Our Dream-Like Experience of Yesterday

From "The Four Foundations Of Mindfulness," by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche:

When we are dreaming, we have subject, we have object, and we have the action between the subject and the object, which is the experience of the threefold situation. As long as we remain in the dream state, those three things equally exist. We experience these three things as solid. We experience a real world, real phenomena, real body. Our own physical existence is there, the physical existence of the object is there, and the physical existence of the action is there. All three are simply existing in the dream state.

But if you look at your dream from the point of view of waking up, of the awakened state, it does not exist, right? If you look back at last night's dream, and if you look back at yesterday's experience of life, which is not really a dream, if you look back, they both equally do not exist. Your experience of yesterday is not solid; your dream of last night is not solid, as far as today is concerned. If you look back from the point of view of today, which is the awakened state, relatively speaking, then both of those equally do not exist, you know. There's no solid reason to say yesterday was more solid than last night's dream. There's no solid logical reason, so to speak, except that we cling to our dream-like experience of yesterday more than to our experience of last night's dream.

*  *  * 

Check out the two-part Buddhist Geeks discussion with Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche, "the only Rinpoche we know who owns and uses a Blackberry!" (Episodes 74 & 75)