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money in the meter so that I would not get a ticket. As I walked around I kept aware of the time so
that I knew when to return to my car. However, when I got back to my car it was one minute after
the meter had expired and I found a ticket exactly as I had seen in my dream. I had tried very hard to
avoid this consequence. Is it possible to change the outcome of a sequence of events after having
dreamed them a certain way?
N: Sometimes you can collaborate with your dream of clarity. It can become very useful for you in
overcoming many problems. But changing events is not so easy because everything is linked with
secondary causes. Sometimes they are very complicated secondary causes, and you cannot do very
much. I told you the story of one of my friends in Italy. I had a very complicated dream about her,
but I could not do anything. That is an example. Nevertheless, sometimes when we know that a
dream says something about the future, we can modify our plans to avert a potential problem.
Once, when I was preparing to go to China on my second visit I had many bad dreams night after
night. I was disturbed by these dreams and became concerned about traveling to China. Then my
wife Rosa and son Yeshe went to the north of Italy for the holidays. My own plan was to leave for
China. However, the day they left to go to the north of Italy they had a car accident.
That early morning I had had a bad dream that I was driving a car very fast. I was approaching a
place where the road ends and tried to stop the car, but I couldn t, because I was going so fast. If I
were to go ahead, I would fall off of a cliff. I did not know what to do and was very frightened. At
that moment I recognized that I was dreaming and that the situation was unreal. Immediately I
thought, I must transform. Instantly I transformed the car into a horse. I was then riding on the
back of a horse, a very big stone horse. I did not fall off the cliff. After I woke up, at breakfast, a
student of mine came from Rome to drive me to the airport. I told him about my strange dream the
night before, and that over the past few nights I had had bad dreams.
Later, before I was to leave, I received a telephone call from Northern Italy. I heard that my wife
Rosa and Yeshe had been in the accident.
I thought the dream corresponded to only their negative situation, which was not very dangerous.
They were in the hospital, but it was not serious. I still intended to go to China and the next day I
was to go to Rome. But that morning I had another negative dream. I half woke up. In this state
4 AN INTERVIEW WITH NORBU RINPOCHE 50
Dream Yoga And The Practice Of Natural Light
between dream and wakefulness someone told me very clearly, You must not travel. It was very
clear. Then I woke up. I had thought someone was really talking, but I discovered the voice was a
dream.
I changed my plans, and did not travel to China. I don t know what would have happened to me if I
had gone that time. It is not easy to know what exactly was the problem. The only thing I could say
is that one month later I heard news that in China and Lhasa they had put many people in prison, and
some were killed because they were regarded as threats to communism. I don t know if this was the
problem, or if it was perhaps related to the airplane. Sometimes it is possible to overcome ill fate by
clarity in dreams; this is very useful.
M: Rinpoche, you have said that at the time of death one can use the awareness developed in the
practice of natural light and in tantric dream practice. I have also heard it said that one s awareness
becomes seven times as strong after death. Would you talk about how to liberate oneself at the time
of death and how much experience a Westerner must have with lucid dreams to make it likely that he
or she can accomplish this liberation? What are your ideas on this?
N: If you have had some dreams of clarity, you can have benefits and possibilities related to the
teaching and the path. However, if you are interested in using the practice for liberation after death,
then you must have transmission of the method, and teachings on this subject in your lifetime. As an
example, let us discuss shitro,4 what is called in the West The Tibetan Book of the Dead. It is a
practice related to the peaceful and wrathful manifestations.
When you receive a transmission a teacher s empowerment of a student to practice a specific
method then, through the power of that transmission, something is connected with your potential
which, until then, is latent as an unmanifest karmic seed. Subsequently, you use your experience of
practice in your lifetime. It means you are developing the possibility of the manifestation of your
potentials.
A simple example of potential is a mirror. If you look in a mirror you discover it has infinite
potential, beyond limitation. It could be a small mirror, yet even a small mirror can reflect a whole
view of a countryside. The reflection is beyond the size of the mirror. Through the reflections you
find in the mirror, you can discover its infinite potential; the reflection is very important for
discovering that nature.
If in our lifetime we receive a transmission and then unify the power of that transmission through the
power of mantra, and subsequently practice and prepare for the series of wrathful and peaceful
manifestations of the shitro method which occur in the bardo of the nature of existence, before the
ordinary bardo, then we have that possibility of that manifestation. Because we already have done
preparation, we have the potential for this specific manifestation, and at the same time we recognize
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