Chap­ter 6: The Pooh Way, In Taoist phi­los­o­phy, Wu Wei is often described through the metaphor of a stream that, as it grows and trans­forms into a riv­er, learns to flow more smooth­ly and with­out effort. This prin­ci­ple mir­rors what Hoff calls “the Pooh Way,” where things are done effort­less­ly, with­out force or strug­gle. Wu Wei empha­sizes act­ing in a nat­ur­al, calm man­ner, avoid­ing ego­tis­ti­cal or com­bat­ive effort. For exam­ple, water nat­u­ral­ly flows around obsta­cles with­out try­ing to force its way through, embody­ing the Taoist idea of allow­ing things to unfold as they are meant to. In con­trast, the con­stant effort to con­trol or manip­u­late sit­u­a­tions often leads to unnec­es­sary ten­sion and fail­ure.

Chuang-tse illus­trates Wu Wei with a sto­ry about Con­fu­cius observ­ing a man sav­ing him­self from a tur­bu­lent pool under a water­fall. The man explains that he has spent his life learn­ing to fol­low the water’s flow instead of resist­ing it. This reflects the Taoist view that when peo­ple align their actions with their own inner nature and the nat­ur­al world, they do not need to put in stren­u­ous effort to suc­ceed. Pooh, too, embod­ies this effort­less approach to life, explain­ing to Hoff that things “just sort of hap­pen” for him. Hoff relates this to the teach­ings of Lao-tse, who believed that Tao allows life to unfold nat­u­ral­ly with­out inter­fer­ence. A scene from The House at Pooh Cor­ner illus­trates this point, where Pooh and Rab­bit attempt to help Eey­ore, but it is Pooh’s unhur­ried actions, aligned with Wu Wei, that ulti­mate­ly lead to Eeyore’s res­cue, even though Rab­bit ini­tial­ly claims cred­it.

Hoff com­pares Wu Wei to the idea of sim­ply “putting the round peg in the round hole,” con­trast­ing it with the way ego, clev­er­ness, and knowl­edge try to force things into places where they don’t belong. This is seen in the exam­ple of Piglet strug­gling to open a pick­le jar, while Pooh effort­less­ly opens it by twist­ing it nat­u­ral­ly. When Tig­ger tries too hard, he ends up break­ing the jar, demon­strat­ing that ten­sion and over­think­ing do not lead to suc­cess. Hoff and Pooh reflect on how human beings often com­pli­cate things with their intel­lect, mak­ing them more dif­fi­cult than they need to be. In Tao­ism, true wis­dom comes from let­ting go of the need to con­trol, and instead allow­ing things to hap­pen nat­u­ral­ly.

The search for the Very Small Bee­tle in the Win­nie-the-Pooh books fur­ther exem­pli­fies Wu Wei. While Rab­bit orga­nizes the search, Pooh, with his usu­al sim­plic­i­ty, steps on Piglet, won­ders what’s going on, and unin­ten­tion­al­ly dis­cov­ers the bee­tle. This per­fect­ly demon­strates how things often fall into place when they are allowed to, with­out exces­sive effort or inter­ven­tion. Sim­i­lar­ly, Pooh and Piglet’s birth­day cel­e­bra­tion for Eey­ore high­lights how things can work out in unex­pect­ed ways. Pooh brings a jar of hon­ey as a gift, but ends up eat­ing it on the way. He repack­ages the jar with “A Hap­py Birth­day” writ­ten on it, and gives it to Eey­ore. Piglet, too, has an acci­dent with his bal­loon, but the crum­pled bal­loon fits per­fect­ly into the “Use­ful Pot” Pooh had brought. These events illus­trate the Taoist belief that life has a way of unfold­ing in the right direc­tion, even when things don’t go as planned.

Wu Wei, like a reflex, is hard to define but is expe­ri­enced in the way water flows, a mir­ror reflects, or an echo responds. Pooh’s life is a per­fect exam­ple of this prin­ci­ple in action. When Hoff explains Wu Wei to Pooh, he points out that it’s about fol­low­ing intu­ition and adapt­ing nat­u­ral­ly to cir­cum­stances, allow­ing deci­sions to emerge with­out effort. Pooh demon­strates this when he doesn’t con­scious­ly decide whom to vis­it, but sim­ply finds him­self head­ing to Piglet’s house. This effort­less deci­sion reflects the Taoist prin­ci­ple of liv­ing in har­mo­ny with one’s nat­ur­al incli­na­tions. By fol­low­ing his instincts, Pooh leads a stress-free life, illus­trat­ing the pow­er of Wu Wei.

When Pooh asks Hoff about the rid­dle of Wu Wei, Hoff explains that it’s not unlike the mar­tial art T’ai Chi Ch’üan, where oppo­nents redi­rect force rather than resist­ing it. This high­lights the essence of Wu Wei: it’s about mov­ing with the flow of life rather than against it. Hoff fur­ther explains that Wu Wei is like a float­ing cork, bounc­ing back with­out using any ener­gy. Pooh’s play­ful nature leads him to guess that the answer to the rid­dle might be a piece of cork, align­ing with his sim­ple and nat­ur­al under­stand­ing of the world.

Final­ly, Hoff reveals that the answer to Chuang-tse’s rid­dle is “the Pooh Way,” which Pooh ini­tial­ly dis­miss­es as a bad rid­dle. Pooh, always ready with his own jokes, asks Hoff a rid­dle about a sun­burned pen­guin, show­ing that his wis­dom comes not from intel­lec­tu­al com­plex­i­ty but from sim­plic­i­ty and humor. Hoff, in turn, asks Pooh anoth­er rid­dle about some­thing that runs around all day with­out get­ting any­where, but he keeps the answer for the next chap­ter. This play­ful exchange cap­tures the essence of Wu Wei—living sim­ply, nat­u­ral­ly, and with­out force, and learn­ing to nav­i­gate life’s chal­lenges with ease and a sense of humor.