The Goose has never been in, the goose has always been out. It is a Zen Koan. First you have to understand the meaning of Zen and the meaning of a Koan.
Zen is not a religion, not a dogma, not a creed. Zen is not even quest, and enquiry, it is non philosophical. The fundamental of the Zen approach is that all is as it should be, nothing is missing. this very moment everything is perfect. The Goal is not somewhere else - it is here, it is now. Tomorrow don't exist. This very moment is the only reality. Hence, in Zen there is no distinction between methods and goals, mans and goals.
All the philosophies of the world and the religions of the world create duality, how so ever they may go on talking about non duality, they create a spit personality in man. That has been the greatest calamity that has befallen humanity: all the do gooders have created schizophrenic man. Then you divide reality into means and goals you divide man himself, because for man, man is the closest reality to man. His consciousness becomes split. He lives here but not really, he is always there, somewhere else. He is always searching, always enquiring, never living, never being, always doing, getting richer, getting powerful, getting spiritual, getting holier, saintly - always more and more. And this constant hankering for more creates his tense, anguished state, and meanwhile he is missing all that is made available by existence. He is interested in the far away and God is close by. His eyes are focussed on the stars and God is within him. Hence most fundamental thing to understand about Zen is: The Goose has never been in. Let me tell you a story, how this Koan started:
A great philosophical official, Riko, once asked this strange Zen master, Nansen, to explain to him the old Koan of the goose in the bottle. " If a man puts a glossing into a bottle" said Riko, " and feeds him until he is full grown, how can the man gets to goose out without killing it or breaking the bottle?" Nansen gave a great clap with his hand and shouted, "Riko!"
"Yes master" said the official with a start
" See, " said Nansen, " the goose is out!"
It is only a question of seeing, it is only a question of becoming alert, awake, it is only a question of waking up. The goose is in the bottle if you are in a dream, the goose has never been in a bottle if you are awake. and in the dream there is no way to take the goose out of the bottle. Either the goose will die or the bottle will have to be broken and both alternatives are not allowed: Neither the bottle should be broken nor has the goose to be killed. Now a fully grown goose in a small bottle ... how can you take it out? this is called a Koan.
A Koan is not an ordinary puzzle, it is not a puzzle because it cannot be solved. A puzzle is that which has a possibility of being solved. You just have to look for the right answer. You will find it - it only needs intelligence to find the answer to the puzzle, but a puzzle is not really insoluble. A koan is insoluble, you cannot solve it you can only dissolve it. And the way to dissolve it is to change the very plane of your being from dreaming to awake fullness.
