My primary school motto was “Knowledge is Power.” Acquiring knowledge has been a significant part of my life and growth as a child, teenager, and adult.

As a girl growing up in a young, free India, I saw the barriers to education being broken for girls.

My father had six siblings, all girls, and most of them did not finish school. They quit in middle school or did not pursue a college education. My grandfather, the breadwinner of the family, had passed away, and my grandmother was left a young widow at the age of 33 with seven children. Despite considerable pressure to send my father to work, my grandmother ensured he got a college degree.

My mom had six siblings: two brothers and four sisters. Among all the children, she and her younger sister, along with the brothers, received a college degree. The rest of the sisters did not finish middle school or did not pursue a college education.

Unless you were exceptionally bright as a girl, it was hard to ensure you got a degree because college education for girls was uncommon in most families in India.  This was a leap for my mother who was the first girl in her family to receive a college degree compared to her own mother, who did not receive an education.

When my parents had two girls, there was no doubt that education would be a priority for both of us. My sister and I were exempt from all household chores, which was unusual for girls of our age. We did not learn cooking, cleaning, or other domestic skills. We were told to just study.

My father believed that for us to be economically independent, we had to be well-educated—to have the knowledge necessary to make our way in the world and be self-sufficient.

I was taken by surprise by how much Taoism and, in turn, Hoff rail against the pursuit of intellectual knowledge in the chapter “Spelling Tuesday” from Benjamin Hoff’s The Tao of Pooh.

The Taoist writer Chuang-tse wrote, “A well frog cannot imagine the ocean, nor can a summer insect conceive of ice. How then can a scholar understand the Tao? He is restricted by his own learning.”

In the chapter “Cottleston Pie”, Hoff writes,

The facets of learning

Hoff uses the various characters from Winnie the Pooh to illustrate knowledge, cleverness, passiveness, and wisdom.

Owl is the quintessential scholar in the Hundred Acre Wood, representing the scholarly pursuit of knowledge. Owl often gets bogged down in complexities and details,  values formal learning and education and enjoys showing off his knowledge, even if it has no practical use.

Rabbit is practical and likes to plan, execute, and take charge of situations. He prides himself on his cleverness and ability to plan, representing the tendency to try too hard to control circumstances. This aspect leads him to be inflexible, unable to include others in this planning, and not being able to let go when things don’t go according to his plan.

Eeyore is characterised by his gloomy outlook on life. He resigns himself to his fate and accepts whatever happens very passively. He accepts things as they are, but his focus is on the negative aspects of life. His acceptance leads him to complain more than enjoy being in the present.

Converting knowledge to wisdom

As I ponder Taoist principles and the characters of Winnie the Pooh, one question stands out: how can I ensure my knowledge doesn’t hinder my actions?

Knowledge is valuable because it broadens the mind and the horizon of possibilities. But wisdom lies in the intent and the state of being from which the action springs.

One of my superpowers is the ability to overthink and plan. I anticipate everything that could go wrong in different aspects of my life and put plans to ensure I would never go through the discomfort of being caught in a challenging situation.

For example, when I started writing this newsletter in November 2023, I wasn’t sure if I could commit to writing once a week. Each newsletter requires a lot of reading, reflection, and research before it gets written. After I write it, there is editing, revisions, recording of audio, and editing of audio. Each newsletter takes at least 6-7 hours to produce end to end.

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to write every week, and it seemed unreasonable to charge people if I wasn’t sure. So what did I do? I planned a lot.

I wrote out newsletters six weeks in advance, and I burned myself out with sustained effort for a few weeks. But as I have been reading this book, it is dawning on me that what started a project of the heart very quickly turned into a project of the head, led by fear.

I have been able to intentionally relax and write guided by my intuition, not by a frantic sense of “How do I distil this awesome book into 1200+ coherent words today?” I have been able to show up to writing this series with a sense of lightness, and joy I had when I started.

I still have a plan for the books I want to write about until the end of the year. But now, I am going with the flow of getting in touch with my intuition, writing, and then letting go.

With this, we round up this edition of the newsletter. I hope you read “The Tao of Pooh” by Benjamin Hoff alongside this series and enjoy it as much as I did.

In the next edition, we will explore Wu-Wei, explained as without doing, causing or making.

And here is the tiny story of the week.

The Statesman and the Zen Master

The Prime Minister of the Tang Dynasty was celebrated as both a statesman and a military leader. Despite his fame, power, and wealth, he considered himself a humble and devout Buddhist. He often visited his favourite Zen master to learn from him, and their relationship was one of mutual respect: a revered master and a respectful student.

One day, during his usual visit, the Prime Minister asked the master, "Your Reverence, what is egotism according to Buddhism?"

The master's face turned red, and in a very condescending and insulting tone, he shot back, "What kind of stupid question is that?"

This unexpected response shocked the Prime Minister, leaving him sullen and angry.

Seeing this, the Zen master smiled and said, "THIS, Your Excellency, is egotism."

💌 Siri