containing the opposite

If we make it (the diagram showing the distribution of different ideas) into a circle, contacts will be made between facts and truth, and between the right and the left. The extremes can meet. They say that the ultraright and the ultraleft belong to the same kind, and that Nazism and proletariat dictatorship have little difference. It is because both are pursuits of hegemony, relying on the same logic of assimilation.

 

According to the principle of reciprocality, which I take for an essential element of Book of Change, you can find fire in the middle of water and water in the middle of fire. It is the principle of admitting and containing your very opposite, like inviting your archenemy into your living room. Oriental thoughts are not inclined for determination. We must change our ways of thinking. Dissolution of contradictions and harmonization of conflicts will be the direction of the world movement. [Shenzi]

 

"'Tolerance' is an expression of Western thinking. If you feel against something, relying solely on your own standard of value, but decide to endure and forgive it by a certain creed, then it is tolerance. As J Deridda said, tolerance is tolerating what cannot be tolerated. Such an attitude was not conceived in China. Tolerance has been neither a Chinese way of thinking nor a Chinese methodology. The Chinese had tolerating minds, but not tolerating thoughts. The Chinese way of thinking was 'ignoring trifles[大度]', not 'extending forgiveness[寬容]'. When you ignore the trifles, you need not have a feeling against the other person. But when you extend your forgiveness, you have it." (from Zhao Ting-yang, Tian-xia ti-xi, p. 25) [Orun]