The original koan has a monk asking "What is Buddha?" With the Master's response being "This flax weighs 3 pounds", referring to the flax in his garment. The ko

The original koan has a monk asking "What is Buddha?" With the Master's response being "This flax weighs 3 pounds", referring to the flax in his garment. The koan is intended to point out the practical nature of the Buddhist religion. Buddha to the master is all the things he does as part of his worship, and there are practical aspects to that worship such as buying 3 lb of flax. "Buddha is as Buddha does". Unix nature being "3 lb of VAX", the most popular hardware running Unix at the time, suggests that practicality is more important than idealistic purism. Tigers like to stay on the ground but sometimes they jump in the air so saying "tigers are creatures of the ground" have exceptions that make sense. A similar idea applies to eagles. These exceptions are part of nature. Exceptions to the rule in favor of practicality are okay and still make sense. These exceptions are still part of Unix nature.