Zhuang Zhou dreamed that he had become a butterfly. He was relaxed and comfortable. At this time, I completely forgot that I was Zhuang Zhou. I woke up for a while and felt very surprised and confused about myself or Zhuang Zhou. Think carefully, I wonder if Zhuang Zhou dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or did the butterfly dream of becoming Zhuang Zhou? Commentary: This story is generally called Zhuang Zhou Meng Die. In the eyes of ordinary people, what a person sees and feels when he is awake is real, and dreams are all illusions and unreal.
Zhuangzi doesn't think so. Although, waking is a realm, dreams are another realm, and the two are different; Zhuang Zhou is Zhuang Zhou, and butterflies are butterflies. They are different, too. But in Zhuang Zhou's view, they are just a phenomenon, a form and a stage in the Tao movement.
Zhuangzi's theory of everything is a philosophical proposition put forward by Zhuangzi, the main representative of Taoism in the Warring States Period. Among them, with romantic imagination and wonderful writing style, Zhuangzi described and discussed the events in which become a butterfly and become a butterfly were their own after waking up, and put forward the view that it is impossible for people to accurately distinguish between truth and illusion and the materialization of life and death.
Although the story is extremely short, it becomes the representative of Zhuangzi's poetic philosophy because it permeates the essence of Zhuangzi's poetic philosophy. Because it contains romantic thoughts and feelings and rich philosophy of life, it has aroused the resonance of many literati and poets in later generations, and has become a topic they often chant, the most famous of which is Li Shangyin's Jinse, "Saint Zhuangzi daydreaming, butterfly bewitched, Wang Chunxin cuckoo crowed".