Walk and don't look back
In a governmentality of Psycho Killers drop out of the tyrannical system now to be free
https://thedewdrop.org/2020/01/27/bankei-and-the-unborn/amp/
Just stop and look back to the origin of this self of yours. When you were born, your parents didn’t give you any happy, evil, or bitter thoughts. There was only your buddha-mind.
If your neighbor praised you instead, or said something that pleased you, you’d be immediately delighted, even if the praise was totally undeserving and the Pleasure you felt unfounded, a product of your own wishful thinking, The delight You experience when this happens is due to that same obstinate, constitutional preference to yourself.
Just stop and look back to the origin of this self of yours. When you were born, your parents didn’t give you any happy, evil, or bitter thoughts. There was only your buddha-mind. Afterwards, when your intelligence appeared, you saw and heard other people saying and doing bad things, and you learned them and made them yours. By the time you reached adulthood, deep-set habits, formed in this way of your own manufacture, emerged. Now, cherishing yourself and your own ideas, you turn your buddha-mind into the path of fighting spirits. If you covet what belongs to other people, kindling selfish desires for something that can never be yours, you create the path of hungry ghosts, and you change the buddha mind into that kind of existence. This is what is known as [rebirth].
If you realize fully the meaning of what I’ve just said, and do not lose your temper, or think you must have this, or decide that you don’t like that, or have feelings of bitterness or pity—that in itself is the unborn buddha-mind. You’ll be a living Buddha.
The Town and the City is the first novel by Jack Kerouac. I think if I were to read it 40 times, I would not tire of its rhythms. Not looking back is a definite theme, of people inspired to do things that many would say they would later regret. But indeed, our human nature does not naturally include this regret, which has to be laid upon us by other entities if we are to wear it. It is a beautiful feeling to cast that hairshirt off and simply live your life inspired by things we cannot quite name.
https://youtu.be/8v_PnWCoeZM?si=2YIFkTxKN47WDGp4 Billy Strings Must be Seven......
I have not read Town and the City. I will. I think like PKD whose early not SF work was ignored until his death the brilliance was left until death.