The Goose in the Bottle
An old koan asks, "How can you get a goose out of a bottle?" We're asked to imagine that a baby gosling was placed inside one of those big glass bottles with a little opening that you see model ships in, and raised inside, until now it is full grown and can no longer fit through the neck of the bottle. How can you get the goose out of the bottle? It's actually a frightening image when we think about what an artificial, cramped and constricted life that poor goose must lead in there, and how unimaginable a life of freedom must be to an animal raised under such conditions. And yet, that's what the old teacher who thought up this koan was saying about our lives- that we lead lives so confined and constricted that we can hardly begin to imagine what true freedom is like.
Thank you for helping me break out the bottle. The glass is at least cracking.....