Three Prisons of Cognition
The frog is imprisoned by space; the insect by time; the scholar by knowledge.
Hongkai He 1 min read
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From Zhuangzi, Autumn Floods:
井蛙不可以语于海者，拘于虚也；
夏虫不可以语于冰者，笃于时也；
曲士不可以语于道者，束于教也。
Do not speak of the ocean to a frog at the bottom of a well: its world is bounded by the walls around it.
Do not speak of ice to an insect born for summer: its life is bounded by the season it inhabits.
Do not speak of the Dao to a scholar of narrow learning: his mind is bounded by the doctrines that formed it.
Three glosses:
- Bounded by space (拘于虚)
- Bounded by time (笃于时)
- Bounded by what one has been taught (束于教) — what Buddhists call the obstacle of the known (所知障 / jñeyāvaraṇa)
Zhuangzi names three prisons of cognition: the frog is imprisoned by space; the insect by time; the scholar by knowledge. The first limits what one can encounter; the second limits what one can live through; the third limits what one can even recognize as thinkable.