is a good choice. Not to everyone’s taste but ideal for the right dwellers.” The word dweller stands out in the dream. I ask if we could visit the property. “Yes”. She picks up a massive bunch of keys.

The dream ends

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Notes:

On waking I do a Google search on the name in the dream and it points at a female Breton athlete who looks quite similar to a young woman who shared the waiting room for the MRI on Friday afternoon. They are not the same person. The feel is similar.