Today before waking up I dreamt of a bear in the living room I had to tend to.

It was a "teenage" brown bear - not big enough to be really dangerous, but big enough to have a nasty bite and some strength. Somehow the bear had got into the living room, I think it was the living room of the house I grew up in, but it was empty and random items were strewn across the floor. It was my job to watch the bear. The bear ran in circles and was angry, so I kept up with him but out of distance and talked. Talked to someone else, maybe? Or to the bear? Dunno. The bear was angry, and tried to lash at me, he was furious and needed constant watching. I stumbled over the items lying around to keep up with the animal.

Then something interesting happened: The less I talked the more calm the bear grew. I realised that and as I fell silent the bear became calm and I had the feeling the bear problem was gone.

My mind was already ticking in analysis during the process of waking up.

1) On the evening before I had listened to a CD explaining the Taoist meditation process. It explained how the goal of meditation was not contemplation, but to ease the mind into a state of no-thought and peace.
2) The bear, and I feel this to be true, is the animal in the Five Animal Frolics associated with the Wood element or the liver. The liver is the organ associated with the negative emotion of anger.
3) The living room from my youth represents that the problem described is something from my past I have not grown out of yet.
4) The items in the living room seem to be part of my inner landscape. Their disorder and my struggling with them represent my ongoing struggle for dealing with myself. The CD had also said that in order to find peace the inner world needs to be mastered and unobstructed.
5) The "going in circles" represents both a feeling of being stuck (with anger) and the fact that this is an ongoing process of development of a circular nature. This is a process. It is not an on/off activity. In fact the way we - me and the bear - were running round the room in circles - the process is in fact happening and ongoing.
6) My talking represents what my meditation tradition calls "incessant mind chatter". The moment I reduced the chatter also the bear became more peaceful. So the way to find peace is to relax the mind into a "no-chatter state". The fact that I fell gradually silent, and more silent as realisation came, says this is also an ongoing process.
7) Anger is an ongoing problem in my life, but that it appeared as a teenage bear and not a full-grown grizzly seems to indicate I am at a stage where it is no longer so powerful that I cannot handle it. The bear had a bite, and it still was an animal not to mess with. But it was not beyond me to keep it from doing damage to others, and in the end the bear grew calm.

So, to sum it up:

I represented my mind in this. The way to deal with the anger problem from my youth is to still the mind in meditation to stop the incessant mind chatter. The process is ongoing, and if I go on, and calm the mind, the anger will also be no longer a problem and calm down as well. I already have the power to rein in my anger somewhat, but in the end the anger will not only be controlled but cease.

What a dream.

Oliver