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Someone may be “walking on water” not because they have learned a great secret, but rather that they have not ‘learned’ that they cannot do such a thing. Sometimes the correction for a situation is not to do something more, but primarily to stop what we have being doing; rather than learning something new, relinquish limiting information that you have acquired along the way.

Knowledge is gained by daily increment,
Tao is gained by daily loss
Verse 48: Tao Te Ching

Some would assert that except in certain medically or psychologically induced conditions unlearning our limitations is a hopeless fantasy. But isn’t the effect of a Zen koan a bit of “un-learning”? In such things exposed via a koan, the conscious mind is provided ‘enough rope to hang itself’ so that the wisdom beyond and before the dubious learning can come forward. When the blaring flaw in any held/learned concept is exposed, the accepted reality of it crumbles.

One might argue that the purpose of a Zen koan is redirection of the mind. It is generally a question unanswerable in the context of the logical mind—something like, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” The logical mind will grapple with such a question until it exhausts itself. At that point, with it defenses—the infallible fortress of reason—down, the mind is open for a new perspective…thinking outside the box, as it is sometimes called…

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