What is the purpose of this book?
1. The How of Pooh
Explain the painting called The Vinegar Tasters.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vinegar_Tasters
1)What was the role of the emporer?
2)Explain the key ideas of Kung-fu tse, Buddha and Lao-tse
3) What is Tao?
2. The Tao of Who?
1) What is P'u?
Read the instructions on page 10 and try to pronounce the Chinese word P'u.
2)Using the quotes provided in the text from Winnie-the-Pooh explain the "Uncarved Block", the character of Winnie and then contrast it with the descriptions of Rabbit and Eeyore.
3) What is the result of achieving the "Uncarved Block"?
3. Spelling Tuesday
1) Explain: the following quote from the Taoist thinker Chuang-tse:
A well frog cannot conceive of the ocean
nor can a summer insect cannot concieve of ice
How then can a scholar understand the Tao?
He is restricted by his own learning.
2) Describe the Confuscionist Dessiccated Scholar.
4. Cottleston Pie
1) Read the pages 37-41 and explain what Cottleston Pie is all about. Include the two ancient stories about Chuang-tse and the two quotes from Pooh's song:
A bird can fly but a fly can't bird
and
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
2)Explain the Chinese proverb: One disease long life, no disease short life. P48
Why does a chicken, I don't know why? Page 50
3) Hoff claims that scientific explanations for instinct for example lead to more questions rather than answers. Do you agree?
4)Explain the following saying from Lao tse '...the bad can be raw material for the good.' p.61
5) How is Tigger's bouncing used for good? p.65
5. The Pooh Way
1) What is the translation of Wu-Wei?
2) What is the Principle of Minimal Effort?
6. Bisy Backson
'Then he stopped and listened, and everything stopped and listened with him, and the Forest was very lone and still and peaceful in the sunshine, until suddenly a hundred miles above him a lark began to sing.' p.93
1) The lark that A.A.Milne refers to is the skylark. Listen to its song on Youtube: Skylark - the Ridgeway, Wiltshire; Skylark
and to get a closer look check out the skylark with offspring
2) Now explain the significance of the lark song that rabbit heard – what has it got to do with being a Bisy Backson? Relate it also to the Chuang-tse's story of the man who hated his footprints and his shadow; what was the man trying to escape, and how could he best achieve it?
3) Why do Bisy Backsons work so hard?
4) The Chinese Teahouse and the Hamburger Stand are representative of two different ways of living, explain them using the following aphorisms:
You're important. Relax and enjoy yourself.
You don't count; hurry up.
p.108
e) Explain the importance of 'the moment before we begin to eat honey'.
7) That Sort of Bear
This chapter contains three key ideas that you should be able to talk about. The first is found in the theme in the Chinese tale of the 'Stonecutter', the Taoist concept of Tz'u and finally the so-called Tiddley-Pom Principle.
8) Nowhere and Nothing
1)What is T'ai Hsu?
2) How can it help one find the Tao?
3) How can it help you solve problems?
4) Claude Debussy said "Music is the space between the notes." Explain wha t you think this means.
5) What do children and sages have in common?
9) The Now of Pooh
1)What is the central problem with "abstract cleverness of mind"?
2)What is the solution?
10) The History of Taoism
1) Give an overview of how Taoism began, its principle protagonists (Lao tse and Chuang Tse) and how it was transfored into a religion as well as being maintained as a philosophy.
2) Explain the following quote from Lao Tse:
The wise man points to the stars but the imbeciles see only his finger.
11) The Te of Piglet
What is this?
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Links
Reading:
Intuition for the "mystically tone deaf"
Nature, Art & Language
© All Copyright, 2007, Ray Genet
