Near the beginning of The Matrix, Neo is asleep with his head lying on his right arm on top of his computer desk. His computer is automatically searching for information on Morpheus. Searching… Headline page after headline page comes up while Neo lies asleep. Later, Neo is in a club with Trinity. Trinity says:
“Please just listen. I know why you’re here, Neo. I know what you’ve been doing. I know why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night you sit at your computer. You’re looking for him. I know, because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn’t really looking for him. I was looking for an answer.”
Searching
So even in his sleep, Neo is searching for Morpheus, named for the Greek god that governs the realm of dreams. Neo intuitively knows that Morpheus will help him see through the Matrix. Trinity emphasizes this point when she says in the previous dialogue, “You’re looking for him” (referring to Morpheus). Morpheus is the guide to Neo’s deeper Self.
A Spiritual Seeker
There are ten Zen Ox-Herding pictures that symbolize the ten stages on the path to Enlightenment in Zen Buddhism. The first stage is called “Searching for the Ox.” So Neo becomes a spiritual seeker. Describing the first picture, Hixon states:
“The seeker is pictured wandering through a mountainous jungle….Suddenly he finds himself confronted by a maze of crisscrossing paths” (p.61, Coming Home: The Experience of Enlightenment in Sacred Traditions by Lex Hixon).
To be continued…
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