"Harmony but not Sameness":Harmonious Ideas of Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism and Its Contemporary Inspiration

Confucianism,Taoism and Buddhism all contain rich harmonious ideas: harmonious viewpoint of Confucianism claims the doctrine of the mean,which emphasizes the harmony among people;harmonious viewpoint of Taoism claims identity of heaven and man,which emphasizes the harmony between heaven and man;harmonious viewpoint of Buddhism claims the golden mean and comprehensive harmony,which emphasizes the harmony between body and heart.Although the three schools have their own respective features,for example,Buddhism for cultivating heart,Taoism for regulating oneself and Confucianism for running society,they construct together the harmonious spirit such asHarmony but not samenessand Thinking structure such asmultiform in an organic whole.This paper differentiates mainly the harmonious ideas of the three schools in order to provide contemporary inspiration from Chinese traditional ideas for the construction of the harmonious society and world.