Week Five, The Coin In The River, Lost and Found

I didn't remember very much on this evening. Now that we have finished up, I have invited people to post comments on the blog here so hoping, perhaps, people will have things to say in the not too distant future on this.

One man did email this to me:

"The coin was never lost. When the muddy water of delusion is clarified, there it is where it has alway been".

I think there may be another written piece on the way as well.
Yes, and here it is, by Jeff Defty:

If the coin is lost in the river, it is found in the river.

This koan tells me the story of human folly. First, I think I have a coin. That’s folly. There’s no coin, no “I,” and “having” is a temporary grammatical fiction. Then I think I lose the coin. More folly. How can I lose what I never had, in the river or anyplace else? Then I waste my time wandering around looking for it. Folly upon folly. I don’t even think to look in the river in the first place. My folly compounds itself. Then I congratulate myself for remembering the river. Mucking around in the water, looking for a nonexistent coin—what a fool!

Just when it seems my folly could not increase, I find the coin. Yup. Here it is, right here in the river, where I lost it. I hold it up so everyone can see. More folly. “Look! He’s found the coin! What a wise fellow! Let’s follow him around and see what he does next!” Unsatisfied with the depth of my folly, I establish a religion around the business of coin-seeking. See my disciples—mucking around in the river, looking for their coins? I teach them the basics: the coin can be described thus and so. These are the best places to look, this is the proper way to enter the water, and so forth. Soon, they’re out on the riverbank, some wading in tentatively, others diving right into the cold water, some have special bathing suits, some even have fancy metal detectors. “I’m up to my neck, how deep does this go?” “Where did you get those goggles?” “I hear there’s a better place upstream.” Folly, folly, folly, folly, folly.

I’m embarrassed to say that in the hubbub, I seemed to have dropped the coin again. Now, where was I when I lost it?