ISBN-10: 0140067477
ISBN-13: 978-0140067477
20 – “Let’s go and see everybody,” said Pooh. “Because when you’ve been walking in the wind for miles, and you suddenly go into somebody’s house, and he says, ‘Hallo, Pooh, you’re just in time for a little smackerel of something,’ and you are, then it’s what I call a Friendly Day.”
Piglet thought they ought to have a Reason for going to see everybody, like Looking for Small or Organizing an Expotition, if Pooh could think of something.
Pooh could.
“We’ll go because it’s Thursday,” he said, “and we’ll go to wish everybody a Very Happy Thursday. Come on, Piglet.”
40 – “You complain that your tree is not valuable as lumber. But you could make use of the shade it provides, rest under its sheltering branches, and stroll beneath it, admiring its character and appearance. Since it would not be endangered by an axe, what could threaten its existence. It is useless to you only because you want to make it into something else and do not use it in its proper way.”
57 – Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.
59 – In a similar manner, instead of struggling to erase what are referred to as negative emotions, we can learn to use them in positive ways. We could describe the principle like this: while pounding on the piano keys may produce noise, removing them doesn’t exactly further the creation of music.
59 – So rather than work against ourselves, all we need to do in many cases is to point our weaknesses or unpleasant tendencies in a different direction than we have been.
67 – By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly. For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”
68 – 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 of short-circuiting natural laws, but one that evolves from an inner sensitivity to the natural rhythm of things.
75 – Cleverness, as usual, takes all the credit it possible can. But it’s not the Clever Mind that 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 doesn’t appear to do much of anything. But Things Get Done.
87 – The Wu Wei approach to conflict-solving can be seen in the practice of the Taoist martial art T’ai Chi Ch’uan, the basic idea of which is to wear the opponent out either by sending his energy back at him or by deflecting it away, it order to weaken his power, balance, and position-for-defense. Never is the force opposed with force; instead it is overcome with yielding.
108 – The main problem with great obsession for Saving Time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly. The Bisy Backson has practically no time at all, because he’s too busy wasting it trying to save it. And by trying to save every bit of it, he ends up wasting the whole thing.
110 – “What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?”
– “Well,” said Pooh, “what I like best—” and then he had to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat which was better than when you were, but he didn’t know what it was called.
146 – An Empty sort of mind is valuable for finding pearls and tails and things because it can see what’s in front of it. An Overstuffed mind is unable to. While the Clear mind listens to a bird singing, the Stuffed-Full-of-Knowledge-and-Cleverness mind wonders what kind of bird is singing. The more Stuffed Up it is, the less it can hear its own ears and see through its own eyes. Knowledge and Cleverness tend to concern themselves with the wrong sorts of things, and a mind confused by Knowledge, Cleverness, and Abstract Ideas tends to go chasing off after things that don’t matter, or that don’t even exist, instead of seeing, appreciating, and making use of what is right in front of it.
146 – Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness. Everything has to be filled in, it seems–appointment books, hillsides, vacant lots–but when all the spaces are filled, the Loneliness really begins. Then the groups are joined, the classes are signed up for, and the Gift-to-Yourself items are bought. When the Loneliness starts creeping in the door, the Television Set is turned on to make it go away. But it doesn’t go away. So some of us do instead, and after discarding the emptiness of the Big Congested Mess, we discover the fullness of Nothing.
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