Expualism In The Story Of Confucianism And Daoism

According to Confucianism and Daoism the state of doing the right things effortlessly is the ultimate goal in life. A Buddhist priest once told the story of a woman that had married the son of a very traditional family and that the son had decided to stay at their family’s house. The woman had to adapt to the new family and practiced the home rituals supervised by the mother-in-law who criticized the daughter-in-law’s performance. The daughter-in-law tried to cultivate herself, since she felt the need to have mutual respect for her mother-in-law. She realized that all her negative feelings of resentment against her mother-in-law were signs of pettiness, so she decided to leave those apart. Decades passed and she realized that now she felt genuine kindness and respect for her mother-in-law. The daughter-in-law felt free at the moment she gave up all her bad feelings. She was finally being honest, because she was no longer faking respect, and that all of her actions were now natural. This story can be interpreted in

Firstly, using a Confucian perspective, I will justify the mother’s intentions through Ren. Consequently I will go through the daughter-in-law’s stages of self-cultivation by ritual, from the state of hypocrisy to the state of Wuwei. Finally I will define her state of Wuwei according to Confucianism. For the second part of the essay, I will apply the definition of opposites in Dao in order to argument that rituals were impeding the self-cultivation. Subsequently I will analyze how the “giving up” point is key in order to achieve harmony in the house. Finally I will unpack the Daoist definition of Wuwei by arguing that the Dao is flowing naturally causing harmony. I will also briefly argue how the words honest, free and natural are relevant to Wuwei as well as analyze some similarities between Daoism and Confucianism with early Chinese