Monks are students of the universe. As a monk, I sit, contemplate, and listen to the sounds and motions of the universe and try to make sense of them. When I read Gaiman’s portrayal of the dream hunter, I appreciated his ability to use dreams and their abstraction to help others see the value of taking life’s noble path. Dreams are a beautiful manifestation of the imagination of the collective mind. I feel that Gaiman has done a wonderful job in portraying my role in this dreamscape. He captures my presence and appreciation of nature. As for the companion I found along my journey, I believe that the she, the fox, helps demonstrate that even if there is a molecular disconnect between man and animal, there is an unspoken intellectual and emotional …show more content…
Also, by giving the fox the ability to change forms helped cultivate my message of love and compassion on a universal scale. This is because humans can identify with a human loving a human. Despite sometimes not being able to see that same love can be given to a fox. For example, when I said, “ I have come to plead for the life of a fox, who is, in my world, lost in dreams. Without your aid, she will perish,” (82) many people would not understand my connection to the fox, but by creating a shape shifting creature, the physical fox and woman transform into a symbol for love and compassion. His use of language also helps sustain the symbols of love and compassion. I also enjoyed when Gaiman said that I “stroked her fur, as soft as thistledown, and felt the weak beat of her heart” (56). Such language creates an unspoken humility that calls compassion to manifest. The one portrayal I was uneasy about was when Gaiman showed me praying to Buddha, which was visually appeasing, and then showed the wounded fox and described it as a dead thing (60). I felt that this took away the true power and meaning of prayer and reduced it to nothing more than an empty