THE TAO OF POOH

I ran across this review, might be an interest book eh?

A few lines out of the book:

Literally, Wu Wei means “without doing, causing, or making.” But practically speaking, it means without meddlesome, combative, or egotistical effort. It seems rather significant that the character Wei developed from the symbols for a clawing hand and a monkey, since the term Wu Wei means no going against the nature of things; no clever tamperingl No Monkeying Around.

The efficiency of Wu Wei is like that of water flowing over and around the rocks in its path–not the mechanical, straight-line approach that usually ends up short-circuiting natural laws, but one that evolves from an inner sensitivity to the natural rhythm of things.

. . . Cleverness, as usual, takes all the credit it possibly can. But it’s not the Clever Mind that’s responsible when things work out. It’s the mind that sees what’s in front of it, and follows the nature of things.

When you work with Wu Wei, you put the round peg in the round hole and the square peg in the square hole. No stress, no struggle. Egotistical Desire tries to force the round peg into the square hole and the square peg into the round hole. Cleverness tries to devise craftier ways of making pegs fit where they don’t belong. Knowledge tries to figure out why round pegs fit round holes, but not square holes. Wu Wei doesn’t try. It doesn’t think about it. It just does it. And when it does it, it doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.

“Having trouble, Piglet?”
“The lid on this jar is stuck,” gasped Piglet.
“Yes, it . . . is, isn’t it. Here, Pooh, you open it.
(Pop)
“Thanks, Pooh,” said Piglet.
“Nothing really.” said Pooh.
“It’s easy.” said Pooh. “You just twist on it like this, until you can’t twist it any harder. Then you take a deep breath and, as you let it out, twist. That’s all.”
“Let me try that!” yelled Tigger, bouncing into the kitchen. “Where’s that new jar of pickles? Ah, here it is.”
“Tigger,” began Piglet nervously, “I don’t think you’d better…”
“Nothing to it,” said Tigger. “Just twist, and … ”
CRASH!
“All right, Tigger.” I said, “Get those pickles off the floor.”
“Slipped out of my paw,” explained Tigger.
“He tried too hard.” said Pooh.

And when you try too hard, it doesn’t work. Try grabbing something quickly and precisely with a tensed-up arm; then relax and try it again. Try doing something with a tense mind. The surest way to become Tense, Awkward, and Confused is to develop a mind that tries too hard–one that thinks too much.

. . . But down through the centuries, man has developed a mind that separates him from the world of reality, the world of natural laws. This mind tries too hard, wears itself out, and end up weak and sloppy. Such a mind, even if of high intelligence, is inefficient. It goes here to there, backwards and forwards, and fails to concentrate on what it’s doing at the moment.