Butterfly Dream – the wisdom of Zhuang Zi 庄子

Somewhere on ZhongNan Mountain ...


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"Once, ZhuangZi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was ZhuangZi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable ZhuangZi. But he didn't know if he was ZhuangZi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was ZhuangZi."


This hints at many questions regarding the philosophy of mind, language, epistemology (knowledge and belief), and the nature of time.


The wisdom of Zhuang Zi (Chuang Tzu / Chuang Tse); 369 BC - 286 BC, a contemporary of Mencius (a disciple of Confucius). Zhuang Zi had a significant impact on Chinese Buddhism - particularly the type that is best known by its Japanese name: Zen Buddhism. Zhuang Zi is, however, essentially a key figure in Taoism, following Lao Zi (Lao Tse). A good read is 'The Way of Zen' by Alan Watts.

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