Quote 3

Young Monk:   “Do not try and bend the spoon—that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth.”
Neo:   “What truth?”
Young Monk:   “There is no spoon.”
—The Matrix

When Neo visits the Oracle in The Matrix, he sees a young boy in the Oracle’s living room who is bending a spoon in mid-air. The boy, dressed as a Buddhist monk, bends the spoon just by looking at it. When Neo approaches him to learn the secret, the boy tells him that in order to bend the spoon, Neo must bend only his mind. In the Matrix, the spoon doesn’t exist—it’s just a code or a program that tells Neo’s brain that he’s looking at a spoon. Neo’s mind, on the other hand, does exist. What he sees before him is not a spoon, but rather an idea his brain has created of a spoon—his own perception. He can change reality by changing his perception.

Neo remembers this exchange as he becomes more confident in his ability to break the rules of the Matrix. All he has to do is remember that the rules he breaks aren’t actual rules. Just as there is no spoon, there is no gravity, there is no time—all these things are lies the machines tell his brain. Neo can fly, for example, because he can see gravity is a false construct. Once Neo understands that “there is no spoon,” he gains more power in the Matrix.

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