. As a
Zenrin poem says:
You cannot get it by taking thought;
You cannot seek it by not taking thought.e
But this absurdly complex and frustrating predicament arises from a
simple and elementary mistake in the use of the mind. When this is
understood, there is no paradox and no di@culty. Obviously, the mistake arises in the attempt to split the mind against itself, but to
understand this clearly we have to enter more deeply into the
“cybernetics” of the mind, the basic pattern of its self-correcting
action.
It is, of course, part of the very genius of the human mind that it
can, as it were, stand aside from life and reAect upon it, that it can
be aware of its own existence, and that it can criticize its own
processes. For the mind has something resembling a “feed-back”
system. This is a term used in communications engineering for one
of the basic principles of “automation,” of enabling machines to
control themselves. Feed-back enables a machine to be informed of
the effects of its own action in such a way as to be able to correct its
action. Perhaps the most familiar example is the electrical
thermostat which regulates the heating of a house. By setting an
upper and a lower limit of desired temperature, a thermometer is
so connected that it will switch the furnace on when the lower limit
is reached, and o? when the upper limit is reached. The
temperature of the house is thus kept within the desired limits. The
thermostat provides the furnace with a kind of sensitive organ–an
extremely rudimentary analogy of hurnan self-consciousness.2
The proper adjustment of a feed-back system is always a complex mechanical problem. For the original machine, say, the furnace, is
adjusted by the feed-back system, but this system in turn needs
adjustment.Therefore to make a mechanical system more and more
automatic will require the use of a series of feed-back systems–a
automatic will require the use of a series of feed-back systems–a
second to correct the >rst, a third to correct the second, and so on.
But there are obvious limits to such a series, for beyond a certain
point the mechanism will be “frustrated” by its own complexity.
For example, it might take so long for the information to pass
through the series of control systems that it would arrive at the
original machine too late to be useful. Similarly, when human
beings think too carefully and minutely about an action to be taken,
they cannot make up their minds in time to act. In other words, one
cannot correct one’s means of self-correction inde>nitely. There must soon be a source of information at the end of the line which is
the >nal authority. Failure to trust its authority will make it
impossible to act, and the system will be paralyzed.
The system can be paralyzed in yet another way. Every feedback
system needs a margin of “lag” or error. If we try to make a
thermostat absolutely accurate–that is, if we bring the upper and
lower limits of temperature very close together in an attempt to
hold the temperature at a constant 70 degrees–the whole system
will break down. For to the extent that the upper and lower limits
coincide, the signals for switching o? and switching on will
coincide! If 70 degrees is both the lower and upper limit the “go”
sign will also be the “stop” sign; “yes” will imply “no” and “no” will imply “yes.” Whereupon the mechanism will start “trembling,”
going on and o?, on and o?, until it shakes itself to pieces. The
system is too sensitive and shows symptoms which are startlingly
like human anxiety. For when a human being is so self-conscious,
so self-controlled that he cannot let go of himself, he dithers or wobbles between opposites. This is precisely what is meant in Zen
by going round and round on “the wheel of birth-and-death,” for
the Buddhist samsara is the prototype of all vicious circles.

http://terebess.hu/english/AlanWatts-The%20Way%20of%20Zen.pd...