My guess is that this is a combination of rules + guessing the teacher’s password + luck.
The rule is that you are expected to take a different perspective, never to answer the question literally. For example, if I asked you “how much is two apples plus two apples?”, you definitely shouldn’t answer “four apples”.
The default perspective is that we are doing addition, using apples. You must deviate from this somehow. For example, you can make it about apples, but ignore addition. Or talk about addition, maybe metaphorically, but definitely not about 2+2.
Also important, your answer should appear spontaneous, definitely not like a result of reading my advice.
Q: “How much is two apples plus two apples?”
A1: “I prefer oranges, they are yummy.”
A2: A pantomime of biting an apple. It is a very tasty apple!
A3: “The more you keep adding, the less you have.”
Different teachers would probably accept different answers, also depending on their mood at the moment, and how convincingly “spontaneous” was your answer. That part is the teacher’s password + luck. This is completely arbitrary, but if rejected, you need to accept it, keep trying and “spontaneously” figure out a different perspective. The process needs to be inherently mysterious (and if you have read the Sequences and know that there is no such thing, well you need to pretend you believe there is).
If the teacher rejects a few attempts in a row, you need to take a break and try later; apparently the teacher believes that you need to spend some time and try harder. Relax (while pretending to keep thinking about this in background), and after sufficient time try again.
As you keep doing this, you will get better at it, and after completing an arbitrary number of koans, you will be considered “enlightened”. (Which mostly means: good at playing this social game.)
There are probably a few more rules to this. For example, if the koan involves humans, the proper perspective is often to consider “what are these people not thinking about, but they should?” or “how could these people break the rules?”.
My guess is that this is a combination of rules + guessing the teacher’s password + luck.
The rule is that you are expected to take a different perspective, never to answer the question literally. For example, if I asked you “how much is two apples plus two apples?”, you definitely shouldn’t answer “four apples”.
The default perspective is that we are doing addition, using apples. You must deviate from this somehow. For example, you can make it about apples, but ignore addition. Or talk about addition, maybe metaphorically, but definitely not about 2+2.
Also important, your answer should appear spontaneous, definitely not like a result of reading my advice.
Q: “How much is two apples plus two apples?”
A1: “I prefer oranges, they are yummy.”
A2: A pantomime of biting an apple. It is a very tasty apple!
A3: “The more you keep adding, the less you have.”
Different teachers would probably accept different answers, also depending on their mood at the moment, and how convincingly “spontaneous” was your answer. That part is the teacher’s password + luck. This is completely arbitrary, but if rejected, you need to accept it, keep trying and “spontaneously” figure out a different perspective. The process needs to be inherently mysterious (and if you have read the Sequences and know that there is no such thing, well you need to pretend you believe there is).
If the teacher rejects a few attempts in a row, you need to take a break and try later; apparently the teacher believes that you need to spend some time and try harder. Relax (while pretending to keep thinking about this in background), and after sufficient time try again.
As you keep doing this, you will get better at it, and after completing an arbitrary number of koans, you will be considered “enlightened”. (Which mostly means: good at playing this social game.)
There are probably a few more rules to this. For example, if the koan involves humans, the proper perspective is often to consider “what are these people not thinking about, but they should?” or “how could these people break the rules?”.