Could the Matrix movies be considered Taoist texts?

[taoismtaoism]

I have an interesting question to pose to you all. Recently I watched all the Matrix movie, and I couldn't help but notice all the similarities it has with Taoism. Have any of you noticed these too, and if so, what do you think about them and the Matrix movies?

[Michael Sternbach]

To say it concisely, the movies are about transcending the illusion that the majority of people are living in and the realization of true human potential. These topics are of course not limited to Daoism but central to various metaphysical systems. But the Daoist connotations are particularly evident in regard of the use of Chinese martial arts throughout the movies, Neo being restored to his true self with the help of "acupuncture", etc. Some Buddhist context is quite obvious as well.

 

Personally, I love these movies. Their messages come across more and more by watching them several times.

[soaring crane]

I've always viewed the Matrix movies, and the concept behind them, as more Buddhist than Daoist.

Forrest Gump is very Daoist. Wei wu wei...

[Apech]

... if so we need guns

 

[dogson]

They made a documentary a few years ago about the philosophical and religious influences used in the matrix. It's an elaborately decorated movie for sure, they source from all over the place.

 

http://vimeo.com/53000177

[Michael Sternbach]

I have a special edition with commentaries by Ken Wilber on all three movies.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

Omniversiality:
The Whole, All, of Infinite Eternity.

Read as: If you can think it, imagine it, or conceive of it, it exists in every (possible) expression.

ALSO Read as: The big bang as a singularity.

ALSO ALSO read as: WE'RE STILL Big'ing and banging, AND still the singularity. Simultaneously.



And for the record: Omnitheism.

The omnitude of infinity is fun

Enjoy!

[Michael Sternbach]

Omniversiality:

The Whole, All, of Infinite Eternity.

Read as: If you can think it, imagine it, or conceive of it, it exists in every (possible) expression.

ALSO Read as: The big bang as a singularity.

ALSO ALSO read as: WE'RE STILL Big'ing and banging, AND still the singularity. Simultaneously.

And for the record: Omnitheism.

The omnitude of infinity is fun

Enjoy!

[bax44]

Love the matrix movies( well the third one went off the beaten path a little but). That and bill and teds excellent adventure are highlights in Keanu Reeves filmography... hehe.

[Rara]

To say it concisely, the movies are about transcending the illusion that the majority of people are living in and the realization of true human potential. These topics are of course not limited to Daoism but central to various metaphysical systems. But the Daoist connotations are particularly evident in regard of the use of Chinese martial arts throughout the movies, Neo being restored to his true self with the help of "acupuncture", etc. Some Buddhist context is quite obvious as well.

 

Personally, I love these movies. Their messages come across more and more by watching them several times.

And then there is Zion too XD

 

A great mish mash/combo of philosophies, drawing on the similarities between all faiths, thus projecting a universal message.

 

In short, it's based on real events lol.

[GrandmasterP]

The second Matrix movie was on TV here last night.

We watched a bit of it but gave up.

Not as good as the first movie IMO and as for being Taoist or not I suspect the makers dipped into any and all sources they thought would steer the plot.

I lurk on a Conspiracy forum now and again and The Matrix movies are forever being cited.

They seem to have become a sort of Conspiracy Theorist's Minor Cult.

To me a movie is a movie, made to make money and entertain an audience for an hour or two.

Nothing more.

Edited February 7, 2015 by GrandmasterP

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

 

You deleted my emptiness

DONT YOU KNOW EMPTINESS IS THE SOURCE OF ALL POWER???

 

i even had a 2 hour long debate about the existence of 'nothingness' once...

Edited February 8, 2015 by Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan

[thelerner]

To say it concisely, the movies are about transcending the illusion that the majority of people are living in and the realization of true human potential. These topics are of course not limited to Daoism but central to various metaphysical systems. But the Daoist connotations are particularly evident in regard of the use of Chinese martial arts throughout the movies, Neo being restored to his true self with the help of "acupuncture", etc. Some Buddhist context is quite obvious as well.

 

Personally, I love these movies. Their messages come across more and more by watching them several times.

Wait, in the Matrix movie I saw you could only transcend reality by going into a sophisticated computer simulation. Otherwise the 'real' people who 'knew' the truth were living pretty hard scramble lives, until they plugged into the computer simulation that is.

 

Am I the only one who rooted for machines? Clearly Neo and his friends were remorseless psychopaths. In the first movie the machines seemed to care about human lives and warned people to be aware of Neo and gang who pretty much slaughtered any one they felt like it. Not just the dozens of guards who were doing there jobs until Neo would pull out a submachine gun instead of pass, but as the movies progressed he'd kill off thousands of people without batting an eye.

 

The only welcome viewpoint is he was too dumb to realize he was still in the Matrix when he started shutting down machines in what he thought was 'real' life. In reality the machines or powersthatbe simply gave the worst psychopaths a secondary illusion to act out there violent impulses.

[Vanir Thunder Dojo Tan]

That's dark, dude...

That's a really morbid twist...



You dont think the AniMatrix had any bearing on the story???

The oracle telling it how it was... wasnt how you saw it???

[wilfred]

i think the Wachowski's have more than a passing interest in Buddhism and that's what's most reflected in 'The Matrix'. one of their latest titles 'Cloud Atlas' is quite clearly looking at dependant origination.

[thelerner]

It gets way darker then what I wrote. Smith only became a true world destroying psychopath when he got his psyche mixed up with Neo's. The machines constantly had ways to kill Neo and continually didn't use them. Even at the end the machines are willing to sacrifice 10's of thousands of robot lives in order to save Zion.

 

Obviously the machines could drop an EMP down the hole followed by a nuke ten seconds later, If they wanted to kill all of Zion. Instead they choose to sacrifice 10,000's of sentient robots so they could degrade the military capability of Zion. The humans never hesitated in killing machine or human. Neo literally killed thousands (at least) to save Trinity and no one even mentions it, there's absolutely no remorse. Human in the Matrix are just fodder to them, even though they're as real and alive as they are.

 

Trying to learn Taoism from the Matrix is like trying to learn soldiering from Rambo movies, except Rambo's less violent and had a much lower body count then Neo. Its no accident that the Matrix inspired kids to dress goth and mow down others, like there hero Neo. That's not counting the <less intelligent> who learned the lesson from the movies that if they believed real hard they could fly and went splat. Its an insult to Taoism to compare a confused an uber gratuitously violent pop psych action film to it.

 

Not that I didn't enjoy'em.

 

above slightly tongue in cheek

Edited February 7, 2015 by thelerner

[MooNiNite]

i think the matrix is his mind..and he is falling down the rabbit hole

 

buddhist, taoist, ...

 

i mean not much a difference...buddha was a pretty incredible taoist..

 

pretty incredible toast*

Edited February 7, 2015 by MooNiNite

[Rara]

Wait, in the Matrix movie I saw you could only transcend reality by going into a sophisticated computer simulation. Otherwise the 'real' people who 'knew' the truth were living pretty hard scramble lives, until they plugged into the computer simulation that is.

 

Am I the only one who rooted for machines? Clearly Neo and his friends were remorseless psychopaths. In the first movie the machines seemed to care about human lives and warned people to be aware of Neo and gang who pretty much slaughtered any one they felt like it. Not just the dozens of guards who were doing there jobs until Neo would pull out a submachine gun instead of pass, but as the movies progressed he'd kill off thousands of people without batting an eye.

 

The only welcome viewpoint is he was too dumb to realize he was still in the Matrix when he started shutting down machines in what he thought was 'real' life. In reality the machines or powersthatbe simply gave the worst psychopaths a secondary illusion to act out there violent impulses.

But it wasn't "transcending" reality...being in the matrix itself was being blind to it. Edited February 7, 2015 by Rara

[Rara]

It gets way darker then what I wrote. Smith only became a true world destroying psychopath when he got his psyche mixed up with Neo's. The machines constantly had ways to kill Neo and continually didn't use them. Even at the end the machines are willing to sacrifice 10's of thousands of robot lives in order to save Zion.

 

Obviously the machines could drop an EMP down the hole followed by a nuke ten seconds later, If they wanted to kill all of Zion. Instead they choose to sacrifice 10,000's of sentient robots so they could degrade the military capability of Zion. The humans never hesitated in killing machine or human. Neo literally killed thousands (at least) to save Trinity and no one even mentions it, there's absolutely no remorse. Human in the Matrix are just fodder to them, even though they're as real and alive as they are.

 

Trying to learn Taoism from the Matrix is like trying to learn soldiering from Rambo movies, except Rambo's less violent and had a much lower body count then Neo. Its no accident that the Matrix inspired kids to dress goth and mow down others, like there hero Neo. That's not counting the <less intelligent> who learned the lesson from the movies that if they believed real hard they could fly and went splat. Its an insult to Taoism to compare a confused an uber gratuitously violent pop psych action film to it.

 

Not that I didn't enjoy'em.

 

above slightly tongue in cheek

Interesting view here though.

 

Ok, I'm off to watch these films again. I'll be back! Oh wait, that's Terminator.

 

But yeah, great stuff. Seriously I'm going to watch again even more carefully!

[thelerner]

But it wasn't "transcending" reality...being in the matrix itself was being blind to it.

Right, so regular normal unplugged folks (unwashed masses of Zion), had no magic. Only when they plugged into a video game and were aware that they were did they get the 'magic'. In plain old reality was still plain old reality, except for the One.

[Rara]

Right, so regular normal unplugged folks (unwashed masses of Zion), had no magic. Only when they plugged into a video game and were aware that they were did they get the 'magic'. In plain old reality was still plain old reality, except for the One.

Not 100% sure as it's been a while, but the way I saw it was that in the very beginning, Neo is running around a video game. He is rescued and offered the red or blue pill by morpheous (did I spell that right?) As a result of taking the red pill, the magic went...it was all an illusion, all fake...just smoke and mirrors.

 

They were sold a fake happy life but were really enslaved...

[Michael Sternbach]

You deleted my emptiness

Glad to hear.

 

DONT YOU KNOW EMPTINESS IS THE SIOURCE OF ALL POWER???

So they say. But too much emptiness equals a black hole.

 

i even had a 2 hour long debate about the existence of 'nothingness' once...

Sorry pal, but that's not even enough for a start...

Edited February 8, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[Flolfolil]

...

Edited March 5, 2015 by Flolfolil

[Michael Sternbach]

 

There is absolutely no way that the Matrix movies could be considered taoist texts, as they are movies, not texts.

Obviously yes, but their scripts could indeed be considered Taoist texts.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Michael Sternbach

[thelerner]

definitely the classic mythical heroes journey kind of story. From young naive everyman into warrior/king. As such it'd be interesting to compare it to Star Wars.