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An example of such a Zen riddle, koan, or simple provocation, is Bishop Berkeley's famous (or infamous, depending on how you regard it) Zen conundrum "If a tree falls in the forest, and there's no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?". We're drawn by such questions to come up with "the answer" - in this case the answer to "... does it make a sound?", specifically, a "yes / no" answer. I would argue that a yes / no answer or even a rational explanation of either the "yes" or the "no" of such a yes / no answer, totally misses the great opportunities Bishop Berkeley is provoking - indeed, kills them. Catching yourself being drawn to a yes / no answer, is the first opportunity. Sitting with the question, and allowing many possible answers to come up, and not getting stuck with just one, is a second opportunity. And deploying "If a tree falls ..." as a leverage for contemplation, which may even bring forth the context of who you really are (and who you aren't) (this being the exquisite beauty of Zen) is a third opportunity.
With all that in mind, let's look at that tree falling in that forest when there's no one there to hear it fall. The trick is this: stay with the riddle, and not with the sound the tree makes (or doesn't make) when it falls! If the tree makes a sound, and there's no one there to hear it, then it makes a sound in the context of who you are. If it doesn't make a sound, and there's no one there to hear it, then it doesn't make a sound in the context of who you are. If it makes a sound, and there's someone there to hear it, then it makes a sound in the context of who you are. If it doesn't make a sound, and there's someone there to hear it, then it doesn't make a sound in the context of who you are. Look: whichever answer you settle for, is arbitrary and may even be distracting: Zen's value is realized when it gives who you really are.