We all know a poem: "Zhuang Sheng dreamed of butterflies", which is about Zhuangzi dreaming of butterflies. This allusion comes from "Zhuangzi Qiwu Lun" and was written by Zhuangzi, the main representative of the Taoist school during the Warring States Period. A philosophical proposition put forward. Let’s take a look at the moral of this story. The following is a collection of allusions to Zhuang Zhou’s Mengdie story that I have carefully compiled for you. I hope you like it.
Original text of Zhuangzi's Dream of Butterflies
In the past, Zhuangzi dreamed of a butterfly, a lifelike butterfly, which he described as suitable for his will and ambition, but he did not know the Zhou Dynasty. Suddenly I feel like I'm in a state of confusion. I don’t know if Zhou’s dream is a butterfly, and if a butterfly’s dream is Zhou, then Zhou and a butterfly must be different. This is called materialization.
Translation of Zhuangzi's Dream of Butterflies
In the past, Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he turned into a butterfly, a very vivid and lifelike butterfly. He felt so happy and comfortable! He didn't know that he was originally Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly I woke up, and in a panic I realized it was me, Zhuang Zhou. I wonder if it was Zhuang Zhou who turned into a butterfly in his dream, or a butterfly who turned into Zhuang Zhou in his dream? There must be a difference between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly. This can be called the intersection and change of crops and me.
Philosophical Discussion on Zhuang Zhou’s Dream of Butterflies
Argument
One of Zhuang Zi’s Madnesses
Turning into a butterfly to seek pleasure, I am deeply moved by it! Drum basin song , this is so leisurely!
Teaching music and preaching, natural literary talent! Leaving the world, an eternal genius!
Zhuangzi’s Madness II
The ultimate way is willful, difficult Ming Wangzuo! The nature is full of energy, and I don’t envy the king!
Zhuangzi has not changed, but his spirit is brilliant! There are thousands of capable people, such as me.
? Zhuangzhou Mengdie? Is Zhuangzi borrowing it? The story puts forward a philosophical argument, and the philosophical topic it explores is: Can people as cognitive subjects accurately distinguish between reality and illusion?
Detailed explanation
Zhuangzi elaborated on this in the form of a story: In the past, Zhuang Zhou dreamed of being a butterfly, and he was a butterfly. Self-explanation is suitable for ambition and! I don't know the Zhou Dynasty. Suddenly I feel like I'm in a state of confusion. I don’t know that there must be a difference between Zhou’s dream as a butterfly and Zhou’s dream as a butterfly and Zhou’s dream as a butterfly. This is called materialization. ?
The main idea is that one day Zhuangzi dreamed that he had become a butterfly. After waking up from the dream, he found that he was still Zhuangzi, so he didn’t know whether he was dreaming of Zhuangzi’s butterfly or Zhuangzi who was dreaming of butterflies. . Here, Zhuangzi raises a philosophical question: How do people understand reality. If dreams are real enough, people have no ability to know that they are dreaming.
In the eyes of ordinary people, what a person sees and feels when he is awake is real, while dreams are hallucinations and unreal. Zhuangzi thought otherwise. Although waking is one state and dreaming is another state, they are not the same; Zhuang Zhou is Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly is a butterfly, and they are also different. From Zhuang Zhou's point of view, they are all just a phenomenon, a form and a stage in the movement of Tao.
Zhuangzi is using the simplest fable to illustrate one of mankind's most serious questions, that is, the issue of life and death.
Pursuing the essence
On the surface, Zhuangzi is always lively and unrestrained. However, in essence, it is not difficult to see from Zhuangzi’s view of the pain of life that the premise of his philosophical outlook on life is to be maintained. Pessimistic attitude. Although "Zhuangzi" has a strong spirit of freedom and pursues a life of freedom and no waiting, this does not mean that life is inherently free, and Zhuangzi does not deny this. Therefore, even in the most free-spirited "Xiaoyaoyou", he still said: "If the water is not thick, it will not be able to carry a large boat." Put a cup of water on the col hall, and the boat will be made of mustard; if you place the cup on top, it will be glued. The water is shallow and the boat is big. If the accumulation of wind is not thick, its large wings will be weak, so for ninety thousand miles, the wind will be blowing down. ? Fuliezi walked against the wind, calm and good, but he turned around after five days in ten days. He has not counted his karma for those who have brought good fortune. Although this is unnecessary, there is still something to be desired. How sad! Even the rocs flying over the South Ming and Liezi walking on the wind can't be said to be free and free. They are restrained everywhere. How pitiful will it be for a small bird-like person jumping among the elm trees? !Here, Zhuangzi’s ideal of free life is separated from reality by a certain distance after all. The god and man of Miaogu who “breathes the wind, drinks the dew, rides on the clouds, and rides the flying dragon” is just a virtual existence, but in reality there are many people who are alienated. , Shen Tujia, Ziyu and other unfortunate people who were manipulated and tortured by fate. Before "Zhuang Zhou Meng Die", in the dialogue between Wang Liang and Jing, Jing said: "What I am waiting for is evil? What I am waiting for is evil? What I am waiting for is evil? What is the reason why evil consciousness is evil consciousness?" So otherwise? It clearly expresses Zhuangzi's tragic view of fate that life has to wait for. This is actually the premise of the outlook on life that is also implicit in "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies". Among them, he does not distinguish between Zhuang Zhou's dream of a butterfly and the difference between butterfly and Zhou. True illusion, doesn't it reflect Zhuangzi's feeling that individuals are small and similar? The Chao bacteria don't know Hui Shuo, and the Huizhu doesn't know Spring and Autumn? Is it the pessimism of being ignorant and not free? Therefore, Zhuangzi couldn't help but sigh with emotion: "It's so small, so it belongs to human beings" . ?
On the basis of this pessimistic fatalism, the pain of life and the impermanence of life inevitably reveal the true nature of life in "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies": "Life seems to be an illusion, and it will eventually end in nothingness". doubt. Zhuang Zhou set the problem of human existence in a dream, which was actually an allegorical allusion to "life is like a dream".
Zhuangzi was reborn, cherishing and clinging to life, so he felt that life was short and perishable. The short life seemed difficult to grasp and difficult to recognize, so it gave rise to a feeling of illusion. Moreover, when people are questioned about existence as beings, it is indeed difficult to clearly distinguish. Guo Xiangyun: "Today's failure to recognize butterflies is no different from not knowing the world in a dream, and it is impossible to understand the ambitions of each moment." Hu Die's dreamlessness is the Zhou Dynasty. There are people in the world who have been dreaming for hundreds of years, but there is no way to understand that the present hundred years are not just false dreams. ?Due to the contingency of individual existence and the existence of perceptual factors, the authenticity of existence can easily be lost in the world of phenomena, and human self-awareness can also be lost in it, making it difficult to distinguish authenticity from falsehood. Zhuangzi tried his best to pursue the reality of existence, but the relativism in "Equality of Things" dragged him into an infinite cycle of knowledge and speculation. As a result, he was separated from a specific objective time and space condition, resulting in the "I am aware that I am alive". The consciousness of existence is temporarily suspended, and the reality of existence is also lost. Therefore, there is a feeling that life is like a dream. In this regard, there are two passages in "Zhuangzi" that are quite similar to "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies". They can be regarded as a performance of the fable, and can also be seen as a kind of evidence for "Life is like a dream":
Dreaming about drinking means crying; dreaming about crying means hunting in the field. Fang Qi is dreaming, but I don’t know his dream. In the dream, the dream is captured, and after waking up, the dream is known. And those who have great awakening will realize that this is a great dream, but fools think they are aware of it and secretly know it. Jun, Mu, Gu! Qiu Ye and the girl are both dreaming; I said that the girl is dreaming, too. ?"On the Equality of Things"
When Zhuangzi thought about existence in the way of "Zhuang Zhou dreamed of butterflies", when he lost himself in the illusion of "life is like a dream", he had a sense of loss. sad. Ye Lang said, "Wen Yiduo said that Zhuangzi's thoughts and writings are about looking at his hometown, a cry of homesickness among the guests, and a kind of sacred guest sorrow." Therefore, "Zhuangzi" is philosophy, because all great philosophers seek the spiritual home of mankind; "Zhuangzi" is poetry, because missing one's hometown is the flavor of poetry; "Zhuangzi" is also beauty, because as Kant said, the highest beauty is They all make people feel melancholy, as if they have lost something, like a traveler missing his hometown. ?From "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" we can indeed taste the sacred sorrow and deep melancholy, and the whole "Zhuangzi" seems to have the kind of "homelessness" that has lost its spiritual home:
Once I receive its form, I don’t wait to be exhausted. It moves according to the object, day and night without gaps, without knowing its end. Xun Ran takes shape, knowing that his destiny cannot be regulated by his front mound, which seems to be the sun. I have been with you for the rest of my life and lost it, but I don’t regret "Tian Zifang"
Individual people are accidentally thrown into the world (? Once I am formed by it, I will not change it to be finished?) , but sinking in this accidental world of phenomena (moving in response to objects, day and night, not knowing where it ends?). Chewing it carefully, "I have been with you forever and lost it" is a kind of loss without destiny. Zhuangzi's loss of himself in the appearance of butterfly and self is also the loss of the true nature of the subject.
At the same time, there is also the contradiction of understanding itself. The loss in "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" also has a strong philosophical meaning. Seeing the blindness and patheticness of human beings, looking up at the silence of the whole universe, human beings are abandoned to themselves without any light, just like being lost in the world. A corner of the universe without knowing who placed him here, what he was here to do, and what he would become after death. He could not have any knowledge. ?[7] The existence and pursuit of human beings as a whole seem to have lost their fundamental meaning and value basis, which is tragic. Reflected in "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" is the coexistence of the spirit of pursuit and the emotion of loss. Moreover, the limitations of understanding also create people's "waiting" and restrict people's freedom of action.
Although "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" is full of tragic consciousness, Zhuangzi did not go towards the pessimism or nihilism of "I and You Are Also Huan Ye" in "Lieh Zi". After all, people can accept absurdity in life, but human beings can accept absurdity. You cannot live in absurdity. He still admitted that Zhou and Hu Die must be different. "Zhuangzi" possesses the optimistic and transcendent spirit of Chinese philosophy. It wants to reach from the finite to the infinite, so he wants to equalize things and myself, to live and die, and even to the state of "materialization".
In addition, the transcendence of "Zhuang Zhou's Dream of Butterflies" is reflected in the aspects of life and death, and also reflects the optimism of Chinese philosophy, or "knowing heaven and rejoicing in destiny", after all, it only needs to achieve the philosophical level Transcendence, without seeking active resistance in reality:
Yin and yang are in people, not in parents. If they are close to me, I will die but I don't listen, and I will be fierce, so what's the crime? ?"The Great Master"
Thus, Zhuangzi penetrated life with tragic emotions and transcended life with humorous emotions. He changed from the tragic view of fatalism to the traditional optimistic spirit of "happy fate and knowing nature" Realm, this is the same as that of Confucianism? Those who care about their own minds will not be able to express sorrow and joy easily. Knowing that there is nothing you can do about it and being at peace with it is the ultimate virtue. The etiquette and music spirit of the Confucian people are quite similar. The reason is the persistent pursuit of the present world which is inseparable from the concept of "harmony" and the thinking mode of "harmony between man and nature" produced by the Chinese agricultural civilization. It is Confucianism. Talk about the same desire of both families. In terms of spiritual intention, this desire is reflected in taking the happy feelings of this worldly life as the basis of the spiritual world. ?So the ancient Chinese people’s outlook on life is always optimistic.
Next, another issue is involved in the aesthetic transcendence of musical culture and the thinking mode of "heaven and man are one".
To sum up, "Zhuangzi Mengdie" takes perceptual life as the starting point and obtains a tragic understanding of life by questioning individual existence. Moreover, Zhuangzi's awakening also makes him show a kind of sorrow for leaving the world. However, Zhuangzi, who had the temperament of romantic freedom, did not sink into it. Instead, he wanted to transcend the limited tragic life in real perceptual life, "enlighten the truth with beauty", grasp the true state of existence, and pursue an ideal realm of freedom to human beings. Poetic dwelling.
In other words: people must exist first and then have thoughts. Existence is real, thoughts arise in reality, but thoughts themselves are illusory. People will only have illusory thoughts after their realistic needs for existence are met and their existence is guaranteed. Therefore, when Zhuang Zhou raised the question of who dreamed of whom between him and the butterfly, his existential needs must have been met, and his realistic existence must have been guaranteed before he raised this illusory question and thought. However: the illusory question or thought itself raised by Zhuang Zhou, that is, "Do I exist?" is actually a question that can only be proven in reality. The reason why the question of "Zhuang Zhou Meng Die" remains unsolved and has become an elegant talk is because people did not go to reality to find proof, but tried to pursue the answer in illusory thoughts. In the end, it can only be reduced to fantasy or fantasy. Elegant talk.