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Once a woman raised a goose in a bottle.
When the goose was grown, she wanted to get it out.
How can you get it out without breaking the bottle?

—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 63

You go to visit a family crypt. It is a stone mausoleum in the cemetery. You go at night when there is no moon. You decide to open the gate and go in to be nearer your ancestors. It is pitch black. A fierce gust of wind blows your candle out and you hear the heavy gate slam shut behind you. There is no one around. There are no windows and the door is locked from the outside—how will you get out?

—PZI Miscellaneous Koans, Case 20

I’ve been in a three-way conversation between me, the goose in the bottle, and finding myself locked in a stone crypt. In both koans we are asked, “How do you get out?”

The perspectives seem to be different. In one I am locked in, and in the other it’s the goose who’s locked in. But who is that goose, really? And who is the woman who raises the goose in the bottle, really? As with dreams, it is helpful to explore the way that I am everything appearing in the koan or dream.

In the case of the crypt, there are no windows, it is dark, I can’t see my hand in front of my face. In the case of the goose, the bottle is clear, I can see out and the outside can see in. Both situations resonate with places where I can find myself.

Sometimes I’m in the dark about how I’m trapped by my delusions. Sometimes I can see quite clearly how I am trapped. The term “conscious incompetence” comes to mind. Knowing that I am trapped but that knowledge is not helping, and sometimes it can make it feel worse. Being in the dark is no picnic, but, as the koan says, “I find myself locked in a stone crypt.” I am in the dark about how I got there.

The goose koan tells me that it was done intentionally, this placing of myself into a bottle. Seeing that can help, so long as I don’t judge myself for being an idiot, or worse.

In some ways they appear to be the same koan, the same situation: I am confined and trying to get out. Though the koans “Hide in a pillar,” and “Hide in a bell,” appear to present the same situation, still, we inquire into each as also presenting something unique. In both situations there is something to be discovered about being the same and being different, like you and me.

And in the cases of the goose and crypt, in each there is something about getting out of our own way and just being who we are.

—David Weinstein

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—David