The Te of Piglet
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Ten years after his Tao of Pooh, in 1982, Benjamin Hoff was pressed to write a follow up of his Western inquiry into Taoism. He did this by writing his The Te of Piglet, published in 1992. It is still in print, with a paperback edition issued by Penguin USA in 1993.
In this second book he makes the explicit statement that it isn't a sequel to his first book, but rather a companion. The book is based around two topics, the concept of Te, the Chinese word meaning 'power' or 'virtue' and Piglet, of the Winnie the Pooh books. In his first book, he brings out the essential tenets and perspectives of Taoism, in terms accessible to Westerners. In his second book, he elucidates the Taoist concept of 'Virtue - of the small'; though, he also uses it as an opportunity to elaborate on his introduction to Taoism. It is written with many embedded stories from the A.A. Milne Winnie the Pooh books, both for entertainment and because they serve as very useful tools for explaining Taoism -most Chinese stories are rather inaccessible to Westerners.
In The Te of Piglet, Piglet is shown to possess great power -a common interpretation of the word Te, which more commonly means Virtue-, not only because he is small, but, also, because he has a great heart or, to use a Taoist/Chinese word, Tz'u. The book goes through the other characters—Tigger, Owl, Rabbit, Eeyore, and Pooh—to show the various aspects of our humanity that Taoism says gets in the way of living in harmony with the Tao.
Book reference
- Hoff, Benjamin. The Te of Piglet. Paperback edition, Penquin USA, New York, 1993. ISBN 0140230165.