Koan of the week

And now for the weekly koan: (because economics is called the dismal science for a reason and if I convince one person to read this, I will have bored them to tears after that last post)

The zen master Gutei had a habit of raising one finger in the air whenever he was explaining a question about zen.
One of his young disciples was beginning to immitate him and whenever anyone asked the boy what his master was teaching him he would raise his finger.
Gutei heard about this and when he next saw the boy he observed him doing it one day and he pulled out a knife and seized the boy's hand and cut off his finger.

The boy yelped and ran away and as he fled crying Gutei called out,
"Stop!"
The boy stopped and turned around and looked at his master through his tears. Gutei held up his one finger and the boy went to hold up his one finger and when he realized it wasn't there he bowed.

At that moment the boy became enlightened.