The Tao of Pooh - Benjamin Hoff
The Tao ("the Way") invites us to stay happy and calm under all circumstances by walking in the harmony that naturally existed between heaven and earth from the very beginning. The result of his harmonious way of living is a happy serenity. This is embodied in the character of Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short. Pooh accomplishes what he does because he is simpleminded. This is not the same thing as simple or, even worse, stupid. He possesses a still, calm mind that reflects on the reality of the moment rather than on abstractions or cleverness. "After all, if it were Cleverness that counted most, Rabbit would be Number One [in the Hundred Acre Woods], instead of that Bear" (14).

Abrasive Eeyore, Clever Rabbit, or Knowledgeable Owl never come out on top. "You might say that while Rabbit's little routine is that of Knowledge for the sake of Being Clever, and while Owl's is that of Knowledge for the sake of Appearing Wise, Eeyore's is Knowledge for the sake of Complaining About Something. As anyone who doesn't have it can see, the Eeyore Attitude gets in the way of things like wisdom and happiness, and pretty much prevents any sort of real Accomplishment in life" (15-16). Tigger's problem is that he doesn't know his limitations. To him, Tiggers can do everything, and Tiggers love everything.

Pooh is the greatest in the Hundred Acre Wood because he possesses the mind of a child. "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" (151).

It is this childlikeness that makes the Hundred Acre Woods an Enchanted Forest - the starting-point for endless adventures. The very last paragraph of the Pooh books highlights the magical quality of a world seen through the wise eyes of Children Who Know: "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 sixtythree 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" (151-152). The Pooh books end in the Enchanted Place at the top of the Forest - a holy place where they connect with all of reality.

With Pooh as our guide - a Bear of little brain - we must realize that "[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" (153). "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" (154). Hoff ends the book by calling us to the Way of Pooh: "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" (155).