Is This Being Deceptive or Encouraging Thought?

[muhuk]

2,500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Confucius asked Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, "What is Tao?" Lao-tzu opened his mouth but said nothing. Confucius left with a smile, but his students were puzzled. Confucius explained, "Lao-tzu has passed us the Tao. In his mouth, there are no teeth but only a tongue. The hard ones (teeth) died, but the soft one (the tongue) lives; the soft power is stronger than the hard power. That's the Tao!"

 

 

From Taoism of open source

 

I think Lao-Tzu (and eastern teachers like himself) encourages his students to think for themselves by not spoon-feeding them with a pre-packaged answer. So I read the message "think!".

 

But then comes the explanation. As I kept reading the story and didn't stop to think, well I didn't think for myself.

 

Also the reader is 3rd person here, a passive listener.

 

Am I reading too much into this, or is the real principle "we will tell you to think, but we will teach you to not think" here?

 

(Edited to add link.)

Edited April 23, 2014 by muhuk

[softwareNerd]

It's as poetic licence, since incidents like this are apocryphal at best, and probably fictional.

Virtually nobody -- except super-smartie Confucius -- will guess that a smiling mouth with tongue and no teeth symbolizes "the soft lasts longer than the hard". The author presents the tale in the form of a puzzler: open month... what did he mean? So, it invokes curiosity and keeps the audience's interest. Even though the audience never had a serious chance of guessing right, the reader's pause ("what could that mean?") breaks the monotony of the narrative. In addition, it helps build up Confucius's character as a super-smart guy who can figure out these obscure riddles.

It's all in fun. I don't see deception.