Nothing Is At Stake

What is the best way to dream
Can a dream be successful — purpose-driven, ethical
Congruent, integrated, moral
Is there a way to dream
That’s better, superior to another —
A method, a technique
For dreaming well

Feeling —
Does it all come down to feeling
A dream of good feeling, or bad —
More ecstasy, less pain
A rich, calm, carefree dream
Long, robust, and whole

And if all these questions seem absurd
How could they not —
If life is but a dream
Then living is only dreaming

And if the best — the highest — way to dream
Were to be awake in the dream
What then remains — of dream or dreamer
Of life, of living, upon waking
And how could waking ever be
The highest way
To dream

Awake in the dream —
If there is absolute equanimity
No arising, no fading
No better or worse —
There must still be
The dreamer, and the dream

Awake from the dream —
If anyone were to awaken
Would that still not be
Awakening in
The dream

If life — waking, dreaming, sleeping —
Is but a dream
And waking in the dream — a lucid life

Then waking from the dream —
What else could it be
But death

Awake or asleep
If the dream itself does not change
What then distinguishes
The sleeper
From the one awake in the dream

Only this:
The awakened sees —
At every moment, with perfect clarity —
That nothing, whatsoever, is at stake

To ask:
What is the best way to dream — or live —
Is to believe that something is at stake
To believe oneself awake
While still asleep

And so
The awake in the dream have forever said —
When asked how to live
How to awaken —
Just this, in many ways:

Die before you die
Not so that you can truly live
But so that you see
You never were
Nor could ever be
Truly living

Awake in the dream
Does not mean a you
Living the best dream —
It means
The dreaming, being the only way
It must be

With or without
The seeing of it