What are the basic thoughts of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, the three aspects of “Chinese wisdom”? What are the points of departure? How should we use Chinese wisdom to better pursue life today when the Chinese people generally lack happiness?

On December 3, Professor Defeng WANG from the School of Philosophy of our University discussed the topic of “Chinese Wisdom and Modern Life” together with nearly 400 faculty members and students of Fudan University as the guest speaker of the “MBA Professors’ Lecture Series”. In two hours of exchange and collision of thoughts, Professor WANG’s analysis and explanation in simple terms aroused the attendants’ inspection of life and deep thoughts.

Professor Defeng WANG is now the associate dean of Fudan College, a professor at the School of Philosophy, a research fellow at “Center for Contemporary Marxism in Foreign Countries of Fudan University”, and the chair of Aesthetics Teaching Group. His research direction is the ontological view of Marx’s philosophical revolution and the central topic of this direction. Professor WANG’s profound opinions and very fascinating teaching style are loved by many students.

Professor Defeng WANG is speaking in the lecture

At the beginning of the lecture, Professor WANG took the current situation of modern China as the breakthrough point, talked about ingenious Chinese wisdom by citing many stories, and then leapt to view China’s current development from a macro-perspective and aroused the attendants’ echo from their life. In the speech, Professor Wang also specially mentioned the major crises endangering our life, and at the same time pointed out that we can use Chinese wisdom – “comprehension” in Zen – to understand and handle these crises.

Meanwhile, Professor WANG also introduced in detail Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, the three aspects of “Chinese wisdom”, as well as their respective basic thoughts and points of departure. He pointed out that the Chinese nation is not a religious nation but a philosophical nation, so the Chinese people’s wisdom should be established in the three Chinese schools of thought – Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism – to jointly face this extremely challenging era. He also said that thinking about “Zen” is conducive to guiding entrepreneurs to fight their way out of trouble, and put forward the three methods of taking away people instead of surroundings, taking away surroundings instead of people and taking both people and surroundings to adjust the start-up psychology.

Students are discussing with Professor WANG after the lecture

At the end of the lecture, attendants asked questions on the issues they were concerned about one after another, and Professor WANG answered them in detail one by one. Professor WANG’s profound elaboration in simple terms, humorous argumentation and the accompanying spectacular conflict of views aroused constant laughter and applause from the audience. This lecture having both the width of surveyingChinaand foreign countries and the depth of exploring Chinese wisdom brought deep enlightenment to the audience. Many students still stayed around Professor WANG to discuss topics about wisdom together after the end of the lecture. Many students said that Professor WANG’s profound wisdom and elegant demeanor gave them a deep impression, allowed them to understand and think about life and Chinese wisdom more deeply, and benefited them greatly.

December 15, 2011