The Vinegar Tasters: The three wise men dipped 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: Confucius, Buddha, and Laozi.
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 the attachment to possessions and material desires; and Taoism saw life as sweet due to it being fundamentally perfect in its natural state.
All three different but all three were also correct from their own perspectives. Just because they disagreed doesn't mean anyone of them was wrong.
How does the vinegar taste to you?
image: by KanÅ Isen'in.
Japan, Edo period, 1802-1816. (edited)
