This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Are we on? Yes. Welcome, everyone, especially if you're here for the first time. I hope you hear some encouraging words tonight. My name is Judith Randall, and I'm a resident here. And I'd like to talk tonight about something I'm calling The Practice of Being Lost. It sprang from a poem called Lost by David Wagner, who is a Northwest American poet.

[01:01]

And it's framed by a response of native elders to young people when they ask, what do I do if I get lost in the forest? And here is what David Wagoner says. Stand still. The trees ahead... and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called here, and you must treat it as a powerful stranger, must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers. I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying, here.

[02:09]

No two trees are the same to raven. No two branches are the same to wren. If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, then you are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you. Can you recall an experience of being lost? In the woods? Or in a strange city? Walking or driving or maybe at night, and what that brought up, maybe panic or fear of what, being hurt, being lost and no one knows where you are, maybe being afraid of dying.

[03:23]

I think there's probably disbelief. I can't believe this is happening. as I go round and round and round the streets. Physically, your heart races, you're full of adrenaline, your thinking speeds up and gets jangled, and then maybe it gets really focused as you try to solve the problem. And there's heightened attention. Everything is vivid. If you're remembering a time when you were lost, probably it's a very vivid memory. And maybe you're wanting help and thinking about how you can get help. I thought of a time, I thought the car was lost, but actually I think I was lost.

[04:27]

I drove a a woman that I was taking care of to the Logan Airport in Boston. And I parked her car, which I wasn't familiar with, and took her in and came back out. Couldn't find it anywhere. And I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's huge. Buildings upon buildings of parking. And these... feelings came up after a while. I'm not quite sure why it was so frightening, but it was. And I wandered around for quite a long time looking and finally a very kind person in a little cart came and drove me around for about 45 minutes until finally we found the car. And somewhere in the middle of that,

[05:28]

I remember thinking, okay, this is what's happening. And that little moment was a grounding moment. And I think it was because I'd been practicing. Or maybe you've been lost in your life somehow, in despair or... trying to make a decision that just won't come, going round and around and around in your mind and feeling some of these same feelings. For me, for a while, that was being lost in the land of deep grief. We talk in our teachings about not knowing and not knowing is most intimate, not knowing is closest. And we say, yeah, I can pick up the practice of not knowing, I can do that.

[06:32]

And then lost comes along, and it's a whole different story, because it's unexpected, unbidden, and sudden. I remember my mother, like this elder, we would go, I lived in a little tiny town in Ohio, and two or three times a year we would go to the big city, Columbus, and go shopping at the big department store. And she would say to me, if you get lost, just stand still and I'll come and find you. Or the county fair, you know, a little kid at the county fair. There's a lot of people there. Same thing. And I felt so safe just with those words. And then there's the story of Daniel Boone, who when asked if he had ever gotten lost, paused and thought and said, no, never been lost.

[07:41]

Once I was mighty powerful bewildered for about three days. David White, another poet, thinks, tells us we can develop the ability to allow ourself to get lost and to be lost in a profound way. And I love the play on that word, profound. Finding a way to be, what does Pema Chodron say? the title of her book about living in difficult places, finding a way to inhabit being lost. He says it's striking because it makes you so attentive. So David Wagner says, stand still.

[08:45]

The trees ahead and the bushes beside you are not lost. Wherever you are is called here. What is it to stand still in the middle of being lost, to let the swirl of experience slow down and settle? Before we can learn to stand still, I think we need to learn to slow down. We move so fast to give our body and mind time to find each other, to merge. Last week we were reading Suzuki Roshi's piece, Freedom from Everything, and he said in there, enlightenment does not come until your mind and body are in perfect accord. And that's a tall order. I do think we come and go from that. Even starting the first thing in the morning,

[09:49]

Can we slow down as we enter the day? Rumi talks about not going into the library to read but taking down the musical instrument and that there are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. And I think he's saying there are hundreds of ways to open to the present and to experience our aliveness. So don't take down the... Don't go into the library and read. Don't open the computer or the cell phone right away in the fresh newness of the morning. Slow down. Let the body and mind and creative energy come into resonance, even as the wake-up bell is ringing. David White, in a longer poem, says this about what to remember when waking. In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake, there is a small opening into the day which closes the moment you begin your plans.

[11:04]

What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep. There's a story, an old story, about some Americans who wanted to do a safari. And so they got all their gear and their plans and their itinerary and started out with local people helping them carry their gear. And a day, okay, and a second day, and a third day, they take off and the people are nowhere to be seen. and they're irate, and so they go back to find their porters, and they find them sitting on the ground, and they say, what are you doing? We've got a schedule to keep, and the porters say, we're letting our souls catch up with our bodies.

[12:09]

We sit to let the self settle on the self, And let the flower of our life force bloom. These are our elders' instructions. This is category. Giving our body and mind a chance to find each other and beyond that to remember that they are not two. Standing still. Can we stand still in our anger? When it spills over, can we stand still in our ease and our enjoyment, our contentment? I don't think we do nearly enough of that around here. We seem more focused on standing still in our pain, which we need to do. The trees ahead and the bushes around you are not lost.

[13:22]

Life knows how to live itself. The trees and the bushes don't need any training. Because we think, we do, we need to hear the words stand still. For me, there's a trust and a faith in life expressed in this poem. a knowing that comes from the compassionate guidance of our elders, from our ancestors, about the way life is. Our ancestors have instructed us to sit still. Wherever you are, he says, is called here, and he capitalizes it. Whatever your circumstance, There's nowhere else. This very mind is Buddha.

[14:29]

Everything is included, even our certainty that not everything is included. Then he says, you must treat it, this here, you must treat it like a powerful stranger. Must ask permission to know it. and be known. I think this is asking us not to fall into habitual familiarity and to see ourselves falling when we do. I know how life is, we say. I know my partner, my family. I know Zen Center. I know my work, my surroundings. In fact, they're getting old. They're getting a little stale. Maybe it's time for me to move on. I ask myself, what if we could treat the present moment like a powerful stranger, one I'd never seen before?

[15:34]

And with deep respect, which means to see again, to look closely, Thich Nhat Hanh says to look deeply in order to understand. With deep respect, ask permission to know the moment and be known by the moment. Perhaps, as Dogen says, whole worlds are there. Do you have the experience of meeting a powerful stranger? Maybe your teacher? Maybe it was like that when you met your teacher? Maybe someone that for no reason at all you feel a deep resonance with but they're completely new to you. How do you treat them? How could you treat each moment of your life? The forest breathes.

[16:38]

Listen. This is our life breathing. Life breathing all around us, in us, through us. Listen. When we feel lost, we can stand still. We can feel the breath breathing us and listen from that stillness. And then surprisingly, he says, it answers. The forest breathes, listen, it answers. I don't usually think of listening, getting an answer. I think of asking a question, getting an answer. But I think he's saying, if you listen from that deep place, your wisdom will speak to you. It answers, I have made this place for you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying, here.

[17:41]

This to me is true nature speaking. This is complete belonging. This is Mary Oliver's finding your place in the family of things. You are never apart from it, like a fish swimming in the endless water, a bird flying in the endless sky. If we listen deeply enough, our wisdom speaks to us. But we may imagine or feel that we're lost. And this wisdom isn't saying, well, that's it, you blew it, nothing to be done here. No, it's saying with deep, tender kindness, you may come back again. And the magic word is here. Or some other invocation of the heart.

[18:47]

Lately I've been breathing heart alive. Always, always, it says, you may come back to this from which you were never separated in the first place. There's such comfort in these words to feel how deeply life holds us. But if what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, then you are surely lost, he says. What are the tree and the bush doing? I think they're being completely themselves. If I can't pay attention to my life moment by moment, if I cannot connect with beingness, with the wide open field of aliveness, if I only live in the relative world and believe it completely, then I am surely lost.

[20:07]

And still, I can always come home. Stand still. The forest knows where you are. You must let it find you. And how do we let it find us? I think of that myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. This experiencing themselves is awakening. letting the forest find you. I think of our precept to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. Being lived is letting the forest find you, is letting life find you. And in the Tao Te Ching, only in being lived by the Tao can you be truly yourself.

[21:13]

We can't do letting it find us. Something more like being undone, not doing, non-thinking. So this is the practice of being lost, remembering our ancestors' instructions, remembering the magic word, and that we are never apart from it. No matter how disoriented we become, we can think, okay, this is happening. So I'd like to hear your thoughts or questions on being lost. Thank you very much, Judith.

[22:26]

Would you say something more about that moment? I got lost up in the Sierra once. It didn't last very long. How did I get lost? Unlost. How did I get unlost? Lost in the Sierras. I got the same as you described. But also, perhaps, and I can't be sure about this, that you said there was a heightened, it's like suddenly you just go up in your awareness and say, there's got to be a tree of recognized. Because you don't say it, but something in here starts looking for recognizable Something in our... In us.

[23:28]

I'm going to repeat for the sake of the people who aren't in the room. Something in us. There's a heightened awareness. Something looking for a tree we recognize. Is that your... And your question is... something that happens perhaps when you get lost and where your mind just goes into a different gear. Your mind goes into a different gear. What's coming to me is when I was reading about this poem, I found a story of a woman who was lost in the mountains in that way. It was getting dark. And she had just read this poem, you know, recently.

[24:30]

And so she actually sat down and stopped. And I think the description was kind of opened her senses. And in that time began to feel the way that she needed to go. I don't know if she recognized a particular tree, but she sort of applied the poem in an actual situation and found her way back. Was it true for you? Did... Somehow, somehow, I got oriented, yeah. But it required... Stop it. And it required not being panicked.

[25:32]

I don't know how it happened. It was just very rude. Somehow you got unlost. lost on an island off the coast of Maine, and I couldn't find the trail, and I knew there was one ferry back to the shore. If I couldn't catch it, I would have to spend the night, and I wasn't prepared to do that. And then I came upon a carcass of a deer, not really scared. And I remember, I couldn't think of it, I was just so scared. And I did sit down. There wasn't that much to be afraid of, but even if I could spend the night in the summer, I probably wouldn't guide. It'd be another ferry the next day.

[26:39]

And then I had the idea of climbing to the highest point in the island, and then I could see where I needed to go and fall in that direction. I thought my question was about fear. It's often when we're lost, we're afraid to be gone. And I think fear sometimes feeds on itself. When we're lost, how do we work with fear? When we're lost, how do we work with fear? sat down, you settle down. And I think that's what I would say, that whatever it takes, be that finding a friend or sitting still in it.

[27:46]

You know, Miriam Greenspan has this wonderful book called Healing Through. the dark emotions. And she talks about attending, befriending, and surrendering to, for example, fear. And so first, I think, recognizing, as you said, recognizing that's what's happening, there's already a step back from it. And then befriending is, you know, like, that's a bit much, but at least... We can not be making the enemy out of it. And this is a process that has to happen over and over and over once we've heard that kind of a teaching. And then surrendering not to the fear so that we're carried away, but...

[28:51]

its presence in a way. And somehow then the mind can gather itself and go where it needs to go, do what it needs to do. So there's physically lost, and the harder part is kind of life lost or spiritually lost or those bigger losses. So your description, I guess I can imagine sort of how you apply that in the bigger picture, but it seems easier if I'm just physically lost.

[29:56]

I can gather myself when I've been kind of spiritually lost or searching, and searching differently lost, I guess there's a question there. There's different, the process is so elongated that it's, it's, it sees me it's slightly different, but maybe it's the same. So physically lost is one thing, spiritually lost or searching is a lot, longer feeling process? Yeah, it gets tiring. I think for me, I get lost in it. I come back out. I remember the word here. With the help of my friends and teachers and

[30:57]

readings and the daily word of the day from gratefulness.org and whatever I can muster that will help me while I'm out. And then I go back in and get lost again. But I think in that coming and going, it's never the same. Then we learn. We learn a little more. We go a little deeper when we're in it. We let ourselves go a little deeper and find out, oh, it's not going to kill me. And then come back out into the arms of our friends. And then turn around and help other people who are fearful and in the long process. Sangha's great, as you know. Lucy.

[32:17]

Can you say something about the merit of being lost? The merit of being lost. I... What is this? Last one, really. The merit of being lost, the place that we learn a lot. I think of... Pema Chodron has great book titles. The book titles are just Dharma teachings. Once somebody gave a Tassajara lecture on... She was the bookstore manager and she gave her whole lecture... just based on book titles. So the places that scare you, you know, the place that you're... You're not entering into willingly or with permission, with your permission.

[33:38]

The idea, lost is an idea. Lost is a concept. For me, experience flows and we call it different things. And so we call it lost. We call it found. But actually, it's just the flow of experience going through, which is very hard to remember when you're in it. I think the merit is being with or being don't know mind. It's about not knowing in a big way. And so wandering around in there can be beneficial. But boy, it takes something to get to that idea. I'm glad you brought it up. What would you say?

[34:46]

It's fun when you look back. Thank you. I'm reminded of the time when I was walking on a trail with my daughter, Kayla. And she, the way I remember, she was probably about eight or nine years old. And I think we were in Yosemite. We were in some place that wasn't familiar to either of us. We were walking along, and I must have said something about not knowing where we were. And Kayla got really scared. Really, really afraid. And she started crying. And it took me a long time.

[36:03]

It didn't happen that day. It took me a long time to realize, I think what happened for her in that moment is that we went from being just tourists. We went from being just people kind of trucking along on the trail to people who were lost. And we weren't tourists anymore. And we maybe weren't even having fun anymore. And so it was a lesson for me about something about the vulnerability of not being who you think you are. You know, something about any kind of being lost, I think, brings that up for me, anyway. This... kind of wondering how it is that I could feel so different from who I thought I was in the next moment. And yet, back to what you were saying, you know, it's almost like cutting it up, cutting up a thing that isn't dividable like that.

[37:17]

We weren't any different, well and I. At that step, we were different from instant to instant, but we weren't that much more different in that step than we'd been five steps ago, right? But there was something about that shift of perspective that happened for her and didn't happen for me, and that was part of the reason also why it was so noticeable. So I just wonder, I put that out there for you just in terms of Maybe there's something about what you're saying that relates to that vulnerability or relates to that question of identity. So... See if I can say that in a few words. Lost on a trail with your daughter. You were tourists one minute and you were lost people the next and she got quite frightened and you're wondering about or you're thinking about identity, those identities and the way they shifted and how they aren't actually real.

[38:28]

But then, say again about the vulnerability. Right, just a question for you about, because I'm sensing some, or maybe hearing some vulnerability in the way that you've been talking about lost, and there's something in there. to practice with is vulnerability. Within being lost, there's vulnerability that can be practiced. Yeah, I think that... I didn't use that word in thinking about the experience of being lost, but it seems like it's the umbrella word that we're then... Or we imagine ourselves to be completely vulnerable. Actually, we're completely vulnerable all the time, and we're... It's a very interesting thing to see how the experience brings that forth when it's actually there all the time.

[39:34]

What do you see as perhaps the essence of the sense of feeling lost? Is there one or two elements that you think might be chief components in that sense of feeling lost? Is there an essence of being lost? Well, I think that word vulnerability covers a lot. Things are not as we thought. And we imagine there's danger in that, I think. Or threat. Whether it's true or not, like, is it really going to be so bad to spend a night...

[40:54]

on an island off the coast of Maine in the summer. But there it is. How about you? I think for me, what would probably arise, the strongest would be excessive. Fear of not knowing. And perhaps the vulnerability bears in that, but the sense of not knowing. And yet, in this practice, we talk about beginner's mind. What can be more beginner's mind than a sense of being lost? So I think what, so I want to repeat, you said fear of not knowing, yeah. and that in our practice we talk about beginner's mind and not knowing.

[41:58]

So I think that's what David White was talking about when he said, he talks about the ability to be lost. This was what was so striking for me about studying this, was that idea never occurred to me. And then maybe that diminishes the fear and we get, as I said, more comfortable walking around and being lost having heard the teachings of not knowing. Oh, this is just another version of not knowing. It doesn't feel very good, but... Like that. I think it's time to stop. One more. I've heard this quote, I was not with Suzuki Roshi as he was dying, but I've heard the quotation from him saying, don't worry about me, I know who I am.

[43:03]

In the process of dying. So Suzuki Roshi saying, don't worry about me, I know who I am, even as he was dying. Maybe we're saying that to ourselves when we get lost. Oh, wait, I remember who I am. I'm neither tourist nor lost person. Okay, thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[44:05]

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