Sunday, October 2, 2016

"The Tao of Pooh" by Benjamin Hoff

The idea behind this book is that the author explains the basics of Taoism through the stories and characters of Winnie the Pooh and friends. It’s super cute.

The main idea of Taoism is that life is inherently good, and the badness that comes into it is from our efforts to turn our lives into something that they are not. Essentially, just go with the flow and life will be ok. (This is actually rather similar to Buddhism, except that Buddhists think that life is suffering and the best way to ease the suffering is to go with the flow.)

It’s such a charming little book, and the stories make the principles easy to understand. The style of writing is really endearing, there are plenty of elements from A. A. Milne’s stories, so you’ll really like it if you grew up with them. Often the anecdotes are presented as the narrator telling the story as though Pooh, Piglet, and the whole gang were in the room with him as he is writing.


Great read whether you are into Pooh, Chinese philosophy, or both!

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