The Tao of Pooh

Rating:
Summary: Just a total classic
Review: This is just one of those books you have to read - I first read it as a long-haired, guitar strumming art student, in between fixes of Don Quixote and Luis Bunuel. I recall there were things like 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' floating around at the time. While that text features the famous disclaimer, that it offers little insight to traditional Zen practice, it will no more help you grasp the mechanics of Motorbikes. Similar points have been made by my spiritual advisors over here in Japan about this book, but what the hey?

This is one of those rare books that make you see the world in a different way (and how many of those have you read since you were nine?), if it inspires people to gain a little more insight into the Dao, the Way, then so much the better. But at the very least, it will make you treat people in a different, more thoughtful way. Should be required reading for all aspiring politicians, poets and princes.

Rating:
Summary: A differing outlook on life!
Review: I don't normally feel the urge to write reviews but this book has made me rethink my attitude towards life. I admit I am no Taoist expert and in fact knew nothing about it before reading this book. However, no matter how accurate this book is on Taoism, it has given me much food for thought on many life matters and I would recommend this book to anyone with an open mind, or who is just looking for a different view on life in general.

Rating:
Summary: a charming stroll with Pooh, the unintentional Taoist master
Review: In "The Tao of Pooh", Benjamin Hoff uses the personalities of the characters in A. A. Milne's tales to illustrate Taoism alongside some competing worldviews.

The characters can divided into 3 categories of personality and philosophy: Rabbit/Owl, Eeyore, and Pooh.

Rabbit quickly develops and executes clever action plans that don't capture the essence of a given situation and usually go awry. Similar to Rabbit in terms of being too clever by half, Owl pontificates and analyzes and never actually does anything. Eeyore is also clever in his own way, but interprets everything negatively and is bitter and ineffectual. Whereas Pooh ambles along without the brains of the others, but with a stout heart, and muddles through to contentment.

Rabbit/Owl together embody logical analysis, clever planning, and ceaseless but largely misdirected hard work. The aim of all their analysis and effort is to exert maximum control over outcomes by actively 'understanding' and intervening in every situation. In the Eastern tradition, this approach corresponds to Confucianism, a very rigid and circumscribed approach to achieving harmony. In the Western tradition, the Rabbit/Owl approach seems very familiar, as the general attempt to organize and control our physical and social environments with logical tools and techniques is integral to the Western experience. The Rabbit/Owl approach regrets the past and worries about the future.

Eeyore represents knowing resignation. The aim of this hopelessness, and the ensuing lack of commitment and activity, is to shield oneself emotionally from the risk and reality of failure. In the Eastern tradition, this approach corresponds to Buddhism, which counsels that our world is illusion and suffering, and the best response is to actively disengage from it all. In the Western tradition, the Eeyore approach can be construed as loosely analogous to the easy cynicism and disengagement of the many people who are alienated by the overbearing and omnipresent Rabbit/Owl aspects of society. The Eeyore approach sees endless failure in the past and inevitable failure in the future.

Pooh, on the other hand, embodies warm-hearted, inclusive, and spirited enjoyment of what's happening in the moment. He unconsciously embodies the fact that we cannot control the infinitely complex interplay of forces and events out there, so the healthiest response to this overwhelming reality is to be true to our inner nature and in so doing, accept being part of the great flow of things. In the Eastern tradition, Pooh's approach is Taoist. He does not worry about the past. He does not worry about the future. He simply is himself, now, enthusiastically. He is simply honest and true to his friends and to his own nature. To Pooh, 'things are as they are', and do not need constant worry, analysis, self-doubt, and striving, unlike the flustered Confucian-Rabbits. But at the same time, he is quite engaged in the world, unlike the fatalistic Buddhist-Eeyores. When he wants hunny, he goes about getting it, quite tenaciously at times. When he wants to help a drowning Roo or Eeyore, he rushes to save them with whatever's handy. And so on.

"The Tao of Pooh" is overall a charming read. Hoff does a good job of maintaining the whimsical tone of the original Pooh tales, painlessly conveying some fairly abstruse concepts about the nature of reality and perception.

To be fair, it should be noted that there's a bit of apocalyptic sermonizing at the very end, to the effect that the Owls and Rabbits of the world will destroy everything if we don't learn a better way to be. Also some readers will construe Hoff's periodic mild teasing of the Rabbit/Owl way as irritating intolerance, hypocritically un-Taoist. Personally, I do not take his teasing that way at all; Taoist hermits probably did not show much deference to the great Confucian bureaucrats of their day! To me, these are minor and forgivable blemishes in a book that otherwise has a deft, light touch, though not as light as the childlike wisdom of the Way that it hopes to explain.

Rating:
Summary: a disappointment
Review: My religion professor assigned this book as an introduction to Daoism, but I doubt that I ever would have read it in its entirety if I was reading it outside of a class. I couldn't stand the author's polemic against aspects of modern society such as science and other things that improve our lives. The author even criticizes books and the people who read them... which should have been my cue to throw this book in the trash.

I could make any literary or pop culture icon appear to represent an ideology if I put words in its mouth, like Hoff does for Pooh.

Rating:
Summary: It's not being an Eeyore, it's being myopic.
Review: Our "poised" and "civilized" friend Rob from the west proves a good point: give anyone an inch, and they'll walk all over you. In this case, the inch represents the Internet and Rob's review is the heal in your face. His tactless and myopic tirade would make anyone of sound mind want to vomit shards of glass (especially his little jewel about kung-pao chicken, which by the way ISN'T Chinese). Way to go triumphant, two-dimensional Western ideology! When it comes to stereotyping, it definitely takes the cake.

This book, by no means, tries to bash or villanize Wester culture. Hoff just calls it as he sees it, which doesn't make it romanticized rants. What this book tries to accomplish is to get the reader to acknowledge the importance of simplicity, an idea lost and distorted in our ever-growing megalomanic society. As Mies van der Rohe put it: Less is more! Hoff doesn't try to widen the schism between science and spirituality, but instead finds the middle ground in which both are dependent upon each other and ultimately complement one another. Regardless of what is and what isn't on your reading list, find some room and make time for this book. It's no Dostoevski, but I'm sure you'll find something in it that'll catch your fancy, so long as you read it with open an open mind set.