Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Sleepy Stories. I'm your host, Lucy,
and my friends and I will be reading you a
sleepy bedtime story every week to relax you and to
help you to drift off into a RESTful sleep. From
time to time, we will also read you a relaxing,
peaceful meditation that will take you somewhere beautiful and calming.
Once we have read the stories, we will then read
them a second time, but this time they will be
ready even slower. This will help you to relax even more.
Before we begin, I would like you to close your
eyes and breathe in and out nice and deeply. Take
a few seconds to inhale, and then hold your breath
for a few seconds more, and then release and breathe out.
Do this a few times if you need to. While
you listen to the music and you listen to my voice,
give yourself time to let your body relax and your
mind settle. It's important that we allow time for us
to feel safe, cozy, and completely at ease. And now
it's time for this week's story.
Speaker 2: The Butterfly dream in the quiet state of Song in
an age when the world was still young enough to
ask questions without expecting answers. There lived a man named
juang Joe. He was not a king, nor a minister,
nor a man of wealth. His robes were plain, his
dwelling modest, and his meals simple. Yet those who came
to speak with him often left unsettled, not because he
spoke in riddles, but because he seemed to live as
if the riddles were already solved. He wondered when he wished,
slept when he wished, and spoke only when the words
felt necessary. Some said he was wise, others said he
was useless. Jung Jo himself seemed uninterested in deciding which
was true. One evening, as the sun dissolved into amber
and then into shadow, shuang Jo lay down to rest.
The world softened, the sounds of insects rose and fell
like breath. The distinction between the waking and the sleeping
began to loosen its hold. And then he dreamed. In
his dream he was no longer duang Jo. He was
a butterfly, not a man imagining a butterfly, nor a
man observing one, but a butterfly entirely, without memory of
anything else. His body was light, his wings delicate, shimmering
with colors that needed no name. He floated in the air,
carried not by effort but by the gentlest currents of wind.
He did not think I am a butterfly. He simply was.
He drifted over fields of tall grass that bent like
waves beneath him. He passed through beams of sunlight that
felt warm but not heavy. Flowers opened to him without hesitation,
and he tasted their sweetness without desire or plan. There
was no past, There was there's no future. There was
only the movement. Sometimes he rose high, where the air
thinned and the world stretched out below like a painted scroll.
Sometimes he dipped low, brushing the tops of leaves, feeling
the faint resistance of their surfaces. There was no purpose
to any of it, and yet nothing felt incomplete. He
was not concerned with survival. He did not question his existence.
He did not wonder whether he was doing the right
thing or whether his life had meaning. He was simply moving,
and in that movement everything was already fulfilled. Time in
that place had no edge. Moments did not follow one another.
They unfolded all at once, like petals, opening without sequence.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: Something shifted, not suddenly, not violently, but with the quiet
inevitability of a tide turning. The light changed, the air
grew still, The butterfly slowed, and then.
Speaker 3: He awoke.
Speaker 2: Chuang Cho opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was familiar.
The weight of his body returned, pressing gently against the
map beneath him. The sounds of the night resumed their
ordinary rhythm. He could feel his breath, his hands, the
faint stiffness in his limbs. He sat up slowly. For
a moment, he did not move. He looked at his hands,
human hands, lined and imperfect. He flexed his fingers as
if to test their reality. He touched his face, his arms,
the fabric of his robe. Everything was as it had been,
and yet something was not the same. He tried to
recall the dream, not as a story, but as an experience.
He remembered the lightness, He remembered the absence of thought.
He remembered the feeling of being entirely at ease, without
needing to understand why. And most of all, he remembered
that while he was the butterfly, he had not known
he was Duung Joe. There had been no sense of transition,
no awareness of difference. He had not thought I was
once a man. He had not thought, I will return
to being one. He had simply been the butterfly. Juang
Jo rose and stepped outside. The night was still, the
sky deep and endless. A faint breeze moved through the trees,
carrying the scent of earth and leaves. He stood there
for a long time. A student who had come to
visit and had been sleeping nearby, noticed his teacher standing
in the darkness and approached him. Master. The student said, quietly,
why do you not rest? Juang Jo did not answer immediately. Instead,
he turned his gaze toward the horizon, where the first
hint of dawn was beginning to emerge. I had a dream,
he said at last. The student waited. In my dream,
I was a butterfly, dung Jo continued, I flew wherever
I wished. I did not know I was dung Jo.
I was only a butterfly. The student nodded, unsure what
to make of this. And now juang Jo said, I
am duang Jo, who has awakened from dreaming. He was
a butterfly. He paused, Then he asked, but I.
Speaker 3: Do not know. Was I jung Jo dreaming I.
Speaker 2: Was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly dreaming.
I am juang Jo. The student frowned. He searched for
an answer, but none came easily. Master he said, surely
you are juang Jo. You have always been juang Jo.
The butterfly was only a dream, juang Joe smiled faintly.
Only a dream, he repeated. He bent down and picked
up a small leaf, turning it gently between his fingers.
When I was the butterfly, he said, I did not
feel that I was dreaming. I did not feel that
I was anything other than what I was. He let
the leaf fall. Tell me what makes this state more
real than that one? The student hesitated. This is the
waking world, he said. It is stable, it continued, It
is shared by others. Juang Jho looked at him, and
how do you know that what you call waking is
not simply another kind of dream. The student opened his
mouth to respond, then closed it again. Juang Jho began
to walk slowly along the path. Consider this, he said.
In the dream, there was no juang Zhou. There was
only the butterfly. In this moment, there is no butterfly,
only juang Zhou. He glanced at the student. Yet both
experiences felt complete in themselves. They walked in silence for
a while. The sky grew lighter, birds began to stir.
Master the students said, at last, are you saying that
nothing is real? Jung Jo shook his head. No, he said,
I am saying that perhaps everything is real, but not
in the way we think. He stopped walking and turned
to face the student. We are always trying to fix
things in place, he said, to say this is true,
that is false, this is real, that is illusion, This
is me, that is not me. He gestured toward the trees,
the sky, the faint movement of the wind. But the
world does not stay still long enough for such certainty.
The student listened carefully. When you were a child, juang
Jo continued, you were different from who you are now.
Your thoughts, your desires, your understanding all have changed. The
student nodded, Yet you say I am the same person.
He tilted his head slightly. Which is true? The student struggled.
I suppose both are true, he said. Dung Joe smiled.
Speaker 4: Just so.
Speaker 2: He resumed walking. The butterfly was not concerned with being
Duong Joe, he said, and Dung Joe now is concerned
with whether he is the butterfly, he chuckled softly. Which
one do you think is closer to freedom? The student
did not answer. They reached a small clearing where the
sunlight now spilled fully across the ground. Juang Joe sat
down on a stone and closed his eyes briefly, as
if returning to the memory of the dream. When we
cling too tightly to what we think we are, he said,
we create boundaries that may not truly exist. He opened
his eyes. But when we allow things to change, to transform,
to become something else entirely, we begin to see that
the line between this and that is not as solid
as we believed. The student sat beside him. So what
should we do, he asked. Duang Jo looked at him, amused.
Why must we do anything? He said, student laughed softly,
though he still felt uncertain. Drung Joe leaned back slightly,
letting the sunlight warm his face. Whether I am drunk
Joe or a butterfly, he said, The wind still moves,
the sun still rises, and life continues to unfold. He
closed his eyes again. Perhaps it is enough simply to
move with it. The student sat quietly. He watched the
light shift, the shadows shorten, the subtle movement of the
world around him. For a moment he stopped trying to understand,
and in that moment something softened. Dung Joe opened his
eyes once more, tell me, he said gently, When you
dream tonight, will you know that you are dreaming? The
student shook his head no. And when you wake, Juang
Jo asked, how will you know that you have truly awakened.
The student had no answer. Juang Joe smiled. That is
the question, he said, and with that he rose as lightly,
as if he had never been anything but a passing
movement in the wind. The butterfly dream in the quiet
state of song, In an age when the world was
still young enough to ask questions without expecting answers, there
lived a man named Juang Joe. He was not a king,
nor a minister, nor a man of wealth. His robes
were plain, his dwelling modest, and his meals simple. Yet
those who came to speak with him often left unsettled,
not because he spoke in riddles, but because he seemed
to live as if the riddles were already solved. He
wondered when he wished, slept when he wished, and spoke
only when the words felt necessary. Some said he was wise,
Others said he was useless. Jung Jo himself seemed uninterested
in deciding which was true. One evening, as the sun
dissolved into amber and then into shadow, shuang Jo lay
down to rest. The world softened, The sounds of insects
rose and fell like breath. The distinction between the waking
and the sleeping began to loosen its hold. And then
he dreamed. In his dream, he was no longer Duang Joe.
He was a butterfly. Not a man imagining a butterfly,
nor a man observing one, but a butterfly entirely without
memory of anything else. His body was light, his wings delicate,
shimmering with colours that needed no name. He floated in
the air, carried not by effort but by the gentlest
currents of wind. He did not think I am a butterfly.
He simply was. He drifted over fields of tall grass
that bent like waves beneath him. He passed through beams
of sunlight that felt warm but not heavy. Flowers opened
to him without hesitation, and he tasted their sweetness without
desire or plan. There was no past, There was no future.
There was only the movement. Sometimes he rose high, where
the air thinned and the world stretched out below like
a painted scroll. Sometimes he dipped low, brushing the tops
of leaves, feeling the faint resistance of their surfaces. There
was no purpose to any of it, and yet nothing
felt incomplete. He was not concerned with survival. He did
not question his existence. He did not wonder whether he
was doing the right thing or whether his life had meaning.
He was simply moving, and in that movement everything was
already fulfilled. Time in that place had no edge. Moments
did not follow one another. They unfolded all at once,
like petals opening without sequence.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: Something shifted, not suddenly, not violently, but with the quiet
inevitability of a tide turning. The light changed, the air
grew still, the butterfly slowed, and then he awoke. Chuang
Cho opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was familiar.
The weight of his body returned, pressing gently against the
map beneath him. The sounds of the night resumed their
ordinary rhythm. He could feel his breath, his hands, the
faint stiffness in his limbs. He sat up slowly. For
a moment, he did not move. He looked at his hands,
human hands, lined and imperfect. He flexed his fingers as
if to test their reality. He touched his face, his arms,
the fabric of his robe. Everything was as it had been,
and yet something was not the same. He tried to
recall the dream, not as a story, but as an experience.
He remembered the lightness. He remembered the absence of thought.
He remembered the feeling of being entirely at ease, without
needing to understand why. And most of all, he remembered
that while he was the butterfly, he had not known
he was juang Jo. There had been no sense of transition,
no awareness of difference. He had not thought I was
once a man. He had not thought I will return
to being one. He had simply been the butterfly. Juang
Jo rose and stepped outside. The night was still, the
sky deep and endless. A faint breeze moved through the trees,
carrying the scent of earth and leaves. He stood there
for a long time. A student who had come to
visit and had been sleeping near by, noticed his teacher
standing in the darkness and approached him.
Speaker 3: Master.
Speaker 2: The student said, quietly, why do you not rest juang
Jo did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze
toward the horizon, where the first hint of dawn was
beginning to emerge. I had a dream, he said at last.
The student waited. In my dream, I was a butterfly,
dung Jo continued, I flew wherever I wished. I did
not know I was Djungjo. I was only a butterfly.
The student nodded, unsure what to make of this. And
now juang Jo said, I am duang Jo, who has
awakened from dreaming. He was a butterfly. He paused. Then
he asked, but.
Speaker 3: I do not know. Was I juang Jo dreaming I.
Speaker 2: Was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly dreaming?
I am juang Jo. The student frowned. He searched for
an answer, but none came easily. Master he said, surely
you are juang Jo. You have always been juang Jo.
The butterfly was only a dream, juang Joe smiled faintly.
Only a dream, he repeated. He bent down and picked
up a small leaf, turning it gently between his fingers.
When I was the butterfly, he said, I did not
feel that I was dreaming. I did not feel that
I was anything other than what I was. He let
the leaf fall. Tell me what makes this state more
real than that one? The student hesitated. This is the
waking world, he said. It is stable, it continues, It
is shared by others. Juang Jo looked at him, and
how do you know that what you call waking is
not simply another kind of dream. The student opened his
mouth to respond, then closed it again. Juang Zho began
to walk slowly along the path. Consider this, he said.
In the dream, there was no juang Zhou. There was
only the butterfly. In this moment, there is no butterfly,
only juang Zhou. He glanced at the student. Yet both
experiences felt complete in themselves. They walked in silence for
a while. The sky grew lighter. Birds began to stir.
Master The student said, at last, are you saying that
nothing is real? Jung Joe shook his head. No, he said,
I am saying that perhaps everything is real, but not
in the way we think. He stopped walking and turned
to face the student. We are always trying to fix
things in place, he said, to say this is true,
that is false, this is real, that is illusion, This
is me, that is not me. He gestured toward the trees,
the sky, the faint movement of the wind. But the
world does not stay still long enough for such certainty.
The student listened carefully. When you were a child, juang
Jo continued, you were different from who you are now.
Your thoughts, your desires, your understanding all have changed. The
student nodded, Yet you say I am the same person.
He tilted his head slightly. Which is true? The student struggled.
I suppose both are true, he said. Jung Jo smiled.
Speaker 4: Just so.
Speaker 2: He resumed walking. The butterfly was not concerned with being
dung Juh, he said, and duang Joe now is concerned
with whether he is the butterfly. He chuckled softly. Which
one do you think is closer to freedom? The student
did not answer. They reached a small clearing where the
sunlight now spilled fully across the ground. Duang Joe sat
down on a stone and closed his eyes briefly, as
if returning to the memory of the dream. When we
cling too tightly to what we think we are, he said,
we create boundaries that may not truly exist. He opened
his eyes. But when we allow things to change, to transform,
to become something else entirely. We begin to see that
the line between this and that is not as solid
as we believed. The student sat beside him. So what
should we do, he asked. Dun Joe looked at him, amused.
Why must we do anything?
Speaker 3: He said?
Speaker 2: The student laughed softly, though he still felt uncertain. Drung
Joe leaned back slightly, letting the sunlight warm his face.
Whether I am drunk Joe or a butterfly, he said,
The wind still moves, the sun still rises, and life
continues to unfold. He closed his eyes again. Perhaps it
is enough simply to move with it. The student sat quietly.
He watched the light shift, the shadows shorten, the subtle
movement of the world around him. For a moment, he
stopped trying to understand, and in that moment something softened.
Dung Jo opened his eyes once more. Tell me, he
said gently. When you dream tonight, will you know that
you are dreaming? The student shook his head no. And
when you wake, jung Jo asked, how will you know
that you have truly awakened. The student had no answer.
Juang Jo smiled. That is the question, he said, and
with that he rose as lightly as if he had
never been anything but a passing movement in the wind.
The butterfly dream in the quiet state of song. In
an age when the world was still young enough to
ask questions without expecting answers, there lived a man named
Juang Joe. He was not a king, nor a minister,
nor a man of wealth. His robes were plain, his
dwelling modest, and his meals simple. Yet those who came
to speak with him often left unsettled, not because he
spoke in riddles, but because he seemed to live as
if the riddles were already solved. He wondered when he wished,
slept when he wished, and spoke only when the words
felt necessary. Some said he was wise, others said he
was useless. Jung Jo himself seemed uninterested in deciding which
was true. One evening, as the sun dissolved into amber
and then into shadow, shuang Jo lay.
Speaker 3: Down to rest.
Speaker 2: The world softened, the sounds of insects rose and fell
like breath. The distinction between the waking and the sleeping
began to loosen its hold, And then he dreamed. In
his dream he was no longer duang Jo. He was
a butterfly. Not a man imagining a butterfly, nor a
man observing one, but a butterfly entirely, without memory of
anything else. His body was light, his wings delicate, shimmering
with colors that needed no name. He floated in the air,
carried not by effort but by the gentlest currents of wind.
He did not think I am a butterfly. He simply was.
He drifted over fields of tall grass that bent like
waves beneath him. He passed through beams of sunlight that
felt warm but not heavy. Flowers opened to him without hesitation,
and he tasted their sweetness, without desire or plan. There
was no past, There was no future. There was only
the movement. Sometimes he rose high, where the air thinned
and the world stretched out below like a painted scroll.
Sometimes he dipped low, brushing the tops of leaves, feeling
the faint resistance of their surfaces. There was no purpose
to any of it, and yet nothing felt incomplete. He
was not concerned with survival. He did not question his existence.
He did not wonder whether he was doing the right
thing or whether his life had meaning. He was simply moving,
and in that movement everything was already fulfilled. Time in
that place had no edge. Moments did not follow one another.
They unfolded all at once, like petals opening without sequence.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 2: Something shifted, not suddenly, not violently, but with the quiet
inevitability of a tide turning. The light changed, the air
grew still, the butterfly slowed, and then he awoke. Chuang
Cho opened his eyes. The ceiling above him was familiar.
The weight of his body returned, pressing gently against the
map beneath him. The sounds of the night resumed their
ordinary rhythm. He could feel his breath, his hands, the
faint stiffness in his limbs. He sat up slowly. For
a moment, he did not move. He looked at his hands,
human hands, lined and imperfect. He flexed his fingers as
if to test their reality. He touched his face, his arms,
the fabric of his robe. Everything was as it had been,
and yet something was not the same. He tried to
recall the dream, not as a story, but as an experience.
He remembered the lightness, He remembered the absence of thought.
He remembered the feeling of being entirely at ease, without
needing to understand why. And most of all, he remembered
that while he was the butterfly, he had not known
he was juung Joe. There had been no sense of transition,
no awareness of difference. He had not thought I was
once a man. He had not thought I will return
to being one. He had simply been the butterfly. Juang
Jo rose and stepped outside. The night was still, the
sky deep and endless. A faint breeze moved through the trees,
carrying the scent of earth and leaves. He stood there
for a long time. A student who had come to
visit and had been sleeping near by, noticed his teacher
standing in the darkness and approached him.
Speaker 3: Master.
Speaker 2: The student said, quietly, why do you not rest? Juang
Jo did not answer immediately. Instead, he turned his gaze
toward the horizon, where the first hint of dawn was
beginning to emerge. I had a dream, he said at last.
The student waited. In my dream, I was a butterfly,
dung Jo continued. I flew wherever I wished. I did
not know I was dung Jo. I was only a butterfly.
The student nodded, unsure what to make of this. And
now juang Jo said, I am juang Jo. Who has
awakened from dreaming. He was a butterfly. He paused. Then
he asked, but.
Speaker 3: I do not know. Was I juang Jo dreaming I.
Speaker 2: Was a butterfly? Or am I now a butterfly dreaming?
I am juang Jo. The student frowned. He searched for
an answer, but none came easily. Master he said, surely
you are duang Jo. You have always been juang Jo.
The butterfly was only a dream, drung Joe smiled faintly.
Only a dream, he repeated. He bent down and picked
up a small leaf, turning it gently between his fingers.
When I was the butterfly, he said, I did not
feel that I was dreaming. I did not feel that
I was anything other than what I was. He let
the leaf fall. Tell me what makes this state more
real than that one? The student hesitated. This is the
waking world, he said. It is stable, it continues, It
is shared by others. Drung Joe looked at him, and
how do you know that what you call waking is
not simply another kind of dream? The student opened his
mouth to respond, then closed it again. Quang Jo began
to walk slowly along the path. Consider this, he said,
In the dream, there was no juang Zhou. There was
only the butterfly. In this moment, there is no butterfly,
only juang Zhou. He glanced at the student. Yet both
experiences felt complete in themselves. They walked in silence for
a while. The sky grew lighter, birds began to stir. Master.
The student said, at last, are you saying that nothing
is real? Juang Jo shook his head. No, he said,
I am saying that perhaps everything is real, but not
in the way we think. He stopped walking and turned
to face the student. We are always trying to fix
things in place, he said, to say this is true,
that is false, this is real, that is illusion, This
is me, that is not me. He gestured toward the trees,
the sky, the faint movement of the wind. But the
world does not stay still long enough for such certainty.
The student listened carefully. When you were a child, juang
Jho continued, you were different from who you are now.
Your thoughts, your desires, your understanding all have changed. The
student nodded, Yet you say I am the same person.
He tilted his head slightly. Which is true? The student struggled.
I suppose both are true, he said, juang Jo smiled.
Speaker 3: Just so.
Speaker 2: He resumed walking. The butterfly was not concerned with being
duang Jo, he said, and dung Jo now is concerned
with whether he is the butterfly. He chuckled softly. Which
one do you think is closer to freedom? The student
did not answer. They reached a small clearing where the
sunlight now spilled fully across the ground. Juang Joe sat
down on a stone and closed his eyes briefly, as
if returning to the memory of the dream. When we
cling too tightly to what we think we are, he said,
we create boundaries that may not truly exist. He opened
his eyes. But when we allow things to change, to transform,
to become something else entirely, we begin to see that
the line between this and that is not as solid
as we believed. The student sat beside him. So what
should we do, he asked. Dung Joe looked at him, amused.
Why must we do anything?
Speaker 3: He said?
Speaker 2: The student laughed softly, though he still felt uncertain. Drung
Joe leaned back slightly, letting the sunlight warm his face.
Whether I am drunk Joe or a butterfly, he said,
The wind still moves, the sun still rises and life
continues to unfold. He closed his eyes again. Perhaps it
is enough simply to move with it. The student sat quietly.
He watched the light shift, the shadows shorten, the subtle
movement of the world around him. For a moment he
stopped trying to understand, and in that moment something softened.
Jung Joe opened his eyes once more, tell me, he
said gently. When you dream tonight, will you know that
you are dreaming? The student shook his head no. And
when you wake, juang Jo asked, how will you know
that you have truly awakened. The student had no answer.
Juang Jo smiled. That is the question, he said, and
with that he rose as lightly, as if he had
never been anything but a passing movement in the wind.
Speaker 4: Supercasle spread in frank s Spa