An Important Developer of Daoist Thought
Zhuangzi was a thinker of the Warring States period, named with Laozi as "Lao-Zhuang," and one of the important founders of Daoist philosophy. His thought survives in the book Zhuangzi, which reasons through fables, advocating the spiritual freedom of "free and easy wandering" and the relativist view of "the equality of things," holding an aloof attitude toward fame and gain. Where Laozi leaned toward the political philosophy of "governing by non-action," Zhuangzi’s thought leans more toward the liberation of the individual spirit, and later religious Daoism drew heavily on his philosophical resources in developing its system.
Zhuangzi recorded that he once dreamed he became a butterfly, flitting about, wholly forgetting he was Zhuang Zhou; but on waking he was plainly Zhuang Zhou again, and did not know whether Zhuang Zhou had dreamed the butterfly or the butterfly had dreamed Zhuang Zhou. This fable, exploring the relativity of the boundary between real and illusory, self and other, is among the most widely known images in the history of Chinese philosophy.
When Zhuangzi’s wife died, his friend Huizi came to mourn, only to find Zhuangzi drumming on a basin and singing, and reproached him as inhuman. Zhuangzi explained that a person originally had no life, no form, no breath; in a blur these gradually came to be; and now his wife’s death was merely a return to the state before she was born, as natural as the turning of the seasons, and so no cause for grief — an attitude embodying the Daoist transcendence of life and death.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.
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