Why are some teachings a 'secret'?

Shigehiko Toyama’s book Shiko No Seirigaku (1983), published in English as The Art of Organising Thoughts (Penguin, 2026), includes a comment on the ‘secret teachings’ of traditional Japanese schools of learning: “Secret teachings are secret for a reason. You need to do your best to hide them from even your most beloved student. Eventually the student will give up on trying to be taught the secret and start to wonder how they can instead steal it from their master.” (p.14) The key insight here is that merely learning everything the master knows isn’t enough. The student who hangs forever on their teacher’s every word will remain forever a student. They will always require someone to show them what there is to learn. But there is a crucial threshold to be crossed, where the student works out how to steal the knowledge they seek — in other words, to find it for themselves, despite the resistence. As Toyama says: “The student who has committed to stealing that which their master does not…

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