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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 146 KB, 571x1024, the-vinegar-tasters-571x1024.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19138797 No.19138797 [Reply] [Original]

The three men are dipping their fingers in a vat of vinegar and tasting it; one man reacts with a sour expression, one reacts with a bitter expression, and one reacts with a sweet expression. The three men are Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi, respectively. Each man's expression represents the predominant attitude of his philosophy: Confucianism saw life as sour, in need of rules to correct the degeneration of people; Buddhism saw life as bitter, dominated by pain and suffering due to attaching possessions and material desires; and Taoism saw life as sweet due to being fundamentally perfect in its natural state. Another interpretation of the painting is that, since the three men are gathered around one vat of vinegar, the "three teachings" are one.

>> No.19138801

>>19138797
Maybe there are multiple tastes dumbass

>> No.19138805

>>19138801
China BTFO

>> No.19138824
File: 45 KB, 360x468, Warheads.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19138824

>>19138797
But what if Confucius like's sour?

>> No.19139989

>>19138824
No one likes sour on its own.

>> No.19140003

>>19138797
Based Laozi

>> No.19140031

they all have the same expression lol

>> No.19140075

>>19140031
Yes the entire painting is meant to filter plebs

>> No.19140117

>>19140031
That's because it's actually wine
Confucians can't drink because it sets a bad example, so they say it's vinegar, Buddhists can't drink, because they are so full of fear and desire, they would go wild, so they say it's vinegar, Taoists eye the two hypocrites and drink freely, laughing and taunting them with how much "vinegar" his Yin-Yang powers allow him to consume unaffected

>> No.19140123

>>19138797
Gross

>> No.19140132

>>19140117
Excellent interpretation

>> No.19140590

>>19138797
>Taoism saw life as sweet due to being fundamentally perfect in its natural state
Yeah, in it's natural state where attachment to material and ideological desires doesn't make it full of suffering.

>> No.19140695

>>19138797
chinese are shit are philosophy

>> No.19141092

>>19138797
Praise the eternal Tao

>> No.19142939

The early Tang dynasty Taoist master Fu Yi called Buddhism a demonic religion (guijiao) in his work 'Biographies of Enlightened Masters' (Gaoshi zhuan)

>> No.19142983

can someone recommend a book that evaluates modern china in the context of its three teachings (confucianism, buddhism and taoism)

>> No.19143003

>>19142983
Modern China has completely rejected the Three Teachings. That was the whole point of Mao's Cultural Revolution, to debase the 'new' chinese from their conservative origins and values.

>> No.19143146

Taoism is based AF

>> No.19143158
File: 37 KB, 700x623, Cat.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19143158

>>19140031

>> No.19143173

>>19138797
>one is a manlet
>one is bald
Clearly the one in the middle is correct.

>> No.19143177

>>19143173
He has a conehead, it's why he wears the hat

>> No.19143184

>>19143003
The CCP is run by men who engage in Taoist rituals, give amounts of money larger than the GDPs of African countries to the Buddhist clergy, and make students engage in rigorous exams where they are tested on their ability to analyze Confucian classics. The whole "Taiwan is the real China because it has sodomy and Liberal Democracy" thing is stale.

>>19142939
The back-and-forth between the three is often overlooked, yeah. Neo-Confucianism was the result of the Confucians picking up their slack and letting Taoism take a back seat in the debates with Buddhism. I actually just finished reading an interesting piece, Bulssi Jabyeon, by a Korean Neo-Confucian summarizing the main points of Neo-Confucian disagreement with Buddhism. It's really interesting because a lot of his criticisms are quite alien to those that are typically levied by Westerners.

>> No.19143271

>>19143184
>Neo-Confucianism was the result of the Confucians picking up their slack and letting Taoism take a back seat in the debates with Buddhism.
Neo-Confucianism was the result of Confucians adopting a Buddhist metaphysics in order to beat them.

>> No.19143412

>>19143271
They took Li and Qi, yes, but that does not constitute "a Buddhist metaphysics". There's several pretty large differences between the two.

>> No.19143420

>>19138797
WHO TASTES SALTY???
WHO TASTES UMAMI???

>> No.19143517

Ewwwwwwww these chinks probably didn't even clean their longg as nails before they did that! I think I'm going to vomit...

>> No.19144281

>>19143420
Saint Paul was salty.
As far as someone who’s knowledge of the world produced deliciousness and a major mode of thought I’m going with Marx-Freud.

>> No.19144406

>>19144281
>no sense of god
>kills people
>basically atheism and Greek myths with anti economic principles
So I get why Saint Paul was salty.
But what about Marx and Freud?