The Double Bind

Zen discipline is that instead of doing this to people unconsciously as parents do it and as teachers do it to children, the double bind is put on you deliberately knowing how stupid it is. I had a friend who was studying zen and he was given some co-op like this to work on. When he got in front of the teacher to answer the koan that is to say to do spontaneously produce his genuine self he produced the bullfrog the teacher looked at it and shook his head and said mmm-mmm too intellectual first we might say too contrived too studded that's not yet you so try not to think of a green elephant okay now.