Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Tao of Pooh, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Taoism, Nature, and Happiness
Knowledge vs. Wisdom
Self-Acceptance and Personal Growth
Western Culture and Eastern Wisdom
Summary
Analysis
Rabbit’s clever plans always fail, Hoff argues, because cleverness is based on shallow judgments that don’t hold up over time. It misses the special “Inner Nature” that makes things unique. Hoff asks Pooh to explain this with the song “Cottleston Pie.” Each four-line verse starts with “Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,” then has a unique rhyming line, and then ends, “Ask me a riddle and I reply: / ‘Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.’”
Clever plans are shallow and ineffective in the long term because they try to pin down the world, without accounting for how things will naturally change or deviate according to Tao. For instance, in his chapter on P’u, Hoff described Rabbit’s unsuccessful plans to escape the forest. While Rabbit’s clever plans could have worked in theory, they were ineffective in practice because Rabbit overlooked his own “Inner Nature”—his tendency to get confused, lost, and turned around. In contrast, truly wise people recognize and account for things’ inner nature in their plans. This inner nature sets the patterns for how things will act and change over time. For instance, while Rabbit’s plans to escape the forest failed, Pooh’s succeeded because Pooh accounted for Rabbit’s tendency to get lost and turned around.
Themes
In the first verse of “Cottleston Pie,” Pooh says, “A fly can’t bird, but a bird can fly.” This represents the basic fact “that Things Are As They Are.” Chuang-tse illustrates this principle. A man once compared Chuang-tse’s teachings to a warped tree that can’t be turned into lumber. But Chuang-tse replied that the warped tree's proper function wasn’t to become lumber—it was to give shade.
Taoists seek to accurately perceive the world and accept it the way it is, instead of imagining or hoping it to be something else. Because the man in Chuang-tse’s example thinks that trees can only be useful as lumber, he misses the reality of the tree that’s right in front of him. But Chuang-tse pays attention to the specific tree’s inner nature, and this is what allows him to see its natural function. Of course, Chuang-tse’s example also works on another level: Chuang-tse compares the warped tree to his own Taoist teachings because Taoism asks people to engage with nature and leave it intact, rather than destroying it and using it for human ends (by turning it into products like lumber).
Themes
The same is true of people: they have to “respect [their] Inner Nature,” and they end up in trouble when they try to fit in where they don’t belong. For example, Chuang-tse turned down a position at the prince’s palace because, like a sacred turtle the prince kept as an heirloom, he would rather be “alive in the mud [than] dead within the palace.” Pooh and Owl start talking about mud, but Hoff brings the conversation back to Taoism.
Just like things, people have inner natures, and they can live in harmony with the world when they fulfill those inner natures. But they must genuinely understand and accept themselves if they want to do so. Chuang-tse’s anecdote shows that he understands his inner nature. Even though the palace job would be prestigious, it would go against his nature and ruin his happiness.
Themes
In the next verse of “Cottleston Pie,” Pooh sings, “A fish can’t whistle and neither can I.” This represents how everyone has limitations, and wise people know theirs. But foolish people try to surpass their limits. Tigger illustrates this when he tells Roo that Tiggers can fly, swim, and climb trees—but then gets stuck in a tree and has to yell to Piglet and Pooh for help. Tigger tells Hoff that he’s learned his lesson and is off to go swimming.
Knowing one’s inner nature and knowing one’s limits are two sides of the same coin. By recognizing their limits, people can learn where their inner natures cannot help them and identify their weaknesses. Tigger clearly fails to do this: even after he escapes from the tree, he decides to go swimming, which shows that he hasn’t learned his lesson. Instead of trying to swim or climb trees immediately, Hoff suggests, perhaps he ought to learn how first (or accept that these skills are beyond his natural abilities).
Themes
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Similarly, in Chinese traditional medicine, there’s a saying: “one disease, long life; no disease, short life.” This means that people live better when they recognize their weaknesses than when they deny them. When people work with their weaknesses, they can turn them into strengths. (For example, Piglet escaped from Owl’s ruined house because he was small enough to fit through the letterbox.)
Just like diagnosing a disease is the first step in addressing it, understanding one’s weaknesses is the first step in fixing them. Unrecognized weaknesses are more likely to harm people than weaknesses that people recognize and manage. Just like Lao-tse learned to see the sweetness in the vinegar he tasted, Hoff suggests, people can learn to see the beauty and uniqueness in their weaknesses.
Themes
In the last verse of “Cottleston Pie,” Pooh sings, “Why does a chicken, I don’t know why.” Nobody knows why a chicken acts the way it does, Hoff says, and even though scientists try to explain it, they can’t. But “we don’t really need to know.” Scientists find more questions than answers, Hoff argues, and the answers philosophers come up with don’t mean anything. It’s more important to “recognize Inner Nature and work with Things As They Are.”
Hoff reiterates that living life well is more important than understanding it perfectly. It doesn’t matter if people don’t understand why a chicken does what it does—its inner nature is still the same. Just like it’s more important to recognize and treat a disease than to explain exactly where it came from, it’s more important to recognize and harmonize with things’ inner nature than to explain them. Often, they can’t be explained at all. Again, this suggests that scholars are wrong to try and explain things that people don’t need to know in order to live well.
Themes
To illustrate his point, Hoff recalls the scene in the Winnie-the-Pooh books in which Pooh and Piglet set out to catch a Heffalump (a mystical creature they’ve never seen). Pooh decides to dig a pit for the Heffalump to fall into and put a jar of honey inside as bait (because, Pooh explains, everyone loves honey). But Pooh ends up getting caught in his own trap! Piglet thinks he’s caught the Heffalump: a Pooh-shaped creature with a jar for a head.
Catching a Heffalump represents trying to understand the un-understandable, so this scene shows what happens when people try too hard to understand the world, when they should really just “recognize Inner Nature and work with Things As They Are.” Pooh wants to trap the Heffalump with honey because that’s what he likes, and he ends up falling into the pit because his inner nature leads him to the honey.
Themes
Hoff clarifies that, in Pooh’s song, “Cottleston Pie” just means “Inner Nature.” In life, everything and everyone has a special inner nature. But people’s brains, circumstances, and fellow humans sometimes lead them away from that inner nature. True self-reliance has to begin with self-understanding. Pooh explains this with a song that starts, “How can you get very far, / If you don’t know Who You Are?” When people learn about themselves, Hoff explains, they tend to discover their weaknesses. But this lets them change those weaknesses into strengths or use them for good. Similarly, by understanding negative emotions, people can use those emotions for good.
After illustrating it through examples, Hoff now clearly spells out the Taoist argument about inner nature. Everyone and everything has an inner nature (including birds, flies, fish, chickens, and so on). And self-knowledge is the first step towards following one’s inner nature, so Taoists must prioritize understanding and reflecting on themselves. Moreover, this also relates to Taoism’s argument about harmonizing with nature and achieving happiness: everyone and everything occupies a distinct place in the structure of the universe. Therefore, when people follow their inner nature, or find their rightful place in the world, they tend to harmonize with everything else in it.
Themes
Hoff cites the philosopher Liu An’s parable: during a war, a skilled burglar infiltrates the enemy camp and steals one of the opposing general’s possessions each night. Frightened, the general retreats his forces. This shows how people can use insignificant or even evil skills for good. People can’t eliminate their negative traits, but they can turn them into positives.
This parable shows how people can create harmony in the world by following their inner nature: by understanding the burglar’s nature, the general turned him into a valuable member of the army. This is further evidence that people should understand their weaknesses and harness them for good, instead of ignoring or trying to eliminate them.
Themes
Hoff concludes that it’s useless to try and “Unbounce yourself.” This is a reference to another passage in the Pooh books: after Rabbit, Piglet, and Roo rescue Eeyore from the river, Eeyore claims that someone (Tigger) “BOUNCED” him into the water. To stop Tigger from bouncing again, Rabbit plans to abandon him deep in the wilderness. But Rabbit gets lost, like he always does, and then the bouncing Tigger finds him. Like Tigger finding his bounce, or the Ugly Duckling realizing he’s a swan, everybody has to understand the special inner nature they have inside them. Everyone has things to change and improve, but recognizing their inner nature is the first step. As Pooh puts it, everyone is all right just the way they are.
Tigger’s bouncing is part of his inner nature, so it’s impossible to “unbounce” him. As usual, Rabbit’s plan fails because, in his cleverness, he loses sight of his inner nature. Rabbit’s nature is to get distracted and lost, and Tigger’s is to bounce and find his way back to others. Again, this inner nature trumps cleverness. This underlines the chapter’s central point: people should embrace inner nature (both their own and others’) instead of trying to outsmart it. Moreover, by understanding the natural things they can’t change, people can see more clearly what they can change.
Themes
