The Tao of Pooh

by Benjamin Hoff

  Yes, yes, yes. Well, anyway . . .

  "Here it is!" cried Christopher Robin excitedly. "Pass it down to silly old Pooh. It's for Pooh."

  "For Pooh?" said Eeyore.

  Of course it's for Pooh. Because he's that sort of Bear.

  "Just what makes Pooh so special, anyway?" said Eeyore indignantly.

  "Well, Eeyore, if you read the next chapter, you may find out," I said.

  "If we must," said Eeyore.

  NOWHERE AND NOTHING

  "Where are we going?" said Pooh, hurrying after him, and wondering whether it was to be an Explore or a What-shall-I-do-about-you-know-what.

  "Nowhere," said Christopher Robin.

  So they began going there, and after they had walked a little way Christopher Robin said:

  "What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"

  (And of course, what Pooh liked doing best was going to Christopher Robin's house and eating, but since we've already quoted that, we don't think we need to quote it again.)

  "I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I like doing best is Nothing."

  "How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

  "Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it."

  "Oh, I see," said Pooh.

  "This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."

  "Oh, I see," said Pooh again.

  "It means just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

  Chuang-tse described it this way:

  Consciousness wandered North to the land of the Dark Waters and climbed the Unnoticeable Slope, where he met Speechless Non-Doer. "I have three questions for you," Consciousness said. "First, what thoughts and efforts will lead us to understanding the Tao? Second, where must we go and what must we do to find peace in the Tao? Third, from what point must we start and which road must we follow in order to reach the Tao?" Speechless Non-Doer gave him no answer.

  Consciousness traveled South to the land of the Bright Ocean and climbed the Mountain of Certainty, where he saw Impulsive Speech-Maker. He asked him the same questions. "Here are the answers," Impulsive Speech-Maker replied. But as soon as he started to speak, he became confused and forgot what he was talking about.

  Consciousness returned to the palace and asked the Yellow Emperor, who told him, "To have no thought and put forth no effort is the first step towards understanding the Tao. To go nowhere and do nothing is the first step towards finding peace in the Tao. To start from no point and follow no road is the first step towards reaching the Tao."

  What Chuang-tse, Christopher Robin, and Pooh are describing is the Great Secret, the key that unlocks the doors of wisdom, happiness, and truth. What is that magic, mysterious something? Nothing. To the Taoist, Nothing is something, and Something—at least the sort of thing that many consider to be important—is really nothing at all. Our explanation of this will attempt to give some sort of indication of what the Taoists call T'ai Hsu, the "Great Nothing."

  We will begin with an illustration from the writings of Chuang-tse:

  On his way back from the K'un-lun Mountains, the Yellow Emperor lost the dark pearl of Tao. He sent Knowledge to find it, but Knowledge was unable to understand it. He sent Distant Vision, but Distant Vision was unable to see it. He sent Eloquence, but Eloquence was unable to describe it.

  Finally, he sent Empty Mind, and Empty Mind came back with the pearl.

  When Eeyore lost his tail, who found it for him? Clever Rabbit? No. He was busy doing Clever Things. Scholarly Owl? No. He didn't recognize it when he saw it. Know-It-All Eeyore? No. He didn't even realize that it was missing until Pooh told him. And even then, it took a while to convince him that the tail was definitely Not There.

  Then Pooh went off to find it. First, he stopped at Owl's house, and Owl told him in twenty-five thousand monotonous words or more that the Thing To Do would be to Issue a Reward, which would involve writing out a . . . (yawn) . . . notice, and putting it . . . (YAWN) . . . all over the (umm). Oh, yes—where were we? All over the Forest. And then they went outside . . .

  And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and the more he looked at the bell rope, the more he felt that he had seen something like it, somewhere else, sometime before.

  "Handsome bell-rope, isn't it?" said Owl.

  Pooh nodded.

  "It reminds me of something," he said, "but I can't think what. Where did you get it?"

  "I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, and I thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing happened, and then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my hand, and as nobody seemed to want it, I took it home, and——"

  Aha. So Pooh returned the tail to Eeyore, and after it had been put back in place, Eeyore felt much better.

  For a while, anyway.

  An Empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what's in front of it. An Overstuffed mind is unable to. While the Clear mind listens to a bird singing, the Stuffed-Full-of-Knowledge-and-Cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing. The more Stuffed Up it is, the less it can hear through its own ears and see through its own eyes. Knowledge and Cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by Knowledge, Cleverness, and Abstract Ideas tends to go chasing off after things that don't matter, or that don't even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.

  Let's consider Emptiness in general for a moment. What is it about a Taoist landscape painting that seems so refreshing to so many different kinds of people? The Emptiness, the space that's not filled in. What is it about fresh snow, clean air, pure water? Or good music? As Claude Debussy expressed it, "Music is the space between the notes."

  "Wooh Baby! Oooaowee BABY! (Wanga wanga wanga.) Baby, don't leave me! (Wanga wanga crash bang!) Baby, don't LEAVE me!" (Click.) Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of spiritual energy.

  Many people are afraid of Emptiness, how ever, because it reminds them of Loneliness. Everything has to be filled in, it seems—appointment books, hillsides, vacant lots—but when all the spaces are filled, the Loneliness really begins. Then the Groups are joined, the Classes are signed up for, and the Gift-to-Yourself items are bought. When the Loneliness starts creeping in the door, the Television Set is turned on to make it go away. But it doesn't go away. So some of us do instead, and after discarding the emptiness of the Big Congested Mess, we discover the fullness of Nothing.

  One of our favorite examples of the value of Nothing is an incident in the life of the Japanese emperor Hirohito. Now, being emperor in one of the most frantically Confucianist countries in the world is not necessarily all that relaxing. From early morning until late at night, practically every minute of the emperor's time is filled in with meetings, audiences, tours, inspections, and who-knows-what. And through a day so tightly scheduled that it would make a stone wall seem open by comparison, the emperor must glide, like a great ship sailing in a steady breeze.

  In the middle of a particularly busy day, the emperor was driven to a meeting hall for an appointment of some kind. But when he arrived, there was no one there. The emperor walked into the middle of the great hall, stood silently for a moment, then bowed to the empty space. He turned to his assistants, a large smile on his face. "We must schedule more appointments like this," he told them. "I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a long time."

  In the forty-eighth chapter of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tse wrote, "To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day." Chuang-tse described the principle in his own humorous way:

  "I am learning," Yen Hui said.
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  "How?" the Master asked.

  "I forgot the rules of Righteousness and the levels of Benevolence," he replied.

  "Good, but could be better," the Master said.

  A few days later, Yen Hui remarked, "I am making progress."

  "How?" the Master asked

  "I forgot the Rituals and the Music," he answered.

  "Better, but not perfect," the Master said.

  Some time later, Yen Hui told the Master, "Now I sit down and forget everything."

  The Master looked up, startled "What do you mean, you forget everything?" he quickly asked

  "I forget my body and senses, and leave all appearance and information behind," answered Yen Hui. "In the middle of Nothing, I join the Source of All Things."

  The Master bowed. "You have transcended the limitations of time and knowledge. I am far behind you. You have found the Way!"

  Gathering, analyzing, sorting, and storing information—these functions and more the mind can perform so automatically, skillfully, and effortlessly that it makes the most sophisticated computer look like a plastic toy by comparison. But it can do infinitely more. To use the mind as it's all too commonly used, on the kinds of things that it's usually used on, is about as inefficient and inappropriate as using a magic sword to open up a can of beans. The power of a clear mind is beyond description. But it can be attained by anyone who can appreciate and utilize the value of Nothing.

  Let's say you get an idea—or, as Pooh would more accurately say, it gets you. Where did it come from? From this something, which came from that something? If you are able to trace it all the way back to its source, you will discover that it came from Nothing. And chances are, the greater the idea, the more directly it came from there. "A stroke of genius! Completely unheard of! A revolutionary new approach!" Practically everyone has gotten some sort of an idea like that sometime, most likely after a sound sleep when everything was so clear and filled with Nothing that an Idea suddenly appeared in it. But we don't have to fall asleep for a few hours for that to happen. We can be awake, instead—completely awake. The process is very natural.

  It starts when we are children, helpless but aware of things, enjoying what is around us. Then we reach adolescence, still helpless but trying to at least appear independent. When we outgrow that stage, we become adults—self-sufficient individuals able and mature enough to help others as we have learned to help ourselves.

  But the adult is not the highest stage of development. The end of the cycle is that of the independent, clear-minded, all-seeing Child. That is the level known as wisdom. When the Tao Te Ching and other wise books say things like, "Return to the beginning; become a child again," that's what they're referring to. Why do the enlightened seem filled with light and happiness, like children? Why do they sometimes even look and talk like children? Because they are. The wise are Children Who Know. Their minds have been emptied of the countless minute somethings of small learning, and filled with the wisdom of the Great Nothing, the Way of the Universe.

  They walked on, thinking of This and That, and by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the very top of the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted because nobody had ever been able to count whether it was sixty three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of string round each tree after he had counted it. Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the Forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. Sitting there they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons Lap.

  There the Pooh books come to an end, in the Enchanted Place at the top of the Forest. We can go there at any time. It's not far away; it's not hard to find. Just take the path to Nothing, and go Nowhere until you reach it. Because the Enchanted Place is right where you are, and if you're Friendly With Bears, you can find it.

  THE NOW OF POOH

  In the morning sunshine, in the evening twilight, a small Bear travels through a Forest. Why did we follow him when we were so much younger? He is, after all, only a Bear of Little Brain. But is Brain all that important? Is it really Brain that takes us where we need to go? Or is it all too often Brain that sends us off in the wrong direction, following the echo of the wind in the treetops, which we think is real, rather than listening to the voice within us that tells us which way to turn?

  A Brain can do all kinds of things, but the things that it can do are not the most important things. Abstract cleverness of mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, the Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and to learn to value wisdom and contentment. These are the things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it would somehow be possible for us to do so.

  The masters of life know the Way, for they listen to the voice within them, the voice of wisdom and simplicity, the voice that reasons beyond Cleverness and knows beyond Knowledge. That voice is not just the power and property of a few, but has been given to everyone. Those who pay attention to it are too often treated as exceptions to a rule, rather than as examples of the rule in operation, a rule that can apply to anyone who makes use of it.

  Within each of us there is an Owl, a Rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes nothing. If we are smart, we will choose the way of Pooh. As if from far away, it calls to us with the voice of a child's mind. It may be hard to hear at times, but it is important just the same, because without it, we will never find our way through the Forest.

  BACKWORD

  "Well, what do you think, Pooh?" I said.

  "Think about what?" asked Pooh.

  "The Tao of Pooh, of course."

  "The how of Pooh?" asked Pooh.

  "Do we have to go through that again?" I said.

  "Go through what again?" asked Pooh.

  "The Tao of Pooh," I said.

  "What's the Tao of Pooh?"

  "You know—the Uncarved Block, the Cottleston Pie Principle, the Pooh Way, That Sort of Bear, and all that."

  "Oh," said Pooh. "That's the Tao of Pooh," I said.

  "Oh," said Pooh.

  "How would you describe it?" I asked.

  "Well . . . this just came to me," he said. "I'll sing it to you."

  "All right."

  "Now, then . . . (erhum),"

  To know the Way,

  We go the Way;

  We do the Way

  The way we do

  The things we do.

  It's all there in front of you,

  But if you try too hard to see it,

  You'll only become Confused.

  I am me,

  And you are you,

  As you can see;

  But when you do

  The things that you can do,

  You will find the Way,

  And the Way will follow you.

  "That's what I think it is," he said.

  "Perfect," I said. "But you know, don't you . . . "

  "Know what?" said Pooh.

  "It's the same thing."

  "Oh," said Pooh. "So it is."

  B A C K W O R D