[jballanc]

I first heard this quote in the context of learning the game of Go. If you're not familiar, Go has very very few rules, and the game starts off with a 19x19 grid. Two players alternate placing stones on the grid.

A beginner sees 361 positions to chose from at the start, 360 to choose from after the first move, 359 after the second and so on. An expert has a much, much narrower view of the board.

To reword the quote, tear it apart a bit more (ruin some of its beauty even): A beginner sees all possibilities because the beginner does not see past the first step; an expert sees a path even though the field is wide open because the expert knows where to step 100 steps from now.

Edit: I should add, if you find the style of the quote a bit obtuse, it is in keeping with much of how Zen is taught. A key point in Zen is the idea that the universe of knowledge can be split 3 ways: that which you know, that which you don't know, and that which you don't know that you don't know. The goal is to decrease the size of that third portion, but you cannot simply "show" someone this knowledge. Each person must discover it on their own.

[jaredsohn]

There is also a fourth kind of knowledge: unknown knowns (that which we intentionally refuse to acknowledge that we know) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_knowns

[niels_olson]

> that which you know, that which you don't know, and that which you don't know that you don't know.

First time I heard this was in a press conference by Donald Rumsfeld. Love him or hate him, he was well read and got things done.

[simonh]

They were mainly the wrong things to do, of course, but damnit he got them done!

[zooey]

That's the OPPOSITE of the beginner's mind. And the beginner's mind is the zen way.

Jobs didn't see his choice just because was the only one: it is that the other people had already discarded that option because they were "expert player"

And by the way, zen is not about knowledge is about leaving the words to the dogs to eat and being in touch with the present time.