The Great Learning
It is said that The Great Learning is the gate of elementary learning. Whenever you go to a house, first you go in through the gat. Therefore the gate is a sign that you have reached the house. Going yhrough this gate, you enter the house and meet the host.
Learning is the gate to attainment of the Way. Therefore learning is the gate, do not think it is the house. You have to go through the gate to get to the house, which is inside, behind it.
Since learning is a gate, when you read books do not think this is the Way. This misconception has made many people remain ignorant of the Way no matter how much they study or how many words they know. Even if you can read as fluently as a commentary of an ancient, if you are unaware of the principles, you can not make the Way your own.
Nevertheless, even though this is so, it is also hard to reach the Way without learning. It is also hard to say that someone understands the Way by virtue of being learned and articulate. There are some people who naturally conform to the Way without learning how.
The Great Learning speaks of consummating knowledge and perfecting things. Consummating knowledge means knowing the principles of everything that people in the world know. Perfecting things means that when you know the principle of everything thoroughly, then you know everything and can do everything. When there is nothing more you know, there is nothing you can do either. When you do not know the principle, nothing at all comes to fruition.
In all things, uncertainty exists because of not knowing. Things stick in your mind because of being in doubt. When the principle is clarified, nothing sticks in your mind. This is called consummating knowledge and perfecting things. Since there is no longer anything sticking in your mind, all your tasks become easy to do.
For this reason, the practice of all arts is for the purpose of clearing away whats on your mind. In the beginning, you do not know anything, so paradoxically you do not have any questions on your mind and you are obstructed by that. This makes everything difficult to do.
When what you have studied leaves your mind entirely, and practice also disappears, then, when you perform whatever art you are engaged in, you accomplish the techniques easily without being inhibited by concern over what you have learned, and yet without deviating from what you have learned. This is spontaneously conforming to learning without being consciously aware of doing so. The science of the art of war can be understood through this.
-Yagyu Munenori [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yagy%C5%AB_Munenori], A Hereditary Book on the Art of War [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hereditary_Book_on_the_Art_of_War]
