CONFUCIANISM AND TAOISM IN DIALOGUE

TWO CONSTANT PARADIGMS OF A TOTALITY IN LIFE APPROACH AND ACCEPTANCE

Abstract

When years ago, upon my arrival to China, I told professor with whom I was to work, of my wish to research into the Doade jing -the basic work of Taoism -the master answered: "Good, just start with a translation of the Four Books from classical into modern Chinese and research into the Confucian Canon". That was not, as I realized later, a whim of the master, that he did not want to be directed by the obstinacy of a beginner. Rather it was wisdom, born of an experience that one has to penetrate gradually into Taoism, starting with the experience of the world that is offered to us in our everyday reality, or, as this reality was philosophically determined by Confucins.