Zhuangzi Butterfly Dream is a Red Pill Metaphor
If you would like to learn about Zen mediation then I have also created the Zazen Compilation ALBUM (The Complete Zen Collection to understanding Zen, Zazen and Kinhin, including guided meditations), follow the link.
What does it mean to dream you’re a butterfly? Is it better to free your mind? Or live in blissful ignorance?
Hello, Jason Cain here and welcome to the Ancient wisdom modern mind podcast and today I would like to share my view on self-realization and Zhuang Zhou’s “Butterfly Dream”.
There is a Chinese saying that life is like a dream and a dream is like life, and this is illustrated vividly in Zhuang Zhou’s story.
Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly. What fun he had, doing as he pleased! He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he woke up and found himself to be Zhou. He did not know whether Zhou had dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly had dreamed he was Zhou.
In the end, Zhuangzi wrote, there was necessarily a difference between Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly, this difference was the transformation of things. The transformation is a change in consciousness between reality and illusion. The constant flux between dreams and awakening leads the self to change from being unaware of the distinction of things to being aware of the definite distinction between and among things.
About Zhuang Zhou:
Zhuang Zhou, also known as Chuang Chou, Chuang Tzu or Zhuangzi which literally means Master Zhuang, was an influential Chinese philosopher who lived around the 4th century BC during the Warring States period, a period corresponding to the summit of Chinese philosophy and the Hundred Schools of Thought.
Zhuang Zhou’s philosophy
In general, Zhuang Zhou’s philosophy is a skeptical approach, arguing that the mind is limited, but that the knowledge to be gained is unlimited. To use the limited to pursue the unlimited, he said, was foolish.
A modern analogy can be seen in the “Red Pill” and “Blue Pill” struggle, when a young boy transitions from boyhood to manhood, he must choose to take the Red pill of knowledge and become a man, who is then free to choose his own destiny, or take the Blue pill of Ignorance. But if he takes to Blue pill he will remain a boy mentally and a slave to society's whims.
If you would like to learn about Zen mediation then I have also created the Zazen Compilation ALBUM (The Complete Zen Collection to understanding Zen, Zazen and Kinhin, including guided meditations), follow the link.
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References
// BACKGROUND VIDEO SOURCE: Butterfly 01 Particles Golden
// IMAGE SOURCE: Realistic Butterfly Drawing Monarch Butterfly
