Parting the Grasses

The subject of Lost Coin’s yearly gathering and practice/retreat is “Parting the Autumn Grasses.” To understand these grasses is a wonderful practice. What are these grasses? They are delusion, they are obstructions, the barriers that prevent us from seeing what is real. Like a person sitting on the ground in a field of high grasses our view is blocked in all directions. As the old saying goes we cannot see past our own noses.”
This is a very good saying as it points to the core from which our delusions spring. We are imprisoned by our limited idea of who we are. The urgency of our work, our relationships, our likes and dislikes – our personal life is all we can see. Sometimes it is wonderful and at other times it is not. We become like a rich person who had an incredibly valuable coin, one worth a fortune, but we have misplaced it or just forgotten it.  We begin to act like beggars when we are in fact wealthy beyond measure.
So who are we really? Look around – all we see is the true self, the parted grasses. The one being that is the cosmos and everything that was and will ever be. We are the flesh of its flesh, the stone of it stone. We are closer to that “unibeing” than to our own blood. The moment we part the grasses of our concepts we return to the ground of our own mind, to the lost coin and “it” is revealed. It stands before us as it always has. The grasses themselves become sages and everyday life emits the ancient light.
This is the practice of parting  the grasses.