I believe this is also found in the Upanishads, but I'm not sure about it. It's not really important who said it or whether it's Zen or Hindu, the point is it was said (probably by somebody old, beardy, and funny) and it's true.
Not being an expert in these sorts of things, I could easily be wrong, but I can draw from personal experience to explain what it's all about. It is true on the interpersonal level of literally finding a teacher (mentor, author, philosopher etc.), or on the much more complicated, yet in a way easier, level of assimilating things on your own, using the world as your teacher.
A person who "doesn't get it" isn't necessarily a fool, they may simply not be ready to understand. Many things have to fall in place for somebody to come to an understanding, enlightenment, Nirvana or whatever. One cannot force himself into understanding something just as he cannot force himself into reading a sign on the other side of the ocean until he takes the trip to get there. Something has to catch on his mind. Something has to click.
I remember deciding one day, a few years back, that I was going to be a philosopher. As if it were a decision to be made. The very thought of it is laughable. I went through book after book without really understanding any of it. Each philosopher's work seemed to be a construction of deliberate complexities and webs on top of webs on top of webs. One day, in the middle of the reading, I quietly closed the book and threw it in the garbage. I don't endorse the mistreating of books in any way but at the time it was an act of frustration. "PHILOSOPHY IS STUPID," I screamed, internally and decided that either I was a fool or these authors were. Little did I know, that action had planted a seed in my brain that would blossom years down the road.
The problem was, I had no need for understanding what life was all about at the time. When you have no need for something, it's hard to have an appetite for it. When you have no appetite for something, it's hard to consume it.
It often takes reaching the breaking point to gain a need to understand just what the hell your head is all about (of course it can tragically go the opposite way, as well). Why do you think self-destructive celebrities, and suicidal rock stars often suddenly take seemingly drastic u-turns into new philosophies or religions? You'll never find anything if you don't feel like looking. Once you do find yourself needing to understand, well, the closer I feel I come to it, the more joy I feel.
Things started to fall into place: discipline, happiness, energy, practice and a sense of self-respect not felt ever before. A person who practices the piano and hates it until the day she dies will never become truly great, no matter who is teaching her. A person who experiences pure bliss whenever she plays will find herself becoming better and better, regardless of teachers.
However, now I am making it sound like being ready to learn is the same as desiring to learn, which is still not the case. Sure, you can hammer the multiplication tables and "amo, amas, amat" into a person's skull and have them memorize it perfectly, but the great mathematicians and linguists understood something beyond the simple structure of their respective fields. They were able to absorb, recreate and revolutionize because perhaps something just happened in their minds through a combination of education and experience.
The aforementioned teacher is, in a way, the self. True genius, I think, comes entirely from within and is merely augmented by education and cannot blossom without the self being ready; and once it is, there is a trust in oneself that must be present.
Even Einstein, one of the most prominent figures in physics (among many other things), once said, "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
Amazing thing, I thought at first, to hear one of the greatest examples of the scientific genius in the last century would think of facts, of reality, as being so flexible. Until you realize that he did indeed disprove widely accepted facts of physics and replaced them with his own. I find it hilariously appropriate that his most well known achievement is called the theory of "relativity."
So I believe this is the nature of understanding, learning and subsequently, genius: observation, desired education, experience, unselfish confidence, and humor.
You are the first real teacher you will ever have.
