the sex life of the inside of a ping-pong ball

Only now do I realize I was given my first Koan whilst at school and it removed the traps of logic - blowing my mind wide open to the infinite.

As a punishment from class in school bad students may be given "lines". The teacher would demand 40 lines of "I must not be bad in class" or "I must not spell absolutely with two l's" or some such thing. As we grew older the punishment may be a more structured affair: "200 words on the life and times of Margaret Thatcher" or "1000 words on electron orbits". It may have been urban legend but word went about that one teacher had demanded "3000 words on the sex life of the inside of a ping-pong ball" and my mind was blown open as I meditated on the emptiness intertwined with potential void therein.

I hoped and hoped to meet that teacher and be given the punishment. Oh all those days messing up in class in the hope of being served the perfect essay title to expound my youthful philosophies.