Lama Zopa Rinpoche

eings who also need the Medicine Buddha puja. Even if you have to do a puja for a specific
sick or dying person, dedicate it for all the people, all the sentient beings who need a
Medicine Buddha puja, not just the one you’re doing it for. Dedicating any puja or practice
you do for the numberless sentient beings who need it in this way is fantastic.
The interpretation of dreams
In major initiations that span two days, the disciples are asked to remember and interpret
whatever dreams they have after the first day.
Positive dreams are ones in which you are listening to Dharma from, for example, a lama or
a statue of the deity radiating light and then your own body becomes the deity’s holy body;
or there are children or women who are well-dressed and adorned with ornaments; or you
are able to climb without difficulty to the tops of mountains or trees; or you go into
beautiful houses, put up prayer flags, blow conch shells or fly in the sky. Actually, dreaming
of flying in the sky is not necessarily a good sign. It could mean you will be reborn as a bird.
I once asked Lama Yeshe how a certain monk would be reborn. At first it looked good, that
he would be reborn in a pure land, but then in the monastery he was given the responsibility
of running a khangtsen and at some point he dreamed he was flying in the sky. It seems that
his mind had degenerated while he was running the khangtsen, because Lama said that he
now had the karma to be reborn as a bird. So Lama gave him the Dorje Khadro fire puja to
do to purify the pollution.
So dreaming of flying at other times is not necessarily auspicious but, in the preparation for
an initiation, dreaming of flying in the sky is a good sign; it means you will succeed in your
practice. Dreaming of drinking milk and eating good food are also good signs.
Bad dreams include your body being burned by fire or taken by water, falling down
precipices, or riding on a donkey or a camel going toward the south. Also, walking on a
sandy or dusty road or entering a dark room or a cave—where there is darkness instead of
light—or having difficulty climbing something are also all inauspicious.
If you have a bad dream, there is a method to dispel the obstacles and that is to see that no
phenomenon, including the bad dream, exists from its own side. Nothing is real—or
whatever word you use in normal language—from its own side. The texts use terms such as
existing from its own side, existing by itself or being truly existent. Phenomena do not exist
from their own side. They are all empty, including your dream. When you meditate like that,
meditating on Manjushri, you will see that all phenomena are empty. Then as well as
meditating on emptiness you can recite OM KANDHAROHI HUM HUM PHAT and offer
a burning puja. This will dispel the obstacles.
In particular, do gek-tor—offer a torma to the interferers. Then the obstacles, the interferers
who interfere with your being granted the initiation, are dispelled.
Vajrayana and emptiness
Vajrayana, the Secret Mantra vehicle, the resultant vehicle, is based on the Mahayana sutra
vehicle, the causal vehicle, and that is based on the Hinayana. This is very important to
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