[marshray]

The student approached the VC Master and said:

"Master, I am troubled and have journeyed far to seek your legendary wisdom. My business has [specific problem X]. What should I do?"

The VC Master replied:

"Ah, I see your confusion. All the mental energy that you use to elaborate your misery has clouded your mind. The wise man spends zero time on what he could have done and all of his time on what he might do."

In that moment, the student was enlightened.

[aaronbrethorst]

    A monk approached the master and said,
    “Every koan by a software developer
    I’ve read would be better if plainly stated.”
    
    The master replied, “What is the plain statement?”

[chris_wot]

He is asking about what he might do, and not on what he did. Confusing, but I've decided to all my mental energy into reading the next comment and not spend any more time on this koan.

[DaoVeles]

An aside, I always love some of the more vague koans.

Usually something like. A student is brushing his teeth. The teacher walks in and explodes. And then student was enlightened.

[Swizec]

Another good way of phrasing this: Play the cards you have, not the cards you wish you had.

[marshray]

Try reading it again carefully?

[notnaut]

There’s no shattering moment here. If you have something meaningful to share, state it plainly. Otherwise take your koans to koans r us.

[bhaney]

The master is clearly giving useless advice, but it's phrased as a koan so people are assuming that they're just misunderstanding it and that there's deeper meaning they're missing. The student is reasonably stating their problem for context, and then asking the master what to do about it. The master is responding with a lecture to not waste time "elaborating your misery" (which they didn't do) and telling the student to figure out what to do about it (which is exactly what the student asked in the first place).

It's poking fun.

[rzzzt]

"the student was enlightened" = the student thought "master is worse than useless when it comes to giving advice, I shall not bother him with further questions"

[mizzao]

Great story, except I would argue that "VC Master" is generally an oxymoron.

[nine_k]

Maybe it's the actual koan.