Author:: [[Benjamin Hoff]] DateFinished:: 5-28-2023 Rating:: 5 # The Tao Of Pooh ## 🚀The Book in 3 Sentences - Winnie The Pooh exemplifies all the tenets of Taoism where as his friends all break the tenets in some way. - Knowledge isn't the same as wisdom and often actually counterintuitive - By analyzing how Winnie The Pooh exemplifies Taoism and how his friends do not, we can learn to become more Taoist ourselves in the West. ### 🎨 Impressions - This book has some valuable ideas. And the way it's written through the lens of Winnie The Pooh is really cool. It makes for a super engaging read. - However, my big big problem with the book is how overly negative Benjamin Hoff is toward the West and especially Scholars. He barrels into scholars ruthlessly making large generalizing statements such as all scholars work is useless and a distraction from real life. He characterizes the average American as super busy and unprincipled. He just writes with a lot of anger. It makes me think that something happened to him earlier on in life that makes him write so. ### 📖Who Should Read It? - Anyone interested in Taoism who thinks the idea of Winnie The Pooh and Taoism is funny and interesting ### ☘️ How the Book Changed Me - The main insight I took from this book was in realizing how much of the time overthinking gets in our way. One of the main tenets of Taoism is that of the uncarved block, that things should often be kept in their original simplicity. This is aided by the concept of the way which shows that often things become good in time and trying to force it makes it less likely they will happen. # Summary To Confucius life on Earth was meant to be made more like Heavan. He did this through creating elaborate rituals for how to behave in certain occasions, making the real world more ideal. To the Buddha all life had the potential to cause suffering by making you lose agency. Learning to control your desires through the eightfold path was the key to relieving this suffering. **But to Lao Lzu, life was heavan if you didn't retreat from the natural laws which balanced the universe.** The more you try to force things, the more you retreated from the natural laws of the universe, the more difficult your life would be. Living a good life was in living in tandem with the underlying force of the universe, The Tao. Trying to understand exactly what the Tao is only confuses things. [[Knowledge and wisdom aren't the same thing|That's because knowledge and wisdom aren't the same thing]]. > [!important] Winnie The Pooh Exemplifies The Tao Ideal > Pooh lives life fully in tandem with the Tao. He is an uncarved block, he fully embraces the simplicity of things, he lives in the way. > ### What do the other characters represent? - Rabbit represents knowledge for cleverness sake. - Owl represents knowledge for the sake of being seemingly wise - Piglet represents knowledge for the sake of hesitating - Eyeore represents knowledge for the sake of complaining - Tigger represents knowledge for the sake of undue confidence **But Pooh, Pooh just is.* ### The Uncarved Block [[The Uncarved Block]]. ### Inner Nature [[Inner nature]] ### Bisy Backson Bisy Backson describes the stereotypical first world person of today that is constantly trying to *get more* and *save time.* The problem with this lifestyle is that humans are never naturally satisfied with what we have because of [[Hedonic adaptation]]. In addition, constantly trying to look for ways to save time, takes time, wasting time over the long run and taking away from enjoying life. Even with all the ways we have found to save time, to be more efficient, we don’t have more time than we used to have. **Our hunger gatherer ancestors actually had more time for leisure than we do.** ### The Way [[Wu Wei]] ### The Empty Mind [[The empty mind]] ### Action Items From This Book - [ ] Remove one thing I'm doing every three months - [ ] Spend more moments throughout the day noticing what is right in front of me - [ ] When talking about why I respect people emphasize their good traits, not intelligence. The world has enough knowledgeable people that don't do good. - [ ] Attach less to my thoughts and feelings - [ ] Feel inner peace