Ultimate bodhicitta · Verse 24 of 37
Verse 24: Adversity: the death of a child in a dream
Verse 24 of The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, the fourteenth-century Tibetan poem by Gyalse Tokme Zangpo (1295–1369). It belongs to the section on ultimate bodhicitta.
All suffering is like the death of your child in a dream. How exhausting it is to hold deluded appearances as real! Therefore, when encountering difficult circumstances, see them as delusions. This is the way of a bodhisattva.
The practice of all the bodhisattvas is to recognize delusion
Whenever one is confronted by adversity or misfortune.
For these sufferings are just like the death of a child in a dream,
And it's so exhausting to cling to delusory perceptions as real.
All forms of suffering are like dreaming that your child has died.
Taking confusion as real wears you out.
When you run into misfortune,
Look at it as confusion — this is the practice of a bodhisattva.
A facilitator's reading across the commentaries
Vv23–24 are a matched pair — illusion-like view applied to what we want (23) and what we fear (24). The pastoral risk is real and the teachers meet it head-on: KS's "not enough to glibly think it's an illusion" and GR's suicide warning both insist this is trained insight, not bypassing. Handle with care in the group — grief is not to be talked out of, it's to be seen through, slowly.
GR Garchen Rinpoche · HHDL H.H. the Dalai Lama · AB Dr. Alexander Berzin · KTGR Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche · KS Khenpo Sodargye · TC Ven. Thubten Chodron · KM Ken McLeod
What the teachers say
Garchen Rinpoche Drikung Kagyu
Suffering is simply the mind not being calm; triggers differ but the turmoil is one. Grief over a father's death fades within months — proof it's "only a form of thought in your mind." Held as real, pain compounds — he notes it can drive people to suicide. Practical redirection for bereavement: think the person has gone to Amitabha's pure land and recite the mantra.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
H.H. the Dalai Lama Gelug
(Brief.) Hatred arises from suffering circumstances; seeing that such suffering "lacks real existence" and viewing it as illusion stops hatred — the post-meditation counterpart to v23's treatment of attachment.
Full commentary: 37practices.info (37practices.info serves this as one long page; find the verse by number.)
Dr. Alexander Berzin Gelug
The dream-child's death is devastating until waking; "terrible" is a socially constructed label, not something in the situation — "taking deceptive appearances to be true is a tiresome waste." His homely case: stubbing your foot hurts by cause and effect, but inflating it into catastrophe adds nothing but pain.
Full commentary: studybuddhism.com
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche Karma Kagyu
The grief feels real though the child never existed; taking delusive appearance as true exhausts the mind. Insistence on repetition: analyze until conviction is genuine, so when adversity actually strikes, the recognition holds and the bodhisattva remains undisturbed. "All suffering is delusive, like the suffering in a dream."
Full commentary: dharmaebooks.org (Free ebook, trans. Suzanne Schefczyk.)
Khenpo Sodargye Nyingma, Larung Gar
The essential warning: "It is not enough to glibly think, 'Oh, it's only an illusion.'" First analyze why appearances are delusive, then familiarize again and again in your own life — only then does awareness hold when difficulty comes.
Full commentary: khenposodargye.org (Free ebook PDF.)
Ven. Thubten Chodron Sravasti Abbey, Gelug
Winter Retreat vv22–24 talk.
Full commentary: thubtenchodron.org
Ken McLeod Shambhala / independent
Talk 9: painful experience recognized as mental construct — like losing possessions in a dream, no damage to your essential nature. His visible Tricycle line: "We can't disown our own experiences, and yet we continually do so." Tricycle v24
Full commentary: unfetteredmind.org (Tricycle's per-verse written commentary is behind a subscriber paywall.)
Further reading: Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, The Heart of Compassion (Shambhala). A purchased book — no text is reproduced here.