The Aesthetic of the Journey

Hi guys,

I'm working on some story lines around meditation and I'm curious of the persona that you all view yourselves in on this journey to stream entry and beyond.

Are you the wandering seeker journeying across vast deserts and jungles for the just out-of-reach truth?

Are you the cyberpunk Neo seeking to pierce the lies of your conditioning?

Are you a timid caterpillar weaving its cacoon, seeking to burst out as a butterfly?

What other story line or persona would you attach to your journey?

I understand that this exercise is totally vain, but I think there is an energy here that could be useful in communicating with others.

Thanks!

-Justin

I am the daughter or son who left home in search of riches and glory only to return and discover I was rich and glorious all along.

I am the grandmother or grandfather who has lived and seen so much that I love all beings as my kin.

Hey Justin,

You might want to check out "The Dharma of Dragons and Daemons: Buddhist Themes in Modern Fantasy" by David Loy:

www.amazon.com/The-Dharma-Dragons-Daemon...d=1331469625&sr=8-13

Sometimes i am a woven man pulling at the threads, seeking to unravel all things to get to whatever lies underneath.
Sometimes i am a magus, seeking through ritual and alchemy a truth that wills shake the very pillars of the earth
Sometimes i'm just this guy, u know, looking for a deeper peace

Just some dude who accidentally crossed the A&P one day and spent the next five years trying to make sense of that afternoon.

I am the lady who couldn't leave her house because her head is too big, it being so full of strange notions, that she simply couldn't fit through the doorway. indeed she can barely move at all the head is so heavy and drags on the ground. so one day she decides to take her head off and leave it and its strange notions behind and be free. oh what a weight off her shoulders!

What cool responses.

jack

This is very cool and unexpected. I'm loving it!

Hi Justin,

I'm currently studying for a PhD in literature so this is a question that interests me a great deal!

I'd say my own aesthetic used to be that of the dharma bum, as in Jack Kerouac's wonderful novel. But these days the naive exuberance has passed, and now it's more like these lines from the close of Samuel Beckett's trilogy: "It will be the silence, where I am, I don't know. I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on." Just keeping at it really, fumbling in the dark, because I know there is no alternative.

Idealist dreamer who woke stuck in a nightmare

Seeking a way to give voice to my spirit I choose my childhood dream of a career and clawed my way forward through hoops and ladders. Five years on the job I became aware enough to discern i was caught within a spiritually deficient (consumer) culture so I started into my vocation to eventually gain release my the dungeon I earned. It reached a climax of misery and I change directions towards a new career and refined vocation. Ten years later that fell into deep misery and again I quit a second career. Not knowing where to turn I left the country and discovered Vipassana. Two retreats later felt I was ready to go back and give it another chance, currently making my way forward in this incredible capitalistic society no longer feeling it a nightmare but trying still to figure it out and feel that I do not have to be restless this entire journey.

Right now, in this mood?
A man taking off one hat after another. There keep being hats left.