Ugfh

A Symposium: Forging a New Dawn

“Come in, come in!” My servant, Eurycleia, opened the brown-oak palace doors, and I saw two colleagues of mine smiling at me. “Confucius! Thich Nhat Hanh! Come in and make yourself at home while I begin…”

TAO GINWHO I’ve called you here to discuss a very important matter affecting my country. I do hope you’ll be able to offer some insights into the matter. Over the last few weeks, a number of particularly disturbing events have happened. First, there was this three-year old boy who was crushed under a truck.1 The driver was gone in no time. The pedestrians who witnessed the event did not help him either. Nobody did anything. Nobody! Help only arrived three hours later, when finally a man who saw the boy still lying in the street, in a pool of blood, called the authorities. As if that was not enough,

1

Based on a report on a traffic accident in China. See Tania Branigan, “Toddler Left Dying after Hit and Run Prompts Soul Searching in China.”

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與人文對話 In Dialogue with Humanity

I received reports about officials stealing from the treasury, involving billions of dollars.2 Just two weeks ago, three workers committed suicide at my Wolfsoon factory (Wolfsoon is a state-owned company, Confucius).3 The workers said that they were lonely and burnt out from their work.4 So much disorder and chaos in my country! This must be urgently dealt with. Millions of people are affected. What can I do as a leader to help? What reforms should be undertaken to heal my country from this… malaise? CONFUCIUS: There appears to be a lack of virtue amongst your citizens that is causing this terrible disorder. People are not pursuing what is right.5 NHAT HANH: Central to the entire disorder is the people; they do not see that everything is empty.6 TAO: Well, these seem to be contradictory. Shall we go through these opinions one by one? How about you begin, Confucius?

CONFUCIUS I want first to articulate the structure of my speech, and...