Chap­ter 2: The How of Pooh? In this chap­ter, Hoff intro­duces Pooh to the con­cept of Tao­ism, a phi­los­o­phy many peo­ple are not famil­iar with. Hoff believes the best way to start under­stand­ing Tao­ism is by explor­ing its roots in Chi­na. To help explain this, Hoff and Pooh imag­ine them­selves walk­ing through a Chi­nese city, where they encounter a cal­lig­ra­phy shop. The shop­keep­er presents them with a paint­ed scroll called “The Vine­gar Tasters.” This scroll fea­tures three figures—Confucius, Bud­dha, and Lao-tse—each react­ing to a taste of vine­gar. Con­fu­cius looks sour, rep­re­sent­ing his belief that the world is flawed and peo­ple should align with tra­di­tions to bring har­mo­ny. Buddha’s expres­sion is bit­ter, sig­ni­fy­ing his view that life is filled with suf­fer­ing and peo­ple should detach from the world to tran­scend it. Last­ly, Lao-tse smiles, sym­bol­iz­ing his belief that every­thing in the uni­verse, includ­ing human life, should oper­ate nat­u­ral­ly, in har­mo­ny with the Tao, or “The Way of the Uni­verse.”

The scrol­l’s depic­tion of these three fig­ures serves to high­light how each thinker per­ceived the nature of life. Con­fu­cius thought life required strict rit­u­als to restore har­mo­ny, Bud­dha believed detach­ment was nec­es­sary for lib­er­a­tion, and Lao-tse saw the world as nat­u­ral­ly bal­anced, with human inter­fer­ence caus­ing unnec­es­sary dis­tress. Accord­ing to Lao-tse, the key to peace and hap­pi­ness lies in fol­low­ing the Tao, which can­not be eas­i­ly described in words. It is a force that under­pins all things, but it is under­stood through expe­ri­ence, not expla­na­tion. While philoso­phers, monks, and folk prac­ti­tion­ers have all had vary­ing inter­pre­ta­tions of Tao­ism, Hoff wants Pooh to under­stand the core mes­sage: it’s about appre­ci­at­ing and learn­ing from the events that hap­pen in every­day life. Tao­ism encour­ages peo­ple to embrace seren­i­ty and joy, find­ing humor even in life’s chal­lenges.

Pooh, in his typ­i­cal curi­ous man­ner, asks Hoff what vine­gar has to do with all this. Hoff explains that the vine­gar in the paint­ing sym­bol­izes life itself. Confucius’s sour expres­sion reflects his neg­a­tive out­look on life, while Buddha’s bit­ter­ness rep­re­sents the strug­gles and suf­fer­ing inher­ent in human exis­tence. Lao-tse, how­ev­er, smiles because he has learned to see life for what it is—impermanent and ever-chang­ing. He does not see life as inher­ent­ly sour or bit­ter but instead as some­thing to be embraced, no mat­ter what hap­pens. Taoists argue that the sour­ness and bit­ter­ness often felt in life are caused by the human mind, not life itself, which is nat­u­ral­ly sweet. Pooh, always seek­ing sweet­ness, imme­di­ate­ly thinks of hon­ey and excit­ed­ly heads to the cup­board in search of a treat. This moment in the nar­ra­tive gen­tly illus­trates how Taoism’s view on life, although pro­found, is sim­ple and accessible—life is sweet, if only we allow our­selves to see it that way.

The teach­ings of Tao­ism, espe­cial­ly as pre­sent­ed through Lao-tse, sug­gest that indi­vid­u­als can reach peace by align­ing them­selves with the nat­ur­al rhythms of life. The Tao does not force us to bat­tle with what is or to lament over what could be. Rather, it invites us to accept things as they are, respond­ing with ease and bal­ance rather than resis­tance. This phi­los­o­phy encour­ages look­ing at life from a fresh per­spec­tive, one that is not bur­dened by expec­ta­tions or judg­ments. Taoists believe that true hap­pi­ness comes from a state of har­mo­ny with one­self and the world. By rec­og­niz­ing the inher­ent sweet­ness of life, indi­vid­u­als can lead lives filled with joy, seren­i­ty, and less inter­nal con­flict. It’s a con­cept that might seem sim­ple, but when applied, it holds the pow­er to trans­form one’s approach to dai­ly liv­ing.

In the con­text of Pooh, who is depict­ed as always being con­tent, Tao­ism aligns per­fect­ly with his phi­los­o­phy. Pooh doesn’t over­think things; he sim­ply enjoys life in the moment, whether it’s hav­ing break­fast or tak­ing a walk in the woods. His nat­ur­al state of being mir­rors the teach­ings of Lao-tse. By learn­ing to embrace the present, Pooh lives in accor­dance with the Tao with­out even real­iz­ing it. He’s an exam­ple of how one can live peace­ful­ly with­out striv­ing for con­trol or per­fec­tion. Tao­ism, much like Pooh’s approach to life, teach­es the val­ue of accep­tance, kind­ness, and light­heart­ed­ness.