At first glance, watching the movie "
The Matrix" in class, it seemed just like any other old action movie. The violence, the romance and the good guy eventually triumphing over the evil one. But after analyzing my notes on the movie, I began to see more into the movie and I discovered that it had a deeper meaning than what I thought. "
The Matrix" is movie about a world the is truly controlled by robots who feed off the human race as an energy source. To fool the human race though, the robots have created a "matrix", a computerized dream-like life that keeps humans from discovering the reign of the robots. However, there is a group that has discovered the truth about the matrix, and they have recruited a man named Neo because they believe he is the Chosen One. "
The Matrix" can be compared to the religion of Buddhism in many different ways, but the main idea I want to focus on right now is the idea of the character Morpheus being similar to Buddha.
Morpheus is the leader of the group that has discovered the truth about the matrix. Although he was not the first one to discover it, the film portrays him as the man in charge of the team that was put together. Morpheus sends out one of the other members of the team, named Trinity, to recruit Neo. When Neo is finally brought to Morpheus, he is offered two options, to take a red pill or to take a blue pill. Morpheus tells Neo that if he takes the blue pill, he will go back to his normal life and remember nothing of what has happened. Then he explains that if Neo wishes to take the red pill, he will uncover the truth. In a sense we can see this in relation to Buddha and how, since he has discovered the path to enlightenment, he has offered the choice of "the red pill or the blue pill" to thousands of people.
There are more ways the Morpheus is similar to Buddha. In a sense, Morpheus is the enlightened one in the movie "
The Matrix", just as Buddha was the Enlightened One of his time. Buddha left behind his riches and royal life in order to pursue what he believed to be the truth. Although we are not aware of Morpheus' life prior to discovering the matrix, we can see that he made the same decision Buddha made by leaving behind the life he had in exchange for a life he thought to be real. By doing this Morpheus was able to enlighten the rest of the team with the truth about the matrix.
So as you can see, the movie "
The Matrix" is a lot deeper than most suspect when watched nonchalantly. When you take a closer look, you are able to see many connections between the movie and the religion of Buddhism. Among those many connections, we as the viewers are able to observe how similar Morpheus is to Buddha. They are both similar because of how they both discovered paths that were different from the normal path everyone was living at their times, and also because of how they were able to enlighten many people.
