Comparing Tzu 'And Confucius's The Analects'

Following The Way: Perspectives From a Gentleman and a Sage

After I read Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching and Confucius’s “The Analects, an observation about the two authors came to mind. Each author follows what they identify as “The Way” and each has similar values, however there exists a significant difference between not only their approaches to living, but also their understanding of The Way. I was at first inclined to compare and emphasize the similarities of both authors since they seemed to have similar ends to their philosophies. Under further examination however, I found that even though these two authors have comparable aims, they are not shooting in the same direction. The differences between the two authors are significant because they illustrate equally valid philosophies of living a decent life, without necessarily negating one

There is value in each author’s viewpoint, and I hold that the authors are following The Way, in spite of the oppositional nature of their approaches.
I wish to first lay out what each author means when they speak of The Way. Lao Tzu writes of The Way with a sense of cosmological significance. The Way is that which encompasses everything. The Way is deep, ancestral, and mysterious; it is nameless yet everything in harmony follows it. The Way is a silent void, on which “Man models himself on earth, Earth on Heaven, Heaven on the way, and the way on that which is naturally so”(Tzu, Fragment XXV). As he sees it, the reason one follows The Way is to cope with the evanescent nature of man, earth and heaven (Tzu, Fragment XXIII). The way is an inherent and fundamental condition of existence; to exist in harmony with that existence one must embrace and model them off the