Zhuangzi, or Genuine Pretending

Zhuang Zou’s dream: He dreamt that he was a butterfly, flying from flower to branch, in delicious delight at being a butterfly; seeing the world through the butterfly’s eyes. When he awoke, he was genuinely unsure whether he was a man who had dreamt that he was a butterfly…or whether he was butterfly now dreaming that he was a man.

Zhuangzi is a daoist principle undercutting the dream of the perfected authentic. It comes from ancient daoist master Zhuang Zou (also often referred to as Zhaungzi—both the man and the philosophy have the same name), who had a penchant for being careless with our prissinesses. His philosophy compulsively turned around whatever the teaching was in a cosmic game of “ain’t necessarily so.”

Genuine pretending is the twin of authenticity; without the one, there cannot be the other. As authentic as something is, its equal opposite is its capacity for playfulness and illusion. This principle can be explored in the archetypes of the Fool or the Joker or the Trickster. It has many more names than we could recognize—and the minute we do, it changes. Just cause.

For some reason, there is a function in many humans that makes us want to freeze things into place. “If I could just have a million dollars or a partner or become a minimalist or lose fifteen or, preferably all those things, then…”

After then comes some form of fixed, perfected state where we never feel pain or want. It seems like an exaggeration, but this function is probably the main reason most people admit that they’d like to be more serious about a spiritual path. They are hoping to become perfectly authentic.

Genuine pretending is the practice of causing trouble to that tendency. My favourite, albeit trivial, personal example is the painting of the neon orange cat. Years ago, someone who does not know me very well gave me that painting. Those of you who do know me are probably aware that I’m a raging chromophobe and especially need my bedroom to be calm, colourless, and bare. So I always have the neon orange cat within view in the bedroom. Just cause.