this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2026
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The Matrix movies and Eastern Philosophy (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Voidian@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/spirituality@lemmy.world
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Another post reminded me of this movie trilogy and my gripe with how people at best draw the "the world is a simulation" idea from it. The directors have been clear about the influences of eastern philosophy. Which only gets more personal for them with the subtext of also exploring the experience of being transgender, and how genders are just social agreements with no inherent, fixed reality.

There are pretty pretty heavy hints in the movie (including the last one having an Upanishadic mantra in the soundtrack:

Asato mā sad gamaya (from the unreal, lead me to the real)

Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya (from darkness, lead me to the light)

Mṛtyor mā’mṛtaṃ gamaya (from death, lead me to immortality)

Unpacked here (a bit, but it’ll correct the likely, immediate misconceptions people unfamiliar with eastern philosophy would get)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoEcSc064YY

The irony is that despite its philosophical depth, The Matrix became shorthand for "what if life is a video game," which to me seems like a convenient escape from the harder questions around how we perform reality, how we cling to narratives as if they’re absolute. The Wachowskis didn’t just reference Eastern thought. They used it to ask, what can you actually truly know to be REAL?

Just wanted soapbox for a bit because I don't wanna lecture in the other thread...

(oh and let's not even get into how incredibly badly the "Red Pill" symbolism got corrupted to be the polar fucking opposite of what it was in the movie...)

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