Chuang Tzu 2.10

"Since you made me enter into this discussion with you, if you have got the better of me and not I of you, are you indeed right, and I indeed wrong? 

"If I have got the better of you and not you of me, am I indeed right and you indeed wrong? Is the one of us right and the other wrong? 

"Are we both right or both wrong? Since we cannot come to a mutual and common understanding, men will certainly continue in darkness on the subject. 

"Whom shall I employ to adjudicate in the matter? If I employ one who agrees with you, how can he, agreeing with you, do so correctly? And the same may be said, if I employ one who agrees with me. It will be the same if I employ one who differs from us both or one who agrees with us both. 

"In this way I and you and those others would all not be able to come to a mutual understanding; and shall we then wait for that great sage? 

"We need not do so. To wait on others to learn how conflicting opinions are changed is simply like not so waiting at all. The harmonizing of them is to be found in the invisible operation of Heaven, and by following this on into the unlimited past. It is by this method that we can complete our years without our minds being disturbed. 

"What is meant by harmonizing conflicting opinions in the invisible operation of Heaven? There is the affirmation and the denial of it; and there is the assertion of an opinion and the rejection of it. 

"If the affirmation be according to the reality of the fact, it is certainly different from the denial of it—there can be no dispute about that. 

"If the assertion of an opinion be correct, it is certainly different from its rejection—neither can there be any dispute about that. 

"Let us forget the lapse of time; let us forget the conflict of opinions. Let us make our appeal to the Infinite, and take up our position there." 

IMAGE: Ding Yunpeng, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Buddhist Arhat (c. 1600)