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This poem named "LOST" is a Native American teaching story adapted by David Waggoner. It illustrates the contemplative
attitude. An elder is instructing us on what to do if we ever find ourselves "lost" in the forest. The poem teaches us about
being "present" to the moment through the qualities of receptivity, awareness and openness to those powers and numinous forces
that are so much greater than our small, ego-identified selves. The poem is about contemplative presence.
The poem asks us to stand still. It asks us to stop our busy-ness, our frantic activity, our self-absorbed
thinking and doing. We are asked to come into silence and open to a greater reality in which we find ourselves. We
recognize that as we enter into the present moment, "here", we are entering sacred space and there is an unknown quality to
this space. There is power in this space and in the face of this powerful presence, this powerful stranger, we find ourselves
in an attitude of surrender.
Contemplative Presence is a "listening" at the deepest level of our being, not with our ears but with our hearts and our
souls. Through contemplative presence we come into awareness of the world beyond our small world. We come out of the preoccupations
of our small self and enter the larger Self of which we are a part. As the poem suggests, without this ability to drop down below the
pre-occupations of our personality, our fears and plans and ambitions, into the awe and stillness of the greater reality that holds
us, we will surely be lost. Of course we do leave this place: to do the shopping, go to work, negotiate traffic, do our taxes. But
in order not to get lost in the small details of our life we need to know how to come back to "Here", to "Now": I have made this place
around you. If you leave it you may come back again saying "here".
We will surely be lost if we cannot see beyond ourselves to a greater reality that holds us, sustains us, gives us life, in
which we share life with every other life. And the clincher in the poem is: You cannot find it! You must let it find you! If you
go looking with your mind, with your personality, with your belief system intact, as though you already know all there is to
know: what is right and wrong, true and false, you will not find it. What is required here is humility. What is required here is
surrender. What is required here is the faith and the courage to enter the unknown and wait.
Stand still. The Forest knows where you are. You must let it find you.
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