Chuang Tzu Chapter 2, Section G

[ChiDragon]

Zhuang Zi was merged with the butterfly; and the butterfly was merged with ZZ. ZZ is the butterfly and the butterfly is ZZ. Hence, there is no separation between human and other things because they were all merged together.

[Taoist Texts]

Zhuang Zi was merged with the butterfly; and the butterfly was merged with ZZ. ZZ is the butterfly and the butterfly is ZZ. Hence, there is no separation between human and other things because they were all merged together.

 

i just looked around. no we are not.

[Marblehead]

Why?

Why? you ask?

 

Because Chuang Tzu and the butterfly are surely two different things of the Ten Thousand Things.

[ChiDragon]

Why? you ask?

 

Because Chuang Tzu and the butterfly are surely two different things of the Ten Thousand Things.

 

Not in his dreams. Anything could have had happened in his dreams.

Edited December 3, 2014 by ChiDragon

[dust]

All good answers. I especially like it when CD agrees with me....

 

 

I'd suggest to read 此之謂物化 more as "this speaks of the transformation of things" rather than "this is called transformation of things."

 

If Zhuangzi can dream of being a butterfly and not even know that he isn't, then it shows how the mind can be in any body and experience life. Zhuangzi's mind can experience life from the perspective of a butterfly. This points to the essence of mind, imo, which exists in all things, everywhere, and so enables "transformation" as all things have essence of mind in no matter what form. They can transform from this to that, but the essence of mind does not change, and this is why they can be the same yet transformed.

 

Interesting.

 

How do we know that he knows what it's like to be a butterfly?

 

He would probably say,

"How do you know that I don't?"

 

 

 

depends on what you mean by merging of things.

 

Well I really meant, what does 物化 mean to you

 

But by merging of things..

 

知天樂者，其生也天行，其死也物化

"Those who know the joy of Heaven during their life, act like Heaven, and at death undergo transformation like (other) things"

 

化 originally meant death. Another form of returning to the root. Legge's translation here, again, literally translates it as 'transformation' without really considering what that transformation means. It means that we merge with the earth. We fully realize the ultimate inseparability between us and the rest of existence.

 

 

i just looked around. no we are not.

 

Depends on how you look at it.

 

in more 'scientific' terms: What are you made of? Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, iron, calcium...same as a butterfly. If we take away the earth, you have nowhere to stand; if we take away the air, you have nothing to breathe; if we take away the sun, you have no heat, nothing to eat; if you have nothing to eat, or breathe, or stand on, there is no way for you to exist. How do you make a clear separation between you and the air that you're breathing? How does one make the separation between a tree and the earth? The atoms that make up your organic being are 100% different from the atoms that made it up this time last year. You're still TT, but you're a TT made up entirely of the stuff you've eaten. How do yo make the separation between you and the food you eat?

 

Well, this is a very literal way of looking at it, but the more one thinks about it, the harder it becomes to make any really useful distinctions.

 

 

 

Why? you ask?

 

Because Chuang Tzu and the butterfly are surely two different things of the Ten Thousand Things.

 

Yes, they are. But they're also all a part of the same... 'force'...when looked at as a whole, we find that nothing in the world could exist without anything else.

[Taoist Texts]

There must be a difference between Zhuang Zhou and a butterfly...

 

This is called the merging of things.

 

 

 

What does it mean to you?

There is a contradiction there. Are things different or are they mixed/merged?

 

merge (mûrj)

v. merged, merg·ing, merg·es

v.tr.

1. To cause to be absorbed, especially in gradual stages.

2. To combine or unite: merging two sets of data.

v.intr.

1. To blend together, especially in gradual stages.

2. To become combined or united. See Synonyms at mix.

[Latin mergere, to plunge.]

Whatever it is, that is not what ZZ meant. His logic is:

I dreamt becoming a butterfly in a sleep. Sleep is a small death. This small death is a premonition of real death. Therefore I am destined 有分 to be reborn as a butterfly. This is called transformation

(rebirth, Metempsychosis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metempsychosis Metempsychosis is a philosophical term in the Greek language

referring to transmigration of the soul, especially its reincarnation after death.) of all sentient things.

[dust]

Oh, no... No reincarnation in my Taoism, thanks!

 

The ZZ is full of (seeming) contradictions. That should come as no surprise...? But it's not really a contradiction.

 

To be different and to be the same -- this is the underlying reality.

 

There must be a difference between me and a butterfly. But I don't know what it is. I know I'm me, because people tell me I am, and because I feel that I am. But when I dream about being a butterfly, I feel that I'm a butterfly. How do I know which is real? How do I know I'm not both? Maybe the difference isn't as clear as I thought it was. When we realize that we and the world around us are essentially the same, this is a realization of an aspect of Dao.

 

This is the merging of one's 'reality' and 'other' -- not a literal physical merge, but a sense that one can't always differentiate.

 

 

 

In Analects 论语, Xunzi 荀子, Liji 礼记, and others, 分 refers to "different" or "separate" or there being a difference. I haven't found an instance, in ctext or my other sources, of it meaning 缘分

 

http://ctext.org/pre-qin-and-han?searchu=%E6%9C%89%E5%88%86

 

Xunzi

人之生不能無群，群而無分則爭，爭則亂，亂則窮矣

Man cannot live without a group; to group and not separate (roles) causes conflict; conflict causes disorder, disorder causes exhaustion/poverty

故無分者，人之大害也；有分者，天下之本利也

So to not separate (roles) is of great harm; to separate is of benefit to all

 

Not very Taoist, but that's hardly the point.

 

Also, if he were talking of reincarnation, why talk of dreaming about being a butterfly? Why not more explicitly state that he thinks he was a butterfly in a past life?

 

 

 

And, again, but with my translation this time:

 

知天樂者，其生也天行，其死也物化

"Those who know the joy of Heaven, in life they move with Heaven, and in death they merge (with all other things)"

 

化 originally meant death. Another form of returning to the root. It means that we merge with the earth. We fully realize the ultimate inseparability between us and the rest of existence.

 

 

 

edit: by the way, you know.. I'm not set on it being 'merging', but am trying to defend the position as much as I can. I am pretty set on it not being about reincarnation, but if there's strong evidence to the contrary, I'll witness it...

Edited December 3, 2014 by dustybeijing

[Marblehead]

 

Not in his dreams. Anything could have happened in his dreams.

While that is true, it was only his dream, not the butterfly's. Nor would it have been true for anyone observing him while he was dreaming. Chuang Tzu never was a butterfly nor could he ever have been a butterfly.

[Marblehead]

 

Yes, they are. But they're also all a part of the same... 'force'...when looked at as a whole, we find that nothing in the world could exist without anything else.

Most people take this concept way too far. The concept is that we all are of the same source: Tao, or, if you will, stardust.

 

I will readily admit that I am dependent on many different things of the universe. But then, there are many more things of the universe that have zero effect on my existence or life.

[Marblehead]

Oh, no... No reincarnation in my Taoism, thanks!

Hehehe. That was funny.

[Marblehead]

To be different and to be the same -- this is the underlying reality.

I always differentiate more finely regarding this. Yes, were are of the same source but we each are assuredly one of the Ten Thousand Things. Special and unique.

[dust]

While that is true, it was only his dream, not the butterfly's. Nor would it have been true for anyone observing him while he was dreaming. Chuang Tzu never was a butterfly nor could he ever have been a butterfly.

 

Can you see it possibly being, not literally about him being a butterfly, but a metaphor for the perceivable connection between one and the rest of existence?

 

 

Most people take this concept way too far.

 

Perhaps.

 

 

The concept is that we all are of the same source: Tao, or, if you will, stardust.

 

I will readily admit that I am dependent on many different things of the universe. But then, there are many more things of the universe that have zero effect on my existence or life.

 

But, within existence, within Tao, everything that has happened up until this point has led to this point.

 

Do you play pool? Think about the break. The balls start together, and are moved apart by the force of another ball. At that moment, the force/white ball and all the other balls interact, and every ball is affected by every other ball. Even if the 8 ball rolls off into the corner and stays there for the rest of the game, it got there from an interaction with all of the other balls. No ball on the table would be where it was if all those other balls hadn't been there at the break and behaved how they'd behaved in relation to all the other balls. The balls are all separate, but part of the same game.

 

 

 

And:

 

If all he's saying is "there's a difference between people and butterflies", why bother writing a passage about it??

[Taoist Texts]

edit: by the way, you know.. I'm not set on it being 'merging', but am trying to defend the position as much as I can. I am pretty set on it not being about reincarnation, but if there's strong evidence to the contrary, I'll witness it...

 

ZZ be my witness

 

子犁往問之曰：「叱！避！無怛化！」倚其戶與之語曰：「偉哉造物！又將奚以汝為？將奚以汝適？以汝為鼠肝乎？以汝為蟲臂乎？」子來曰：「父母於子，東西南北，唯命之從。陰陽於人，不翅於父母，彼近吾死而我不聽，我則悍矣，彼何罪焉！夫大塊載我以形，勞我以生，佚我以老，息我以死。故善吾生者，乃所以善吾死也。今之大冶鑄金，金踊躍曰『我且必為鏌鋣』，大冶必以為不祥之金。今一犯人之形，而曰『人耳人耳』

 

Then, leaning against the door, he said (to the dying man), 'Great indeed is the Creator! What will He now make you to become? Where will He take you to? Will He make you the liver of a rat, or the arm of an insect? Zi-lai replied, 'Wherever a parent tells a son to go, east, west, south, or north, he simply follows the command. The Yin and Yang are more to a man than his parents are. If they are hastening my death, and I do not quietly submit to them, I shall be obstinate and rebellious. There is the great Mass (of nature);-- I find the support of my body in it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest on it: what has made my life a good will make my death also a good. Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If the metal were to leap up (in the pot), and say, "I must be made into a (sword like the) Mo-ye," the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. So, again, when a form is being fashioned in the mould of the womb, if it were to say, "I must become a man; I must become a man,"

[Marblehead]

Can you see it possibly being, not literally about him being a butterfly, but a metaphor for the perceivable connection between one and the rest of existence?

Yes. But as I have said, most people take this concept way too far.

 

But, within existence, within Tao, everything that has happened up until this point has led to this point.

 

Do you play pool? Think about the break. The balls start together, and are moved apart by the force of another ball. At that moment, the force/white ball and all the other balls interact, and every ball is affected by every other ball. Even if the 8 ball rolls off into the corner and stays there for the rest of the game, it got there from an interaction with all of the other balls. No ball on the table would be where it was if all those other balls hadn't been there at the break and behaved how they'd behaved in relation to all the other balls. The balls are all separate, but part of the same game.

I have no problem with this. Afterall, "cause and effect" is a very important concept in my life.

 

And:

 

If all he's saying is "there's a difference between people and butterflies", why bother writing a passage about it??

And furthermore, why didn't he finish the story? Because he wanted the readers to answer the question themselves.

 

It's fine if you believe you are connected with everything else in the universe. But if someone sneaks up on you in a dark alley and beats the shit out of you I am pretty sure you won't think that you are connected to that person and therefore you deserved to have the shit beat out of you.

[Marblehead]

ZZ be my witness

And that's as close to reincarnation that Chuang Tzu ever got. But this really is not reincarnation, it is simply recycling.

[Taoist Texts]

And that's as close to reincarnation that Chuang Tzu ever got. But this really is not reincarnation, it is simply recycling.

could be. recycling of what?

[dust]

ZZ be my witness

 

子犁往問之曰：「叱！避！無怛化！」倚其戶與之語曰：「偉哉造物！又將奚以汝為？將奚以汝適？以汝為鼠肝乎？以汝為蟲臂乎？」子來曰：「父母於子，東西南北，唯命之從。陰陽於人，不翅於父母，彼近吾死而我不聽，我則悍矣，彼何罪焉！夫大塊載我以形，勞我以生，佚我以老，息我以死。故善吾生者，乃所以善吾死也。今之大冶鑄金，金踊躍曰『我且必為鏌鋣』，大冶必以為不祥之金。今一犯人之形，而曰『人耳人耳』

 

Then, leaning against the door, he said (to the dying man), 'Great indeed is the Creator! What will He now make you to become? Where will He take you to? Will He make you the liver of a rat, or the arm of an insect? Zi-lai replied, 'Wherever a parent tells a son to go, east, west, south, or north, he simply follows the command. The Yin and Yang are more to a man than his parents are. If they are hastening my death, and I do not quietly submit to them, I shall be obstinate and rebellious. There is the great Mass (of nature);-- I find the support of my body in it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest on it: what has made my life a good will make my death also a good. Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If the metal were to leap up (in the pot), and say, "I must be made into a (sword like the) Mo-ye," the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. So, again, when a form is being fashioned in the mould of the womb, if it were to say, "I must become a man; I must become a man,"

 

I don't think it's directly speaking of reincarnation. And later in the same passage:

 

孔子曰：「彼遊方之外者也，而丘游方之內者也。外內不相及，而丘使女往弔之，丘則陋矣。彼方且與造物者為人，而遊乎天地之一氣。彼以生為附贅縣疣，以死為決潰癰。夫若然者，又惡知死生先後之所在！假於異物，託於同體，忘其肝膽，遺其耳目，反覆終始，不知端倪，芒然彷徨乎塵垢之外，逍遙乎無為之業。彼又 惡能憒憒然為世俗之禮，以觀眾人之耳目哉！」

 

Confucius replied, 'Those men occupy and enjoy themselves in what is outside the (common) ways (of the world), while I occupy and enjoy myself in what lies within those ways. There is no common ground for those of such different ways; and when I sent you to condole with those men, I was acting stupidly. They, moreover, make man to be the fellow of the Creator, and seek their enjoyment in the formless condition of heaven and earth. They consider life to be an appendage attached, an excrescence annexed to them, and death to be a separation of the appendage and a dispersion of the contents of the excrescence. With these views, how should they know wherein death and life are to be found, or what is first and what is last? They borrow different substances, and pretend that the common form of the body is composed of them. They dismiss the thought of (its inward constituents like) the liver and gall, and (its outward constituents), the ears and eyes. Again and again they end and they begin, having no knowledge of first principles. They occupy themselves ignorantly and vaguely with what (they say) lies outside the dust and dirt (of the world), and seek their enjoyment in the business of doing nothing. How should they confusedly address themselves to the ceremonies practised by the common people, and exhibit themselves as doing so to the ears and eyes of the multitude?'

 

 

It sounds a bit like reincarnation, but it's not. Not in the way that a spirit leaves one body and enters another. It's describing what I said before: the idea of merging with the earth and reforming in another way. The idea that everything is made of the same stuff and that there is no beginning to anything, because everything is caused by everything else...

Edited December 3, 2014 by dustybeijing

[Marblehead]

 

Do you play pool? Think about the break. The balls start together, and are moved apart by the force of another ball.

And aside from what I have already said, Remember, each ball is numbered. That is so that you know who's balls to play with.

[Marblehead]

could be. recycling of what?

Ah!! That is an unanswerable question. Won't know until it happens. And, in my understanding, that which is being recycled wouldn't ever know although others could possibly know.

 

I know a lot of folks would like to hear me say that our spirit gets recycled into another body. I can't go there. That is one of the "Mysteries".

 

But all the physical stuff will become a part of something else.

[dust]

Numbered, coloured, yes, but in larger life the balls would correspond perhaps to atoms, and would, from that beginning, come together in different ways with other balls to form larger structures. And those larger structures would be made of specific balls, perhaps, but each ball would become part of countless structures, and each recognizably 'individual' structure would be made at different times from different balls.

 

"The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless" (Alan Watts)

 

This is very true. A rock is, to us, comparatively lifeless -- and its physical structure remains the same for a long time. We are very much 'alive' -- and our physical structure is constantly changing.

[Marblehead]

Numbered, coloured, yes, but in larger life the balls would correspond perhaps to atoms, and would, from that beginning, come together in different ways with other balls to form larger structures. And those larger structures would be made of specific balls, perhaps, but each ball would become part of countless structures, and each recognizably 'individual' structure would be made at different times from different balls.

 

"The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless" (Alan Watts)

 

This is very true. A rock is, to us, comparatively lifeless -- and its physical structure remains the same for a long time. We are very much 'alive' -- and our physical structure is constantly changing.

You are taking the balls apart. Once we start taking any thing apart we first of all lose its "isness". We lose what caused it to be special and unique.

 

That is one of the few quotes from Alan that I totally agree with. And this applies at all levels.

[dust]

Not a Watts fan, eh? Because of the insanely loud snoring man in the apartment next door, for a long while Alan's lectures were one of the only things enabling me to drown out the noise, relax, and thus get to sleep during weeknights. So I've listened to Alan a lot..! .... I find that he interprets the Eastern philosophies philosophically, which is also my intent, and I rarely find something I disagree with.

 

Anyway... if, by taking the balls apart, I'm causing them to lose their isness, what are you doing by taking reality apart? (i.e. dividing into different things, individuals, places, fauna, flora, whatever..). Doesn't reality itself then lose its isness?

[ChiDragon]

While that is true, it was only his dream, not the butterfly's. Nor would it have been true for anyone observing him while he was dreaming. Chuang Tzu never was a butterfly nor could he ever have been a butterfly.

 

I think the story goes like this after ZZ's dream of being a butterfly. ZZ was wondering did he dream about himself as being a butterfly or a butterfly dreamed itself as ZZ.

 

庄子提出一个哲学问题——人如何认识真实。如果梦足够真实，人没有任何能力知道自己是在做梦。

ZZ had raised a philosophical question - How can human recognize reality? If the dream is real enough, then there is no way that one can tell oneself is in a dream.

 

庄周梦蝶似梦似真，但是归根结底就是哲学的一种表现，总的来说就是分不清现实与梦境。这也是道的一种表现形式，这是老庄紧随老子的一种体现。

ZZ's dream about the butterfly seems it could be real or a dream. However, it was only a revelation of a philosophical thought. It was about one not able to tell the difference between reality and a dream. Thus it was a way to show the manifestation of Tao.

Edited December 3, 2014 by ChiDragon

[Marblehead]

 

I think the story goes like this after ZZ's dream of being a butterfly. ZZ was wondering did he dream about himself as being a butterfly or a butterfly dreamed itself as ZZ.

Yes, I know how it reads. It fails, in my mind, to satisfy any form of logic. That is why I am surprised that the question even needs be asked.

[Marblehead]

Anyway... if, by taking the balls apart, I'm causing them to lose their isness, what are you doing by taking reality apart? (i.e. dividing into different things, individuals, places, fauna, flora, whatever..). Doesn't reality itself then lose its isness?

Well, if you can prove to me that I am a physical or mental part of the pool table or the pool ball I might, just might, consider that question.

 

From my perspective I have not taken reality apart by suggesting that I am one of the Ten Thousand Things. You are too, BTW.