We all start off thinking we know who we are, where we are, where we're trying to get to, what we think we have to do to get there. We have a pretty clear picture of the way our life is suffering. We have a pretty clear picture of the state we want to replace it with. And we have a picture of what we need to do to get from here to there. The master in this koan implies that this whole clear-eyed view of the world is part of the problem not part of the solution. And in some way we have to stumble into the alternative. Falling down a well.