Paul

1. “My words are very easy to understand and very easy to put into practice,” but “Straightforward words seem paradoxical” What does this mean? How does it come into play in The Tao of Pooh with regard to scholars?

The quotes above contain a meaning that scholars express their knowledge in words that the normal, and ‘non-scholarly’ people can understand. In the case of The Tao of Pooh, Pooh – the naïve Taoist can’t comprehend many of the phrases that the ‘scholars’ express in the story. Therefore, this quote and the stance of Pooh ultimately gives off a message that even though the scholars use big words to make them look superior among the community, their knowledge may be off-track from their thoughts. This on the other hand, also means that the way of Tao is the simplest way to make people’s lives more simple.

2. Read the poem on page 30. What does Pooh seem to think about scholars? How does that relate to the Taoist view of knowledge?

As Pooh resembles the Taoist, he thinks of the scholars as people who tend to use ambiguous wordings in terms of expressing knowledge. Along the way, the Confucians seem like the people who over-thinks many matters in life to Pooh. All in all, it comes to the fact that Taoists accept the nature and its flow just like how the sky is blue, while the scholars and the Confucianists worry about other things in life under the obviously-blue sky.

3. What are the messages behind Cottlestone Pie 38-40 and 56? Think about inner nature.

As Pooh sings a song to describe what a ‘cottlestone pie’, it is a principle – a simple and obvious one too – in Taoism, and in Pooh’s thoughts. If we take an excerpt from Pooh’s song, it says ‘a fly can’t bird but the bird can fly.’ To many of people, even to us, it sounds awkward and we know the fact that the first verse does not make sense. However, according to Pooh, such method of forcing an unnatural form of knowledge or the existence into the system of natural being, it wouldn’t function as it is supposed to. Scholars might use fancy words to describe their ‘teachings’ – which in the end all comes from the human minds – the nature would not even budge whatever the people think. Therefore, Cottlestone pie is a symbol that resembles the principle of the fact that it is right to go with the flow of the nature, because it would be a waste in effort and time to make the natural flow unnatural.