Confucius Meets Lao Tzu

The meeting of Confucius with Lao Tzu is interesting because it illustrates the huge difference between the doctrines of the two sages. One, Confucius, committed to bring the social and political life to order, is obsessed with the rites and justice and generally speaking with the way of ruling of ancient kings.

Confucius met Lao Tzu

The other, Lao Tzu, rather interested in acquiring the peace and inner equilibrium, is the promoter of the nondoing and wu (emptiness) that lead to the unity with the Tao.

In conformity with tradition, Confucius would have asked Lao Tzu about his opinion regarding the rites (that is, rules that must direct the life of people in the state). Lao Tzu would have answered:

The men about whom you talk are dead, and their bones are mouldered to dust; only their words are left. Moreover, when the superior man gets his opportunity, he mounts aloft; but when the time is against him, he is carried along by the force of circumstances. I have heard that a good merchant, though he have rich treasures safely stored, appears as if he were poor; and that the superior man, though his virtue be complete, is yet to outward seeming stupid. Put away your proud air and many desires, your insinuating habit and wild will. They are of no advantage to you; this is all I have to tell you. (James Legge translation).

I know how birds can fly, fishes swim, and animals run. But the runner may be snared, the swimmer hooked, and the flyer shot by the arrow. But there is the dragon: I cannot tell how he mounts on the wind through the clouds, and rises to heaven. Today I have seen Lao Tzu, and can only compare him to the dragon. (James Legge translation).

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