heart sutra – Dreamyoga

Here is Friday’s dream had around 14:00 – 15:00 hours CET time as I transferred out of operating theatre after hip replacement surgery and into the post operative recovery room.

I had the distinct sensation of being in a Tibetan style temple at a monastery or other religious centre. The inside of the building consists of a main chamber and a smaller “sanctum” or “sanctuary” at the back. The main building has mats on either side of and aisle leading up towards the sanctum. The floor level in the sanctum is higher than the main building. The ceiling is lower. The “wall” going down from the higher main building ceiling to that of the sanctum is very white. It is decorated in whirling relief design top and bottom. The designs form a row at the top and bottom of the partition. There is a sense that they are or have been golden. The craftsmanship is exquisite. For a Tibetan themed place, it is surprisingly light and airy.

Sat in rows either side of the aisle in the main building are monks in largely magenta robes. There are around twenty of them all special invitees. They are roughly equally spaced either side of the aisle.

In the sanctum there are two raised boxes / benches aligned perpendicular to the monk’s rows. These boxes are higher and decorated in fancy cloths or hangings. Looking into the sanctum are three monastics sat to the left and three people to the right. The one on the right furthest from the main room is me. Everyone else is wearing Buddhist ceremonial hats, yellow. I alone have no headgear. I understand the others to be high lamas. I am dressed in magenta robes.

At the back of the sanctum facing out into the main building is an even higher box / throne upon which is sat a chunky Tibetan man in more yellow / gold robes with the yellow ceremonial Gelug hat. He is younger than me. His robes are brocade and he is Karmapa. I am closest to Karmapa.

There is incense in the air and chanting. I know it to be of Tibetan flavour because of “benza” as in “om benza pani hung” the chanting also has heart sutra, guru Rinpoche and medicine buddha to go with the Vajrapani. The “Benza” is very distinctive. The medicine buddha is for me.

As I come to, I expect to find myself in the temple but am actually in a high specification operating theatre recovery room with lots of kit and women younger than me in blue scrubs. I am disoriented and genuinely surprised. It takes a while to adjust.

The experience fades into normal post operative routines.

The first obvious thing to note is that the dream from this morning contrasts significantly with the one about semiconductor clean rooms the day previous.

Nāgārjuna is a highly significant figure in the development of Buddhist thought. He has an entry in the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy.

Nāgārjuna

There are numerous scholarly articles on him and he is represented often on water

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Here he has a seven snake halo/aura, is on water and with lotuses.

At Samye Ling of the Karma Kagyu in Scotland he is like this, protected by the Nāgāraja king cobra.

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Our pond looks like this and in a few weeks, we will again have full flower.

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Given that we watched Helen Fry on Motorways, an episode of Annika and 24 hours in A&E on the TV last night, there is no obvious “reason” as to why I should be dreaming of a named Buddhist from ~ two thousand years ago.

In my putative chronology of incarnations there is a gap around Zero AD.

The mantram associated with the heart sutra:

gate gate pāragate pārasaṃgate bodhi svāhā

Gone gone, gone beyond, gone beyond the beyond, hail the great awakening.

I once had a blog called “aum parasmagate”

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It is a little strange and for sure this is the first time explicit mention of Nāgārjuna has occurred in my dreams.

The wife asked, “what do you do with dreams like that?”

There is nobody to tell about them. I can put them up on the blog and make a mental note. That is about it.

Tag: heart sutra

Anaesthetic Recovery Room – Tibetan Temple Dream 21-11-2025

Dream Follow Up – Nāgārjuna