The Tao of Pooh

by Benjamin Hoff

  Then he got up and wandered around again, thinking about visiting Rabbit, until he found himself at his own front door. He went inside, got something to eat, and then went out to see Piglet.

  That's how it is when you use the Pooh Way. Nothing to it. No stress, no mess. Now——

  "A stream?" asked Pooh.

  "What?"

  ' The answer. A stream flows like water, reflects like a mirror——"

  "But it doesn't respond like an echo," I said.

  "Yes, it does," said Pooh.

  "Well, you're close. Sort of. I guess."

  "Just give me more time," said Pooh.

  The Wu Wei approach to conflict-solving can be seen in the practice of the Taoist martial art T'ai Chi Ch'tian, the basic idea of which is to wear the opponent out either by sending his energy back at him or by deflecting it away, in order to weaken his power, balance, and position-for-defense. Never is force opposed with force; instead, it is overcome with yielding.

  "Flows like water, reflects like a mirror...," said Pooh, walking by.

  "You're thinking too much, Pooh," I said "I'll give you a hint; maybe it'll help."

  "I hope so," said Pooh. "This is beginning to Bother me."

  "All right—to solve the Riddle, you need to let your mind flow along and reflect what it sees. Then it can respond with the answer. Get it?"

  "No," said Pooh.

  "Oh, well."

  "Let me see—flows like water . . . , " muttered Pooh.

  The Wu Wei principle underlying T'ai Chi Ch'uan can be understood by striking at a piece of cork floating in water. The harder you hit it, the more it yields; the more it yields, the harder it bounces back. Without expending energy, the cork can easily wear you out. So, Wu Wei overcomes force by neutralizing its power, rather than by adding to the conflict. With other approaches, you may fight fire with fire, but with Wu Wei, you fight fire with water.

  "I know," said Pooh. "A piece of corkl"

  "What about it?"

  "Responds like an echo!" he said triumphantly.

  "But it doesn't flow like water or reflect like a mirror," I said.

  "Oh," said Pooh. "That's right."

  "Well, I guess I'd better tell you," I said. "It's the Pooh Way."

  "What is?" asked Pooh.

  "The answer," I said.

  "Oh," said Pooh.

  "That wasn't a very good Riddle," he added.

  "All right, then you ask one."

  "Glad to. What's black and white and red all over?"

  "Oh, no. Not that one."

  "You've heard it before?" asked Pooh, a bit surprised.

  "Of course. It's been around for years. Every one knows the answer—It's a newspaper."

  "No," said Pooh.

  "An embarrassed zebra?"

  "No."

  "Well, then . . . "

  "Give up?" Pooh asked hopefully.

  "All right, I give up. What's black and white and red all over?"

  "A sunburned penguin."

  "Pooh, that's stupid."

  "Better than yours," he said.

  "Well, here's another one, then. It has to do with the opposite of the Pooh Way. What runs around all day without getting anywhere?"

  "A Rabbit?" said Pooh.

  "Well, practically."

  "Oh, I know. It's a ——"

  But we're saving that for the next chapter.

  BISY BACKSON

  Rabbit hurried on by the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood, feeling more important every minute, and soon he came to the tree where Christopher Robin lived. He knocked at the door, and he called out once or twice, and then he walked back a little way and put his paw up to keep the sun out, and called to the top of the tree, and then he turned all round and shouted "Hallo!" and "I say!" "It's Rabbit!"—but nothing happened. Then he stopped and listened, and everything stopped and listened with him, and the Forest was very lone and still and peaceful in the sunshine, until suddenly a hundred miles above him a lark began to sing.

  "Bother!" said Rabbit. "He's gone out"

  He went back to the green front door, just to make sure, and he was turning away, feeling that his morning had got all spoilt, when he saw a piece of paper on the ground. And there was a pin in it, as if it had fallen off the door.

  "Hal" said Rabbit, feeling quite happy again. "Another notice!"

  This is what it said:

  GON OUT

  BACKSON

  BISY

  BACKSON.

  C.R.

  Rabbit didn't know what a Backson was—in spite of the fact that he is one—so he went to ask Owl. Owl didn't know, either. But we think we know, and we think a lot of other people do, too. Chuang-tse described one quite accurately:

  There was a man who disliked seeing his footprints and his shadow. He decided to escape from them, and began to run. But as he ran along, more footprints appeared, while his shadow easily kept up with him. Thinking he was going too slowly, he ran faster and faster without stopping, until he finally collapsed from exhaustion and died.

  If he had stood still, there would have been no footprints. If he had rested in the shade, his shadow would have disappeared.

  You see them almost everywhere you go, it seems. On practically any sunny sort of day, you can see the Backsons stampeding through the park, making all kinds of loud Breathing Noises. Perhaps you are enjoying a picnic on the grass when you suddenly look up to find that one or two of them just ran over your lunch.

  Generally, though, you are safe around trees and grass, as Backsons tend to avoid them. They prefer instead to struggle along on asphalt and concrete, in imitation of the short-lived transportation machines for which those hard surfaces were designed. Inhaling poisonous exhaust fumes from the vehicles that swerve to avoid hitting them, the Backsons blabber away to each other about how much better they feel now that they have gotten Outdoors. Natural living, they call it.

  The Bisy Backson is almost desperately active. If you ask him what his Life Interests are, he will give you a list of Physical Activities, such as:

  "Skydiving, tennis, jogging, racquet-ball, skiing, swimming, and water-skiing."

  "Is that all?"

  "Well, I (gasp, pant, wheeze) think so," says Backson.

  "Have you ever tried chasing cars?"

  "No, I—no, I never have."

  "How about wrestling alligators?"

  "No . . . I always wanted to, though."

  "Roller-skating down a flight of stairs?"

  "No, I never thought of it."

  "But you said you were active."

  At this point, the Backson replies, thoughtfully, "Say—do you think there's something . . .

  wrong with me? Maybe I'm losing my energy."

  After a while, maybe.

  The Athletic sort of Backson—one of the many common varieties—is concerned with physical fitness, he says. But for some reason, he sees it as something that has to be pounded in from the outside, rather than built up from the inside. Therefore, he confuses exercise with work. He 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 Backson a dull boy. Kept up for long enough, it makes him dead, too.

  Well—here's Rabbit. "Hello, Rabbit. What's new?"

  "I just got back from Owl's," said Rabbit, slightly out of breath.

  "Oh? You were certainly gone a long time."

  "Yes, well . . . Owl insisted on telling me a story about his Great-Uncle Philbert."

  "Oh, that's why."

  "But anyway—Owl said that he hasn't seen the Uncarved Block, either, but that Roo is probably playing with it. So I stopped off at Kanga's house, but no one was there."

  "They're out in the Forest, practicing jumps with Tigger," I said.

  "Oh. Well, I'd better be going, then."

  "That's all right, Rabbit, because ——"

  Where'd he go? That's how it is, you know—no rest for the Backson.

  Let's put it this way: if
you want to be healthy, relaxed, and contented, just watch what a Bisy Backson does and then do the opposite. There's one now, pacing back and forth, jingling the loose coins in his pocket, nervously glancing at his watch. He makes you feel tired just looking at him. The chronic Backson always seems to have to be going somewhere, at least on a superficial, physical level. He doesn't go out for a walk, though; he doesn't have time.

  "Not conversing," said Eeyore. "Not first one and then the other. You said 'Hallo' and Flashed Past. I saw your tail in the distance as I was meditating my reply. I had thought of saying 'What?'—but, of course, it was then too late."

  "Well, I was in a hurry."

  "No Give and Take," Eeyore went on. "No Exchange of Thought: 'Hallo—What'——I mean, it gets you nowhere, particularly if the other person's tail is only just in sight for the second half of the conversation."

  The Bisy Backson is always On The Run, it seems, always:

  GONE OUT

  BACK SOON

  BUSY

  BACK SOON

  or, more accurately:

  BACK OUT

  GONE SOON

  BUSY

  GONE SOON

  The Bisy Backson is always going somewhere, somewhere he hasn't been. Anywhere but where he is.

  "That's just it," said Rabbit, "Where?"

  "Perhaps he's looking for something."

  "What?" asked Rabbit.

  "That's just what I was going to say," said Pooh. And then he added, "Perhaps he's looking for a—for a ——"

  For a Reward, perhaps. Our Bisy Backson 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. . . .

  "Ouch!" said Pooh, landing on the floor.

  "That's what happens when you go to sleep on the edge of the writing table," I said. "You fall off."

  "Just as well," said Pooh.

  "Why's that?" I asked

  "I was having an awful dream," he said.

  "Oh?"

  "Yes. I'd found a jar of honey . . . , " he said, rubbing his eyes.

  "What's awful about that?" I asked.

  "It kept moving," said Pooh. "They're not supposed to do that. They're supposed to sit still."

  "Yes, I know."

  "But whenever I reached for it, this jar of honey would sort of go someplace else."

  "A nightmare," I said.

  "Lots of people have dreams like that," I added reassuringly.

  "Oh," said Pooh. "About Unreachable jars of honey?"

  "About the same sort of thing," I said. "That's not unusual. The odd thing, though, is that some people live like that."

  "Why?" asked Pooh.

  "I don't know," I said. "I suppose because it gives them Something to Do."

  "It doesn't sound like much fun to me," said Pooh.

  No, it doesn't. 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.

  Those who think that the rewarding things in life are somewhere beyond the rainbow—

  "Burn their toast a lot," said Pooh.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "They burn their toast a lot," said Pooh.

  "They—well, yes. And not only that——"

  "Here comes Rabbit," said Pooh.

  "Oh, there you are," said Rabbit.

  "Here we are," said Pooh.

  "Yes, here we are," I said.

  "And there you are," said Pooh.

  "Yes, here I am," said Rabbit impatiently. "To come to the point—Roo showed me his set of blocks. They're all carved and painted, with letters on them."

  "Oh?" I said.

  "Just the sort of thing you'd expect to see, actually," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers thoughtfully. "So by process of elimination," he said, "that means Eeyore has it."

  "But Rabbit," I said. "You see ——"

  "Yes," said Rabbit. "I see Eeyore and find out what he knows about it—that's clearly the next step."

  "There he goes," said Pooh.

  Looking back a few years, we see that the first Bisy Backsons in this part of the world, the Puritans, practically worked themselves to death in the fields without getting much of anything in return for their tremendous efforts. They were actually starving until the wiser inhabitants of the land showed them a few things about working in harmony with the earth's rhythms. Now you plant; now you relax. Now you work the soil; now you leave it alone. The Puritans never really understood the second half, never really believed in it. And so, after two or three centuries of pushing, pushing, and pushing the once-fertile earth, and a few years of depleting its energy still further with synthetic stimulants, we have apples that taste like cardboard, oranges that taste like tennis balls, and pears that taste like sweetened Styrofoam, all products of soil that is not allowed to relax. We're not supposed to complain, but There It Is.

  "Say, Pooh, why aren't you busy?" I said

  "Because it's a nice day," said Pooh.

  "Yes, but ——"

  "Why ruin it?" he said.

  "But you could be doing something Important," I said.

  "I am," said Pooh.

  "Oh? Doing what?"

  "Listening," he said.

  "Listening to what?"

  "To the birds. And that squirrel over there."

  "What are they saying?" I asked.

  "That it's a nice day," said Pooh.

  "But you know that already," I said

  "Yes, but it's always good to hear that some body else thinks so, too," he replied.

  "Well, you could be spending your time getting Educated by listening to the Radio, instead," I said.

  "That thing?"

  "Certainly. How else will you know what's going on in the world?" I said.

  "By going outside," said Pooh.

  "Er . . . well . . . . " (Click.) "Now just listen to this, Pooh."

  "Thirty thousand people were killed today when five jumbo airliners collided over downtown Los Angeles . . . ," the Radio announced.

  "What does that tell you about the world?" asked Pooh.

  "Hmm. You're right." (Click.)

  "What are the birds saying now?" I asked.

  "That it's a nice day," said Pooh.

  It certainly is, even if the Backsons are too busy to enjoy it. But to conclude our explanation of why so busy . . .

  The hardheaded followers of the previously mentioned Party-Crashing Busybody religion failed to appreciate the beauty of the endless forest and clear waters that appeared before them on this fresh green continent of the New World. Instead, they saw the paradise that was here and the people who lived in harmony with it as alien and threatening, something to attack and conquer—because it all stood in the way of the Great Reward. They didn't like singing very much, either. In fact ——

  "What?" said Pooh. "No singing?"

  "Pooh, I'm trying to finish this. That's right, though. No singing. They didn't like it."

  "Well, if they didn't like singing, then what was their attitude towards Bears?"

  "I don't think they liked Bears, either."

  "They didn't like Bears?"

  "No. Not very much, anyway."

  "No singing, no Bears . . . Just what did they like?"

  "I don't think they liked anything, Pooh."

  "No wonder things are a little Confused around here," he said.

  Anyway, from the Miserable Puritan came the Restless Pioneer, and from him, the Lonely Co
wboy, always riding off into the sunset, looking for something just down the trail. From this rootless, dissatisfied ancestry has come the Bisy Backson, who, like his forefathers, has never really felt at home, at peace, with this Friendly Land. Rigid, combative fanatic that he is, the tightfisted Backson is just too hard on himself, too hard on others, and too hard on the world that heroically attempts to carry on in spite of what he is doing to it.

  It's not surprising, therefore, that the Backson thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. One of his little idiosyncrasies, you might say. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that's something the inflexible Backson is unwilling to do. The urge to grow and develop, present in all forms of life, becomes perverted in the Bisy Backson's mind into a constant struggle to change everything (the Bulldozer Backson) and everyone (the Bigoted Backson) else but himself, and interfere with things he has no business interfering with, including practically every form of life on earth. At least to a limited extent, his behavior has been held in check by wiser people around him. But, like parents of hyperactive children, the wise find that they can't be everywhere at once. Baby-sitting the Backsons wears you out.