The Tao of Who?

In this chapter of The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff introduces the concept of the Uncarved Block or P’u.  “The essence of the principle of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed.”  

The first image that leaps to mind is of course a child.  A child is the epitome of an Uncarved Block that is doomed to become a carved block as they grow up.  In Stephen King’s IT the group of pre-teens are able to confront IT because they are still children enough to have a connection to that essential power that children have.  The power of innocence and unspoiledness.  I think it’s that power that IT feeds on but when they get together as a group they’re able to turn it on the monster. Maybe it doesn’t apply here but I just love that book so much!

There are so many things that are so special and wonderful when you’re a child but once you’ve reached a certain age you lose touch with that feeling.  When I was a kid I used to get so excited about going to the local amusement park. The excitement would build for days and the night before I couldn’t even sleep for thinking of it, planning all the rides I would ride and things I would eat. This excitement continued till I was about 13-14.  Then I didn’t go for a few years.  I’m sure my family continued to go but I probably felt that I was to old to go with the little kids.  So when I was about 17 I went with some friends and it was so not the same. It was a moment when I realized that by moving from childhood to adulthood I was losing something precious. It was many years ago but I remember it very clearly.

Hoff relates a part of Pooh’s story where he, Piglet and Rabbit are trying to find home but they keep going in circles and ending up at a sand pit.  As they have a rest at the sand pit Pooh says, “How would it be if, as soon as we’re out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?”

“What’s the good of that?” said Rabbit.

“Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that is we looked for this Pit, we’d be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren’t looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really.”

“I don’t see much sense in that.” said Rabbit.  

Rabbit the thinker doesn’t see sense in Pooh’s idea but how many times have you not been able to find the answer to a question, remember something, or just find an object and it’s not until you quit thinking about it so hard and move on to something else that it suddenly comes to you quite easily.  Maybe that is an example of us getting in touch with the P’u or Pooh inside of us.  

When we stop trying to hard, thinking so much and trying to force it - we’re then able to just allow things to happen.  As I’ve already mentioned I’m not big on thinking to much so hopefully this won’t be to hard for me to get in touch with my inner Pooh.