Is the conventional interpretation of the Zhuang Zhou’s  Butterfly Dream really a misinterpretation? Hans-Georg Moeller certainly thinks so………   THE DREAM OF THE BUTTERFLY—OR:  EVERYTHING IS REAL   Herbert A. Giles's translation of the famous allegory of the but­terfly dream in the Zhuangzi is beautiful, but unfortunately, as I believe, entirely wrong:   Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was con­scious only of following my fancies as a butterfly, and was unconscious of my individuality as a man. Suddenly, I awaked, and there I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dream­ing I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a barrier. The transition is called Metempsychosis.   I quote this translation because of its great influence on the Western perception of Daoist philosophy, especially among Western intellectuals and philoso­phers. Giles's translation of the Zhuangzi and, in particular, his rendering of this allegory is representative of the general under­standing of Daoist philosophy in his generation while, on the other hand, it quite obviously contradicts a traditional interpretation of the text in China.   Giles's translation of the butterfly dream has little to do with the original. It is rather an interesting transformation of the text into the patterns of "standard" Western philosophy. Perhaps the butterfly allegory became so popular in the West just because of this "Westernization." When one first reads Giles's version, it surely sounds very Chinese—if only because of the Chinese names and the quite "oriental" butterfly. But upon taking a closer look, it turns out to be an exotic disguise of thoroughly Western ideas. Giles's translation can be compared to the food of many Chinese restaurants in Western countries: it looks Chinese, but the cook has, nevertheless, made it wonderfully palatable to eaters accus­tomed to the local tastes.   Giles's version is based on Zhuangzi's recollection of his dream after he wakes up. Philosophically speaking, the story revolves around a central act of consciousness. Once the philosopher wakes, he remembers his dream of the butterfly, and once he starts remembering this dream, he begins to doubt and reflect on his being and on the problems of truth and appearance. In Giles's rendering, Zhuangzi gains an insight into the continuity of the soul within the chain of existence: he understands that he  is part of the great cycle of Metempsychosis or the transmigration of the soul. The act of remembering is at the core of this philosoph­ical realization of the truth. It seems to be the point of departure on the path towards the discovery of the truth about the world and one's soul.   Giles's butterfly dream story is an interesting blend of motifs from the Western philosophical tradition. It bears a certain resem­blance to the final book of Plato's Republic in which Socrates tells the myth of Er, a person who was allowed to visit the underworld. In the underworld, Er witnessed what happens to the souls there: after their lives on earth, they are judged and sent either to a heaven or to a hell. Having spent a certain amount of time in the underworld, the souls return to earth after choosing a new body for their next life. Before the souls re-enter the world, they have to cross the plains of Lethe—or: Forgetfulness. By this crossing, they lose all their memory of the underworld and go on to live without knowledge of the metempsychosis they have undergone. According to this story, it is only through the act of remembrance—through mentally reaching back before the plains of forgetfulness—that human beings can actually realize their true being and fate: the transmigration of souls.   Since Plato, remembrance has been a central motif within Western conceptions of wisdom and knowledge, of thinking and of truth. In Plato's Meno, Socrates tries to prove that all knowledge comes from memory by conducting an "experiment" with an une­ducated slave: Just by asking the slave simple yes-or-no questions, Socrates helps him "discover" some basic geometrical rules. He concludes that the slave already had an innate geometrical knowl­edge and only needed some help to actually remember it. In mod­ern philosophy, G. W. F. Hegel depicted recollection as the way that leads to absolute knowledge in the course of his Phenomenology of Spirit. Old-European philosophers indeed often "thought back" to find the truth. In a similar way, Herbert A. Giles's Zhuangzi has to think back and re-member his dream in order to have the re-flection which leads him to re-cognize what is true and what only seems to be.   A second core motif of Giles's butterfly dream story deeply rooted in the Western philosophical tradition is expressed by the most often used term in his translation: I. This I and the related question of what this I truly is make up the philosophical thread that runs through the story. Zhuangzi tells a story about himself, he tells how his I in his dream is the I of a butterfly. Then he awakes and Zhuangzi is, as he says, " myself again. " This very I then starts thinking—and what does it think about? About itself and about what it is! Giles's text is from beginning to end about the I and its reflection on its own being. It is an ironic fact, I believe, that in the history of Western philosophy, there are few texts that treat so exclusively and comprehensively the issue of human sub­jectivity!   A third core motif of Giles's butterfly dream story is doubt. As soon as Zhuangzi remembers his dream, he begins doubting. And again, these doubts are rather existential since they are in regard to his inner self. Did Zhuangzi dream about being a butterfly or is he now a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi? The motif of philo­sophical doubt is of great importance within the history of Western philosophy. Although Rene Descartes' famous Meditations are usually summarized by the "motto" cogito ergo sum or "I think, therefore I am," one might as well use the motto "I doubt, there­fore I am." At least after Descartes, Western philosophers are often seen as experts in doubting, as depicted in Auguste Rodin's sculp­ture The Thinker. The tradition of Western philosophy has com­bined these three motifs—remembrance, the being of the "I," and doubt—in various ways. One could very well write a history of (modern) Western philosophy by following the development of these notions. In Giles's translation, Zhuangzi appears to be a par­adigmatic Western philosopher in an ancient Chinese robe!   A fourth Old-European motif which appears in Giles's butter­fly dream comes into play at the end of the story: the motif of the transition of a barrier or transcendence. Once Zhuangzi has real­ized that there is a border between man and butterfly, he also real­izes that he himself as a philosopher can have knowledge of this border and thus that he can philosophically go beyond it. Zhuangzi, by his reflection, can overstep the border between dreaming and being awake, between appearance and truth. This motif alludes to the Western—and especially Judaeo-Christian -  distinction between immanence and transcendence. A “meditating”  philosopher in the West can mentally reach beyond the barriers of worldly immanence             and merely apparent reality. In this way, he or she can move to the higher realm of an infinite, divine, and true world, just like the freed prisoner in Plato's alle­gory of the cave.   A fifth Old-European motif in Giles's butterfly dream is closely connected to the previous one—it is the motif of the unreality or at least the relativity of the world of experience. From the perspec­tive of the "awakened" philosopher, Zhuangzi sees through the unreality of his dreams. What he believed to be true while he was asleep, his then this-worldly and temporally limited existence as a butterfly, is finally unmasked as mere appearance, as a realm of only partial reality. Once the barrier is overcome, then what only seemed to be true is seen as it is. The awakened philosopher looks down on his earlier "unenlightened" experience. Only his mental reflection can elevate him to the realm of truth and free himself from the illusions of dreamlike sensual and temporal experience. In Giles's version, Zhuangzi seems to live through the process of a philosophical transition from the dreamlike phenomenal world to the enlightened realm of the noumenal.   The most wonderful transformation of the butterfly dream is, in my view, not the one of Zhuangzi in the story, but rather those performed by Herbert A. Giles. Giles's rendering keeps the ori­ental surface of the story alive, but completely converts the philo­sophical content into motifs of the Western philosophical tradition. Giles's magical transformation of the story has been overlooked by many of its Western readers who do not have access to the original texts. If one, however, takes a look at what the text literally says (or rather at what it does not say), and at how its ancient Chinese editor Guo Xiang (252-312) explains its mean­ing, one will see no evidence of the five motifs discussed above. In the Chinese original, the decisive turning point of the story is not remembering but forgetting. And this forgetting also includes the I and its being—it turns out that there is literally no I and no being in the story. Where Giles introduced doubts in the story, there is doubtlessness in the original, and where he advises the philosopher to transcend barriers, the original advises one to accept borders. Finally, while Giles's story seems to indicate the rel­ativity of the dream world of temporal phenomena, the original text highlights the equivalent reality of all experience. If one reads the butterfly dream story along with Guo Xiang's commentary, one sees the text in  a Daoist light.   The Crucial difference between the plot of this allegory in Giles's translation and in Guo Xiang's edition is Zhuangzl's reac­tion when he awakes from his dream. While Giles implies that Zhuangzi remembers his dream, no such remembrance is men­tioned in the text, and Guo Xiang's commentary makes it perfectly clear that Zhuangzi does not remember the dream—he has, rather, completely forgotten it. Once Zhuangzi—or as he is called in the story: Zhuang Zhou—awakes, Guo Xiang inserts the following commentary:   Now Zhuang Zhou is just as ignorant about the butterfly as the but­terfly was ignorant about Zhuang Zhou during the dream.   When Zhuang Zhou awakes, he is as unaware of his earlier dream existence as the butterfly in the dream was unaware of Zhuang Zhou's earlier waking existence. Since the plot is completely dif­ferent, the story has to be read in another manner. This being so, I present my own translation based on the Chinese original and Guo Xiang's commentary:   Once Zhuang Zhou  dreamt—and  then he was a butterfly, a fluttering butterfly, self-content and in accord with its intentions. The butterfly did not know about Zhou. Suddenly it awoke—and then it was fully and completely Zhou. One does not know whether there is a Zhou becoming a butterfly in a dream or whether there is a butterfly becoming a Zhou in a dream. There is a Zhou and there is a butter­fly, so there is necessarily a distinction between them. This is called: the changing of things.   As opposed to Giles's translation, the original is based upon the mutual ignorance of Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly. The text indicates that because of this mutual ignorance, because of the for­getting of previous dreams while being awake and because of the forgetting of previous periods of being awake while dreaming, there are no grounds for devaluating one phase of existence. Both phases are equally authentic or real because each does not remem­ber the other. Because the butterfly does not know about Zhou, it is "self-content." Because Zhou does not remember his dream he is "fully and completely Zhou"—and without any doubts! Since Zhou and the butterfly do not remember each other, because the barrier between them is not crossed, the change between them is seamless, spontaneous, and natural! The harmonious "changing of things" is dependent upon the acceptance of the distinction and not on its transcendence.   In the original version of the text the core philosophical motif of the allegory is not remembering but forgetting. Zhuang Zhou's "state of consciousness" is not one of reflection or theoretical rea­soning, but rather one of a man who has been emptied of mental reflection.   It is quite noteworthy that the word that most frequently occurs in Giles's rendering—the "I," which is used ten times in those few lines, without counting words like "my" and "myself'— does not appear in the original! With this "I," Giles has Zhuang Zhou narrate the story—which is simply wrong, because it is not told from this perspective. Moreover, the "I" becomes, against tex­tual evidence, the necessary subject of the act of remembrance. In Giles's story Zhuang Zhou becomes "myself again"—there is nothing like this in the Chinese text.   While Zhuang Zhou emerges as the "subject" of change in Giles's version—he is first a man, then a butterfly, and then once more a man, there is no continuous subject mentioned in the text. The original text rather implies that instead of an "I" and its "indi­viduality," which undergo change (another invention by Giles), there is a kind of "autonomy" for both the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou. There is, strictly speaking, no substantial "I" that is first awake, then asleep, and then awake again. It is exactly because there is no such single, individual—which literally means in-divis­ible—I connecting them that both the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou can each be so fully real. They are real because they are divisible, not because they are in-divisible! During the dream, the butterfly is fully the butterfly, and when awake, Zhuang Zhou is fully Zhou. In the original text the change is complete: In one's dream one turns into another full reality and thus one is no longer what one was before. One is no longer "oneself' when change takes place. Change turns one I into another. While in Giles's story there is one I that takes on different bodies (like the soul in the course of metempsychosis), there are three phases in the original text, first Zhuang Zhou awake, then the butterfly in the dream, and then, strictly speaking, another Zhuang Zhou after the dream. There is no continuous I that acts as a bridge between these three phases. This is the reason that all three stages can be equally real.   The third motif in Giles's story, the moment of, doubt, also has no equivalent in the Chinese text. Since Zhuang Zhou does not remember his dream, he is totally ignorant about the existence of the butterfly, and so has no reason to doubt his existence. Once awake, Zhuang Zhou is, as the text says, "fully and completely" Zhuang Zhou and does not seem to doubt this fact by asking him­self strange philosophical questions. He is not "thinking back," but rather as solidly assured of himself as the butterfly was of itself in the dream. Unlike Giles's version ("Now I do not know whether . . ."), there is no question raised by Zhuang Zhou in the original. In its place the conclusion is made by a "neutral" observer: Given the fact that the butterfly during the dream is as assured of its existence as Zhuang Zhou is of his reality when he is awake, there is no hierarchy of reality for an external observer. There is a reality to the perspective of each phase, so the neutral perspective cannot say that one phase is more authentic than another or that the butterfly is merely a dream. This being so, there can be no doubt that both phases, dreaming and being awake, are in-differently valid. Both phases are indifferent to each other and thus are not differently real. Both phases prove each other's real­ity. In the Chinese text the reader is left with no doubt about this.   The fourth motif in Giles's story finds its reverse in the original Chinese text. Here, it is not the crossing of boundaries that gives rise to "true" reality, but rather the affirmation and acceptance of them. Only if the one who is awake does not "think back" to his or her dreams and only if the dreamer does not "think back" to what he or she was when awake, can they both be "fully real." If, in a dream, one knew that it was a dream, one's dream would no longer be experienced as real. There is no word for "transition" in the Chinese text at all! It is an addition by the translator, just as the ten "I"s are! The reality of both states are dependent on not trans­gressing the borders of their segments of existence. Just as one is no longer really asleep when one realizes that one is dreaming, one is no longer really awake when one starts "living in a dream world." If one revitalizes earlier phases, for instance by way of rec­ollection, one cannot but give up one's presence, which diminishes the fullness of the "here and now." Total presence and the authen­ticity of the here and now is necessarily based on the nonviolation of "natural" barriers. Transitions of these barriers will not bring about a higher reality but, on the contrary, take away from reality. As the text says, the changing of things goes along necessarily with distinctions. The Chinese character for "distinction" contains as its main semantic element the character for "knife." Clear-cut distinc­tions and divisibility guarantee well-proportioned change. It is dangerous to disregard them.   In his commentary, Guo Xiang interprets the butterfly story as an allegory about life and death. Guo Xiang explains that just as one should not see dreaming as less real than being awake, one should not see death as less real than life. According to Guo Xiang, life and death are two equally valid phases of being or segments of change. This being so, one should not be anxious about death. If one just lives while being alive without worrying about death, then one can be as "fully and completely" alive as Zhuang Zhou was awake when he did not worry about his dreams. Likewise, when dead, one will not remember life, and therefore the dead can be as self-content and pleased as the butterfly was during the dream. Guo Xiang writes:   Well, the course of time does not stop for a moment, and today does not persist in what follows. Thus yesterday's dream changes into a today. How could it be different with the change between life and death!? Why should one let one's heart be made heavy by being moved back and forth between them? Being one, there is no knowl­edge of the other. Being a butterfly while dreaming is genuine. Relating this to human beings: when alive one does not know whether one may later actually have beautiful concubines. Only the stupid think they really know that life is something delightful and death is something to be sad about. That is what is called "never hav­ing heard of the changing of things."   It seems that Herbert A. Giles had not "heard of the changing of things." In his version of the story the reader is left with the nonauthenticity of dreams and asked to be ready for a transition of the immanence of life and death. This is not what the ancient Daoist Guo Xiang believed. To him, life and death were equally genuine and no realm of experience was to be devaluated. This contradicts the fifth motif of Giles's version of the story.   From a Daoist point of view, the change of something into its opposite is the condition for complete, seamless, and permanent change in general. It is decisive that there are no "bridges of rec­ollection" in this process connecting the phases of change so that each phase can be fully present. This concept of change is illus­trated quite drastically by another Daoist parable found in the Huainanzi. This story parallels the butterfly dream, and it goes like this:   Once Duke Niuai was suffering from the illness of change. After seven days the change took place and he turned into a tiger. When his elder brother who looked after him came into his chamber to cover the corpse, the tiger caught the elder brother and killed him. A cultivated person had become a predator, claws and teeth transformed. Emotions and the heart had changed. Spirit and form had changed. The one who is now a tiger knows nothing about the one who earlier was a man. And the one who earlier was a man knew nothing about the one who now is a tiger. The two have replaced each other and changed into an opposite. Both were enjoying completeness of form.   The transformation of Duke Niuai into a tiger corresponds to Zhuang Zhou's transformation into a butterfly. In both transfor­mations there is total mutual ignorance of the respective phases of existence. Just as the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou were totally ignorant of each other, so too are Duke Nivai and the tiger. This ignorance marks the barrier between the segments of change that is not to be transgressed. Only in this way can all phases enjoy their respective "completeness of form." The opposite nature of human beings and tigers highlights this idea: As a man, Duke Nivai is cul­tivated, while the tiger, as a predator, is wild. The transformation is total, it includes the "emotions and the heart," and "spirit and form." The phases of change oppose each other like day and night, and therefore they perfectly complement one another and establish an ongoing process. The butterfly dream allegory and the parable of Duke Nivai's "illness of change" both illustrate how an inces­sant process of change entails complete "forgetfulness." Both sto­ries ask the reader to accept the completeness of change in which there is no continuous "transmigrating" substance.   The allegory of the butterfly dream is not about metempsychosis, it is about the Daoist teaching of change. However, if a core ele­ment of this Daoist teaching is to forget about previous and future phases of change in order to fully exhaust the authenticity of the one present phase—why does the butterfly dream allegory (as well as the story of Duke Nivai) cover several phases of change? Who can actually tell these stories. What is the perspective of the narra­tor if neither Zhuang Zhou nor the butterfly have the slightest knowledge of each other? Giles "solved" this problem by invent­ing the "I" that is not in the Chinese original—and thereby com­pletely transformed the story. In order to correctly answer this important question one has to take a closer look at the first sen­tence of the original text and the particular way personal names are used in the allegory.   The butterfly allegory (as well as the story of Duke Nivai) begins with the word "once" (xi). If the story is told from the per­spective of a narrator, this narrator obviously talks about events that happened in the past. The personal names used in the story indicate a similar time relation* between the narrator and the plot: The text is supposedly written by Zhuang-zi, that is by Master Zhuang, the honorific designation of someone who has become a sage. This designation indicates a change in personality—it indi­cates that someone has changed into someone else. Master Zhuang tells a story about Zhuang Zhou, about a person that was alive before there was Master Zhuang. Zhuang Zhou changed into Master Zhuang, and Master Zhuang tells us a story about events that happened when once there was a Zhuang Zhou. Master Zhuang tells the story about a "Zhou" whom he no longer iden­tifies with. The story is told from the perspective of someone who is neither Zhuang Zhou nor the butterfly, but who is equally "close" to both. From the perspective of the narrator there is no difference in reality or authenticity between the butterfly and Zhuang Zhou. Before there was Master Zhuang, there once was a Zhuang Zhou, and there once was a butterfly. Now, when the story is told by Master Zhuang, he is no longer either of the two. The story is told by someone who does not identify with either Zhuang Zhou or the butterfly, but who affirms both equally.   The perspective of Zhuang-zi or Master Zhuang, the narrator, is the perspective of the Daoist sage. The Daoist sage is in the midst of Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly, in the midst of dreaming and being awake, in the midst of life and death. Zhuangzi's per­spective is, so to speak, the "zero-perspective." He tells the story out of the empty center of the process of change, out of the axis or the "pivot of Dao" (dao shu) as the same chapter of the Zhuangzi puts it. The Daoist sage dwells unchanged at the cen­ter of the process of change. The story is told from this neutral and empty position, not from the position of a continuous I that undergoes change. It is told from the perspective of Zhuangzi, not from the perspective of either Zhuang Zhou or the butterfly.   The narrator of the butterfly dream story is a Daoist sage, and this sage, at the "pivot of the Dao" occupies the same position as the hub within a wheel. The butterfly dream allegory in the Zhuangzi is structured parallel to the image of the wheel in chap­ter 11 of the Daodejing. The image and the allegory both illustrate a perfect process of change. The spokes of the wheel, switching positions in the course of time, correspond to Zhuang Zhou and the butterfly. Just as what is on top changes into what is below, so a Zhuang Zhou changes into a butterfly, a dreamer turns into someone awake, and a Duke Nivai turns into a tiger. Within the process of change each phase is always distinct. The process runs smoothly as long as there is no transgression of barriers, as long as everything does not transcend its respective presence.   To the sage at the center of the process of change the segments of change are not only "relatively" authentic—each is fully and completely real. The position of the sage does not introduce a sort of "relativism"; it rather guarantees the full authenticity and com­pleteness of the process of change. Master Zhuang does not take anything away from the reality of either Zhuang Zhou or the but­terfly for he affirms and founds their complete reality. Likewise, the Daoist sage does not represent an insight into the "relativity" of life and death, but rather the affirmation of their complete reality. With the Daoist sage, life and death come to their equal and full authenticity.   The butterfly dream allegory speaks to both the sage and the nonsage: For those who are not sages, it is appropriate to be fully content with one's reality—to be fully alive without doubting one's "being" or reflecting on one's I. If one is fully awake while being awake and fully asleep while being asleep, one will always be fully present. Like in a political or physical organism, one should just naturally live up to one's position within an ongoing process.   If one has become a sage (and the Buddhists will later call this step the attaining of "enlightenment" or wu), if one is no longer either asleep or awake, either alive or dead, one has lost all identifications. One is then equally close to all phases, but never present in any, and nonpresent in the midst of a changing presence. From the zero perspective one observes the spinning of the circle – like Zhuangzi observes the change from Zhuang Zhou to the butter­fly. While everything else is what it is, the sage lets it be. In this way the sage can be identified with the whole process of change, just as the hub can be identified with the whole wheel, or the heart with the whole body, or the sage ruler with the whole state. In the midst of changes, the sage is no longer a distinct phase, but the core of the whole process of Dao.   From Daoism Explained: From the Dream of the Butterfly to the Fishnet Allegory  by Hans-Georg Moeller pp 44-55