Everyday, different people came before Buddha Shakyamuni, asking for the right methods to solve their mental afflictions; however, Buddha Shakyamuni always gave out his answer, saying, "Putting it down."
Many many followers had learned from him, among them, there had been "Top Ten disciples"; one of the ten was Ananda who had been the closest disciple to Buddha Shakyamuni.
One day evening, disciple Ananda asked Buddha Shakyamuni, "World Honored One, different people have different mental afflictions, but why has World-Honored-One always given out the same answer, 'Putting it down.'?"
After a moment of quietness, Buddha Shakyamuni asked disciple Ananda, "Ananda, have you ever experienced dream during your sleep time?" Ananda answered, "World Honor One, of course, everybody would have experienced hundreds of thousands of different dreams during his/her lifetime!"
Buddha Shakyamuni expounded with full of mercy, saying, "Dear Ananda, a person would have created hundreds of thousands of different dreams in the sleep during his/her lifetime; it means: Hundreds of thousands people would have created 'millions of billions of different dreams' in total! Even though each dream's content is very different to that of another dream; however, the method for 'leaving out of dreams' is exactly the same---that is 'wake up from the dreams'!!"
ns 15.158.61.11da2
