The Cow

It's about time for another koan, to beef up my collection.

A cow passed through a window. Its head, its body and legs all passed through. Why did the tail not pass through?

I cannot resist asking, in the first place, what exactly constitutes a cow. Is a tail-less cow still a cow? Must it possess a head, four legs, a tail in perfect entirety, to satisfy the criteria of cowhood? And this is only at the level of its anatomy. Consider other constituents that could philosophically compose the cow - its soul, its linguistic label, the arbitrary string of phonemes that is linked to the concept of "cow", and the mental representation of our venerable beast in your mind. All of these components are likely to be sufficient, with none being necessary to sanction the cow's existence. When I introduce a cow, via language, into your conceptual frame by the fearsome utterance "there is a cow....", which of these is triggered foremost?

In the circumstances of such an existential flux, our marooned mooing machine cannot hope to saunter past the window unscathed. As the question so innocuously yet elegantly asserted, fragments of cowhood, exemplified by the missing tail, have been silently and dangerously filtered away by our restrictive, componentially-driven conceptual schemata. Lest we erupt into contrived mourning for the demised appendage, I am inclined to interpret the cow and window as a metaphor for our thoughts and our mind, respectively. Open up the window and do not scrutinize the cow from the inner vantage point, bolted shut from new perspectives. Reach your head out and embrace the cow, embrace the world, revel in the perfect imperfection of its complete cowhood. Partake in the coherent incoherence of our unfathomable mother nature. And I guarantee this is all she asks of you.