 Most (but not all) of these philosophers saw Confucianism as being in competition with its popular rivals, Buddhism and Daoism. They thought core Confucian doctrines and practices incompatible with Buddhism and Daoism and regarded the latter two traditions as having an overall detrimental effect on Chinese society, accounting to a great extent for what they saw as a general decline in moral character and the dissolution of family and other social bonds. Even as the prominent Song-Ming Confucians sought to distinguish Confucianism from its rivals, however, the conceptual schemes and much of the philosophical vocabulary that they used were drawn from a broader philosophical and religious discourse in which Buddhist and Daoist ideas and terms were ubiquitous. Framing Confucian views in such terms helped to give them widespread respectability and currency among learned people. Furthermore, many of the influential Song-Ming Confucians dabbled in Buddhism before coming to align themselves with Confucianism. Consequently, the break from Buddhism and Daoism was not as clean as many believed, and it is useful to look not just at what they rejected but also at what they quietly and (mostly) inadvertently adopted from their rivals. 