The book The Tao Of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff made a profound impression on me. These are excerpts from the book that I copied for myself to reread every now and then.
- Basic Taoism
- The Uncarved Block
- The Wise and the Learned
- Inner Nature and the Way of Self-Reliance
- Doing by Not Doing
- The Busy Man
- Enjoying Life and Being Special
- Nowhere and Nothing
- The Now
Basic Taoism
Basic Taoism is simply a particular way of appreciating, learning from, and working with whatever happens in everyday life. From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness. You might say that happy serenity is the most noticeable characteristic of the Taoist personality, and a subtle sense of humour is apparent even in the most profound Taoist writings.
The Uncarved Block
The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block (P’u) is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed.
When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun.
From the state of the Uncarved Block comes the ability to enjoy the simple and the quiet, the natural and the plain. Along with that comes the ability to do things spontaneously and have them work, odd as that may appear to others at times.
The Wise and the Learned
In the final section of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tse wrote, “The wise are not learned; the learned are not wise” — an attitude shared by countless Taoists before and since.
While the scholarly intellect may be useful for analysing certain things, deeper and broader matters are beyond its limited reach.
It seems rather odd, somehow, that Taoism, the way of the Whole Man, the True Man, the Spirit Man (to use a few Taoist terms), is for the most part interpreted here in the West by the Scholarly Owl — by the Brain, the Academician, the dry-as-dust Absent-Minded Professor. Far from reflecting the Taoist ideal of wholeness and independence, this incomplete and unbalanced creature divides all kinds of abstract things into little categories and compartments, while remaining rather helpless and disorganized in his daily life. Rather than learn from Taoist teachers and from direct experience, he learns intellectually and indirectly, from books. And since he doesn’t usually put Taoist principles into practice in an everyday sort of way, his explanations of them tend to leave out some rather important details, such as how they work and where you can apply them.
From the scholarly point of view, it’s practically a crime not to know everything.
Scholars can be very useful and necessary, in their own dull and unamusing way. They provide a lot of information. It’s just that there is Something More, and that Something More is what life is really all about.
One more funny thing about Knowledge, that of the scholar, the scientist, or anyone else: it always wants to blame the mind of the Uncarved Block — what it calls Ignorance — for problems that it causes itself, either directly or indirectly, through its own limitations, near-sightedness, or neglect.
Inner Nature and the Way of Self-Reliance
Everything has its own place and function. When you know and respect your own Inner Nature, you know where you belong. You also know where you don’t belong.
“I have certain limitations, and I know what they are”. There’s nothing wrong with not being able to do a certain task. But there can be lots of things wrong with blindly trying to do what you aren’t designed for. That doesn’t mean that we need to stop changing and improving. It just means that we need to recognize What’s There. The wise know their limitations; the foolish do not.
Once you face and understand your limitations, you can work with them, instead of having them work against you and get in your way, which is what they do when you ignore them, whether you realize it or not. And then you will find that, in many cases, your limitations can be your strengths.
What we need to do is recognise Inner Nature and work with Things As They Are. When we don’t, we get into trouble.
Everything has its own Inner Nature. Unlike other forms of life, though, people are easily led away from what’s right for them, because people have Brain, and Brain can be fooled. Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.
The Way of Self-Reliance starts with recognising who we are, what we’ve got to work with, and what works best for us.
Sooner or later, we are bound to discover some things about ourselves that we don’t like. But once we see they’re there, we can decide what we want to do with them. Do we want to get rid of them completely, change them into other things, or use them in beneficial ways? The last two approaches are often especially useful, since they avoid head-on conflict, and therefore minimise struggle. Also, they allow those transformed characteristics to be added to the list of things we have that help us out.
So quite often, the easiest way to get rid of a Minus is to change it into a Plus.
Each of us has something Special hidden inside somewhere. The Wise Are Who They Are. They work with what they’ve got and do what they can do.
There are things about ourselves that we need to get rid of; there are things we need to change. But at the same time, we do not need to be too desperate, too ruthless, too combative. Along the way to usefulness and happiness, many of those things will change themselves, and the others can be worked on as we go. The first thing we need to do is recognise and trust our own Inner Nature, and not lose sight of it. In each of us is something Special, and that we need to keep.
Doing by Not Doing
Wu Wei means not going against the nature of things.
The efficiency of Wu Wei is like that of water flowing over and around the rocks in its path — not the mechanical, straight-line approach that usually ends up short-circuiting natural laws, but one that evolves from an inner sensitivity to the natural rhythm of things.
When we learn to work with our own Inner Nature, and with the natural laws operating around us, we reach the level of Wu Wei. Then we work with the natural order of things and operate on the principle of minimal effort. Since the natural world follows that principle, it does not make mistakes. Mistakes are made — or imagined — by man, the creature with the overloaded Brain who separates himself from the supporting network of natural laws by interfering and trying too hard.
Tao does not do, but nothing is not done: it doesn’t force or interfere with things, but lets them work in their own way, to produce results naturally. Then whatever needs to be done is done. This is the principle of Wei Wu Wei, do without doing.
Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.
The mind of Wu Wei flows like water, reflects like a mirror, and responds like an echo.
It’s listening to your own intuition, being Sensitive to Circumstances.
The Busy Man
The Busy Man works when he works, works when he exercises, and, more often than not, works when he plays. Work, work, work. All work and no play makes Busy Man a dull boy. Kept up for long enough, it makes him dead, too.
Religions, sciences, and business ethics have tried their hardest to convince us that there is a Great Reward waiting for us somewhere, and that what we have to do is spend our lives working like lunatics to catch up with it. Whether it’s up in the sky, behind the next molecule, or in the executive suite, it’s somehow always farther along than we are — just down the road, on the other side of the world, past the moon, beyond the stars…
A way of life that keeps saying, “Around the next corner, above the next step,” works against the natural order of things and makes it so difficult to be happy and good that only a few get to where they would naturally have been in the first place — Happy and Good — and the rest give up and fall by the side of the road, cursing the world, which is not to blame but which is there to help show the way.
The Busy Man thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that’s something the inflexible Busy Man is unwilling to do. The urge to grow and develop, present in all forms of life, becomes perverted in the Busy Man’s mind into a constant struggle to change everything (the bulldozer) and everyone (the Bigoted) else but himself, and interfere with things he has no business interfering with, including practically every form of life on earth.
One thing that seems rather odd to us is that the Busy Man Society, which practically worships youthful energy, appearance, and attitudes, has developed no effective methods of retaining them, a lack testified to by an ever-increasing reliance on the unnatural False Front approach of cosmetics and plastic surgery. Instead, it has developed countless ways of breaking youthfulness down and destroying it.
The main problem with the great obsession for Saving Time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly. The Busy Man has practically no time at all, because he’s too busy wasting it by trying to save it. And by trying to save every bit of it, he ends up wasting the whole thing.
It is not so much the goals themselves that count, but the fact that they cause us to go through the process, and it’s the process that makes us wise, happy, or whatever. If we do things in the wrong sort of way, it makes us miserable, angry, confused, and things like that. The goal has to be right for us, and it has to be beneficial, in order to ensure a beneficial process. But aside from that, it’s really the process that’s important. Enjoyment of the process is the secret that erases the myths of the Great Reward and Saving Time. Perhaps this can help to explain the everyday significance of the word Tao, the Way.
When we take the time to enjoy our surroundings and appreciate being alive, we find that we have no time to be Busy Men anymore. But that’s all right, because being Busy Men is a tremendous waste of time.
Enjoying Life and Being Special
Everyone is Special, you know.
No matter how Useful we may be, sometimes it takes us a while to recognise our own value.
In order to take control of our lives and accomplish something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to learn to Believe. We don’t need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that’s within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us.
The play-it-safe pessimists of the world never accomplish much of anything, because they don’t look clearly and objectively at situations, they don’t recognise or believe in their own abilities, and they won’t stretch those abilities to overcome even the smallest amount of risk.
Once we see what the situation is and what we can do about it, we need to utilize everything we find along the way in order to accomplish whatever is required. More often than not, the things we need are there already; all we have to do is make use of them.
One of the most important terms of Taoism is Tz’u, which can be translated as “caring” or “compassion” and which is based upon the character for heart. In the sixty-seventh chapter of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-tse named it as his “first treasure,” and then wrote, “From caring comes courage.” We might add that from it also comes wisdom. It’s rather significant, we think, that those who have no compassion have no wisdom. Knowledge, yes; cleverness, maybe; wisdom, no. A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care. Wisdom does.
When it comes to enjoying life and making use of who we are, all of us can; it’s just that some don’t.
Do you want to be really happy? You can begin by being appreciative of who you are and what you’ve got. Do you want to be really miserable? You can begin by being discontented. As Lao-tse wrote, “A tree as big around as you can reach starts with a small seed; a thousand-mile journey starts with one step.” Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.
Nowhere and Nothing
Chuang-tse wrote, “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.”
This 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. This is what the Taoists call T’ai Hsü, the “Great Nothing.”
Many people are afraid of Emptiness, 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.
“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.”
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.
The Now
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.
