Perennial Meditations
Perennial Meditations is an ongoing series of short guided contemplations inspired by the writings of Stoics, saints, and sages. One quote. One meditation. One practice to carry into your day.
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Zhuangzi on What We Cannot See
This is Perennial Meditations. A daily practice.
“The frog in the well cannot conceive of the ocean.”
— Zhuangzi
Zhuangzi was a Chinese philosopher (4th century BCE) whose work is at times hilarious and paradoxical. He had a gift for images that do more than arguments ever could. The frog has lived in the well all its life. The well is real, the water is real, and the walls are real. The frog’s knowledge of its world is accurate, complete, and carefully maintained.
And it is almost entirely useless as a guide to what lies beyond the rim.
We are, on most days, the frog (at least according to Zhuangzi).
But it’s important to recognize, in this example, that the frog is not stupid. It is not lazy, incurious, or poorly educated. It is simply limited by where it lives. Its knowledge of the well is real, and its confidence in that knowledge is absolute. That very confidence is what keeps it from understanding what it does not know. The well has become invisible because the frog has never been outside it.
Think of the first time you encountered a culture, a tradition, or a way of thinking genuinely different from your own and felt, however briefly, the walls of your own well. The assumptions that had felt like simply the way things are suddenly revealed themselves as one particular way of seeing among many.
The habit of mind that had organized your experience for years turned out to be a habit rather than a law. That moment of disorientation was not a failure of understanding. It was the beginning of it.
Every act of seeing happens from somewhere.
From a particular vantage point, a particular history, and a particular set of commitments so deeply held they have become invisible.
We do not see the world as it is. We see it as we are. And the well we have been living in shapes everything we perceive without our noticing. The culture, the family, the tradition, the story we tell about who we are and how things work—these are the walls. But this is not cause for despair. It is not even primarily a cause for humility, though humility follows.
It is cause for curiosity. For the recognition that the walls of the well are not the edge of reality. They are simply the edge of what we can currently see.
The ocean is not a threat to the frog.
It is an invitation.
Zhuangzi’s wisdom was not to escape the well. He knew that was impossible and would have found the ambition slightly comical. It was simply to know you are in one. To hold your certainties a little more lightly. To remain genuinely open to the possibility that the next conversation, the next book, or the next encounter with a way of thinking entirely unlike your own might show you something the well has been blocking all along.
That knowledge alone changes the quality of your seeing. And in time, seeing differently changes everything else.
Daily Practice
Identify one belief or assumption you have held for so long that it feels like simply the way things are—not a belief you chose, but a wall you inherited.
Ask: “What might I be unable to see because of where I am standing?”
Then seek out one perspective genuinely different from your own today—a book, a conversation, a tradition you have never taken seriously. Not to abandon your own view. To find out where the walls are.
Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen...
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well.
J.W.
P.S. If you found today’s meditation helpful, consider sharing it with a friend!
What a wonderful idea and way to begin my day…thank you! Imagining all that I do not see or think about is powerful.
This is certainly a fascinating perspective. And I think there’s a lot of truth here. The analogy of the frog in the well to humans and how we think is brilliant. But I wonder how we apply this to a contemporary problem? For example, the Iranians want the bomb. I just know they do. And I think they will do anything to get it. But based on their past behavior to their own people and to places all over the world, and their apparent hatred of Israel and the United States, do we want them to have the bomb? Or should we continue in our attempt to stop them? So to one extent, should we try to look at the problem from their perspective and to what extent should that influence our not stopping them from getting the bomb? I love philosophy and I think we should use philosophy to help us solve real life problems in our world today. But it’s not easy. Thank you, Josh!