International Forum on Tao Te Ching Calls for Harmony

April 28, 2007

Source: People's Daily Online

http://english.people.com.cn/200704/28/eng20070428_370553.html

The week-long "International Forum on the Tao Te Ching" closed Friday with a declaration calling on building a harmonious world through the way of Tao.

The declaration said mutual respect and peaceful co-existence of different cultures, nationalities and religions are the foundations for building a harmonious world.

"May the great Tao infuse the world and all under heaven live in great peace," the declaration said.

Translated into over thirty languages and reprinted numerous times throughout its 2,000 years history, Tao Te Ching is one of the most studied and well-known Chinese philosophical classics and considered one of the most important texts in the human intellectual heritage. It analyzes the relations between human and nature, and reveals the truth of harmony in life.

To echo the expansion of the site of the original podium in Xi'an, China's Shaanxi province where the author of Tao Te Ching, Lao Zi, first delivered his lectures, various Taoist bodies in Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland decided to organize an International Forum of Tao Te Ching both in Hong Kong and Xi'an.