A Map for Getting Lost

It helps to be on the side of lostness when the world goes to hell in a handbasket. (Ukraine)

KOAN:

What is Buddha? I am Huichao. —Huichao

All we have to do is be here and be lost—no usual schemes or regrets.

Anna Swir’s Cat Poem says it this way: You fall down to the bottom of happiness.

KOAN:

You come and go by daylight,
but suddenly it’s midnight, and there’s no sun, moon, or lamplight.
If it’s a place you’ve been to, then it might be possible.
But if it’s a place you’ve never been, how will you get a hold of something?

—Yunmen

Let the universe teach you. Accomplishing is not the deepest thing. Being lost is a promising beginning.

Mazu said: Since the beginning of time no begin has ever left the wisdom seal of samadhi.

Or another way to say it—the beauty of thusness.

You can’t leave your true being, when you are lost it is good to remember that.

Nobody really knows what consciousness is. Its strangeness refutes the walls we try to put around it. We know we will die, but we don’t know what that means either. Meditation gets you friendlier with life and death.

Walker a long-time member of PZI and Springs Mountain sangha, passed away this week. He always sat with a small cominal stuffed lamb named Dolly. Dolly was a gift to him at a particularly difficult retreat and so he kept her with him.

The room suddenly gets bigger when someone dies, the awe is present.

John recites the dedication we use for funerals—for everyone fighting the wrong wars, if there ever is a right one, but there are the Russians now fighting a wrong war in Ukraine.

So it’s nice not having anything to get hold of. Not knowing and the Dark Beyond Dark.

Getting lost is good for finding personal practices.