That famous line from "The Little Prince"
is actually a Buddhist formula.
200 million people have read this book;
almost everyone can recite that quote:
"What is essential
is invisible to the eye."
But have you ever wondered
what this line actually means?
It's not just "chicken soup for the soul"
or mere comfort;
it is a precise description of human cognitive structure.
If you re-examine this line through Buddhism,
you will discover
the secret a French pilot wrote in 1943
was fully explained by the Buddha
2,500 years ago using a complete cognitive model.
Hello,
everyone.
I am Wang Lijie.
Today, we'll dismantle a book that seems simple
but might actually be the most profound:
Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince."
First, a fact that might surprise you:
translated into hundreds of languages,
with global sales exceeding 200 million copies,
it's one of the most-read books in human history.
But have you noticed?
The experience of reading it is very strange.
Read it as a child,
and you think it's a fairy tale.
Read it again as an adult,
and you feel something hidden inside,
though you can't quite name it.
By the third or fourth reading,
you feel the book is dismantling you.
Why?
Because "The Little Prince" isn't just telling a story;
it uses the language of fairy tales
to describe human consciousness falling into the mist
and the full process of finding the way back.
This process
has an extremely precise model in Yogacara Buddhism.
Let's start from the beginning.
The Little Prince lives on asteroid B612.
How small is that planet?
Just move your chair,
turn around,
and you can watch the sunset.
There are only three things on the planet:
A rose,
three volcanoes,
and some baobab trees that need regular weeding.
This setting itself is deeply meaningful.
In Yogacara,
there are three ways consciousness views the world,
called the "Three Natures."
First is Pariniṣpanna (Perfected Nature):
things as they truly are,
pure truth without labels or emotions.
Second is Paratantra (Dependent Nature):
how things appear due to interdependent conditions.
Third is Parikalpita (Imagined Nature):
when consciousness labels, scripts, and adds drama to things.
Planet B612
is a world close to the Perfected Nature.
No redundant concepts,
no comparisons,
no competition.
The relationship between the Prince and his rose
is as pure as water.
He waters her,
she blooms;
that's all.
The problem is,
the Little Prince isn't satisfied.
He thinks the rose is too dramatic.
She coughs, demands care, and makes sarcastic remarks.
The Little Prince can't take it anymore.
He decides to leave.
This is the book's most critical turning point.
It's also a core proposition in Yogacara philosophy.
The Little Prince leaves B612,
not because the flower is bad,
but because he began to label her.
Melodramatic.
Difficult.
Not good enough.
These labels are what Buddhism calls Parikalpita—imaginative attachments.
He no longer sees the flower directly;
instead, he sees her through these labels.
But Saint-Exupéry left a deep clue here.
On the morning he left,
the rose said something to him.
She said,
I have been silly.
Please forgive me.
I hope you will be happy.
She finally stopped being dramatic.
She no longer asked for a screen,
or faked a cough.
Why?
Because she had always loved him,
but didn't know how to express it.
She used demands and bluffs to hide her fragility.
In Yogacara terms,
the rose's melodrama was also Parikalpita.
She had applied a label to herself:
a princess in need of protection.
When the Little Prince was truly leaving,
this label shattered,
and for the first time, she saw her own heart.
What is the deepest tragedy between two people?
It is not a lack of love,
but two hearts clearly being together,
yet each blocked by their own labels.
Neither can see who the other truly is.
From that moment on,
the Little Prince fell from a state of Parinispanna
into the fog of his own attachments.
Then he began his travels.
He visited six planets in turn.
On the first lived a king.
He was all alone on his planet,
yet he insisted on ruling everything,
even ording the sun to set.
On the second lived a conceited man.
His only function was to wait for applause.
On the third lived a drunkard.
He drank to forget that he was ashamed of drinking.
A perfect, vicious cycle.
On the fourth lived a businessman.
He was counting the stars,
claiming to own them all.
He spent his days recording numbers in a drawer.
On the fifth lived a lamplighter.
He faithfully followed an obsolete order,
lighting and extinguishing the lamp every minute.
On the sixth lived a geographer.
He recorded all the rivers and mountains,
but had never seen them himself.
He claimed he was far too important to go out.
Do you notice a pattern?
These six people show symptoms of the same illness.
In Buddhist terms,
these are six disguises of the 'Manas-vijnana'.
Manas is the seventh consciousness in Yogacara.
It only does one thing:
it grasps incessantly.
It constantly constructs an 'ego,'
and then fights desperately to maintain it.
The king grasps power;
the conceited man grasps recognition;
the drunkard grasps oblivion;
the businessman grasps possession;
the lamplighter grasps rules;
the geographer grasps concepts.
Six different ways of grasping,
but all from the same root.
That root is this:
needing to own, control, or be recognized to exist.
to prove my existence.
Notice another detail:
Each planet has only one inhabitant.
This wasn't written by chance.
Every form of attachment
confines you to an island where you are alone.
The deeper the attachment,
the greater the loneliness.
Think about those around you with a strong need for control,
those who care too much about others' opinions,
or those trapped in inescapable habits.
Aren't they all living on a planet of their own?
Think about yourself.
When you can't stop scrolling through your phone,
when you keep checking your 'likes',
when you save money desperately but fear spending it,
aren't you also sitting on some small asteroid,
thinking you're doing something important,
while actually just maintaining the illusion of 'self'?
Saint-Exupéry wrote this book in 1943.
There were no smartphones then,
no social media.
Yet he accurately predicted how humanity would live 80 years later.
Everyone busy on their own asteroid,
everyone thinking they are important,
and everyone being very lonely.
Then, the Little Prince arrived on the seventh planet:
Earth.
On Earth, he encountered a garden of roses.
Five thousand roses,
all looking exactly like his own.
He wept.
He had always thought his rose was unique in the universe,
only to find them everywhere.
Lying in the grass, he cried,
I thought I was rich,
possessing a flower unique in all the world,
but she is just a common rose.
That, and three volcanoes that only reach my knees—
it doesn't make me a very great prince.
This is the most painful blow in the book,
and a necessary one on the path of self-cultivation.
The things you thought were unique
are actually found all over the world.
The 'uniqueness' you bestowed upon them
is a label you attached yourself,
not an inherent quality of the object.
In Yogacara Buddhism,
this is the first shattering of 'imaginary attachment'.
You finally see
that a label is just a label,
not the thing itself.
This realization is painful,
but it's the first step toward waking up.
Next,
the fox appears.
The fox says something that changes the whole book.
It goes like this:
To me,
you are just a little boy,
no different from a hundred thousand other little boys.
I have no need of you,
and you have no need of me.
To you,
I am just a fox,
no different from a hundred thousand other foxes.
But,
if you tame me,
then we shall need each other.
To me, you will be unique in all the world;
to you, I shall be unique in all the world.
This passage is extremely crucial.
The word 'tame'
implies patient companionship and constant devotion
to build a bond with another life that belongs only to you two.
It's not possession,
nor is it control,
but a mutual bond woven over time.
In Buddhist terms,
to 'tame' is to plant the seed of a cause.
The fox also taught the Little Prince an important lesson.
He said,
Taming requires rituals.
It's best if you come at the same time every day.
If you come at four in the afternoon,
then by three o'clock, I will begin to feel happy.
As the time approaches,
I shall become even happier.
By four o'clock,
I shall be restless and excited.
That is the value of a ritual.
This passage has a precise parallel in spiritual practice,
known as the 'daily lesson' or 'routine.'
Meditating at a fixed time every day,
practicing mindfulness at a fixed hour,
isn't because that specific time is magical,
but because repetition itself is planting a seed.
Every repetition deepens the groove of that karma.
Over time,
your consciousness will automatically awaken at that moment,
just as the fox begins to feel happy at three o'clock.
Taming isn't a momentary decision;
it's a continuous process that requires patience.
A seed doesn't grow into a tree in a day.
Before a connection is established,
you and any given rose are equal to each other.
She is indeed no different from five thousand others.
This is the principle of 'dependent origination' and 'emptiness.'
All phenomena are inherently without rank or distinction.
But once a connection is established,
everything changes.
You watered her;
you shielded her from the wind;
you listened to her complaints;
you lost sleep over her.
These invisible investments
wove a unique web between the two of you.
Looking at those five thousand roses again from this perspective,
you finally understand.
They may look exactly like your rose,
but the reason yours is different
is not due to any special attribute of her own,
but because of the bond established between you.
This uniqueness doesn't reside in the object itself,
but in the relationship.
This is the precise definition of 'dependent nature' in Yogacara.
How an object appears
depends on the conditions and relationships it relies upon.
A rose's nature is empty,
but the connection gives it an irreplaceable meaning to you.
You might ask,
is this uniqueness real or fake?
The answer is,
it is neither real nor fake;
it is born of conditions.
While conditions exist,
it exists.
When conditions cease,
it ceases.
But that doesn't mean it's not important.
On the contrary,
precisely because it is born of conditions,
it is more precious than mere innate uniqueness.
Natural things require no maintenance,
but things born of connection need your care.
The day you stop watering it,
it begins to wither.
This isn't the sadness brought by impermanence;
it's the sense of urgency that impermanence bestows.
Because things change,
this moment becomes incredibly precious.
Then the fox shared his secret:
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly;
what is essential
is invisible to the eye.
This isn't just 'chicken soup for the soul';
it's a structural judgment about the human sensory system.
Cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman at UC Irvine proposed a theory
called the Interface Theory of Perception.
Through math and computer simulations, he proved a counterintuitive fact.
Natural selection doesn't drive our senses to perceive the truth.
Our eyes, ears, and nose...
didn't evolve to show you things as they really are,
but rather to help you survive.
He uses an analogy:
Think of a blue folder icon on your computer desktop.
It's blue, rectangular, and in the bottom right corner.
But the actual file isn't blue,
it isn't rectangular,
and it's not literally in a "corner."
The icon is just a user interface.
It helps you manage information efficiently,
without showing the underlying voltages and transistors.
What your senses provide
are these kinds of icons.
The red you see is not the light wave itself.
The floral scent is not the molecules themselves.
The entire world you perceive
is a custom interface designed by evolution.
Buddhism said the same thing 2,500 years ago.
Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind
correspond to sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought.
These six pairs make up your perceptual interface.
But "Parinishpanna,"
the ultimate reality of things,
is never shown on this interface.
Everything you see on the interface
is processed, simplified,
and optimized for your survival.
We've done a previous episode on this,
comparing neuroscience with the "Six Roots"
and "Six Dusts" of Buddhism.
The conclusion is both describe the same process.
Interested viewers can go back and watch that.
I won't elaborate further here.
So, the Little Prince looks at 5,000 roses
and sees them all as the same.
But when looking with the heart,
only one is truly his.
Because eyes only see the icons on the interface,
but the heart touches the invisible causes behind them.
Saint-Exupéry also wrote:
"It is the time you have wasted for your rose
that makes your rose so important."
In Yogacara terms, this means:
The awareness and attention you invest in a connection
determines its weight in your consciousness.
It's not that the rose changed,
but the density of the karmic bond between you has increased.
The world itself has no inherent hierarchy;
rather, where your heart dwells,
where you invest,
and where you give true attention,
a different world reveals itself to you.
This principle
points in the same direction as the Buddha's teaching:
"All things are created by the mind."
There's an easily overlooked quote in the book.
The Prince and the pilot walk for a long time in the desert
and finally find a well.
The Little Prince says:
"What makes the desert beautiful
is that somewhere it hides a well."
Think about that.
The desert surface looks empty,
just endless yellow sand.
But knowing there is water somewhere,
knowing you will find it if you keep going,
this invisible certainty
changes the entire desert's appearance.
This is the same as spiritual practice.
Your life may seem mundane on the surface,
even desolate.
But if you know a well is hidden deep within,
a truth you haven't fully seen yet,
then every step of your daily life
will feel different.
This is "Faith."
Not superstition,
and not blind following.
It is the willingness to believe there is water in the heart of the desert
before you even see a well,
and then taking it one step at a time.
Finally, let's talk about the ending that many people overlook.
The Little Prince decides to return to B612,
but his body is too heavy
to take it that far.
So he lets the venomous snake bite him,
and his body falls,
just like a tree,
slowly,
and silently.
When the pilot returns the next day,
the body isn't even on the sand anymore.
If you look at this through a Buddhist framework,
this is not a narrative of death,
but a metaphor for the return of consciousness.
The physical body
is just the final interface.
When all interfaces are let go,
labels dropped,
and attachments released,
consciousness doesn't disappear;
it returns to a state where it exists without any interface.
No body was left behind,
because it was only a shell,
and the true Little Prince was never inside it.
At the end, the pilot looks up at the stars.
He says,
"When you look up at the sky at night,
because the Little Prince lives on one of them,
and because he is laughing on that star,
then for you,
it will be as if all the stars are laughing."
The same starry sky
looks completely different to those who have built a connection
compared to those who haven't.
The stars remain the same,
but when you have someone in your heart,
the interface of the entire cosmos is rewritten.
Saint-Exupéry was flying missions in WWII
while writing this book.
A year after finishing it,
in July 1944,
he took off from Corsica in a reconnaissance plane
and never returned.
He was missing for nearly sixty years
until the wreckage was found off the coast of Marseille.
For a man writing under the literal shadow of death,
the secret he left behind
wasn't some copied quote from a book;
it was something he validated with his entire life.
He was that pilot,
and he had a rose too—
his wife, Consuelo.
Their relationship was full of arguments, misunderstandings, and distance,
just like the Little Prince and his rose.
When he wrote "The Little Prince,"
he was actually writing about himself.
He was using a fairytale
to apologize to the one he loved but failed to love well.
What is essential is invisible to the eye.
This isn't just a sentimental sigh;
it's a law about cognitive structure.
Your eyes give you the interface,
but your heart gives you the connection.
Interfaces can be replicated,
but connections cannot.
Five thousand roses look identical in the interface,
but in the realm of connection,
only one is truly yours.
You don't need to read 600 volumes of sutras to understand this.
You only need, like the Little Prince,
to have cared for and watered a flower yourself.
What is your rose?
Is it a person,
a career,
or an irreplaceable moment in your life?
If you're willing,
tell me in the comments.
I'm Leo Wang.
See you next time.