The Heart (of Wisdom) Sutra In zen practice, the Heart Sutra is considered the most important text. It is chanted after each meditation. The term "heart", in this context, should be understood as in Leonard Cohen's "The Stranger Song": Please understand, I never had a secret cha...

"The Little Prince" — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Chapter 23 "Good morning," said the little prince. "Good morning," said the merchant. This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week, and you would feel no...

Vickie, I'm glad you liked that performance.
A woman (and such a woman!) singing, embodying a homosexual man's orgasm to a tune by a heterosexual man — yes, it's very, very beautiful!

Did you ever try to read my signature as one single sentence?

Well, my favourite line from "Happens to the Heart" is in my signature… Ever since the poem was published, I perceive it as Leonard Cohen's last word and testament here on the forum. The song strikes me as older, but not less important. The "guessing — blessing" seem complementar...

Thanks from me, too, Maarten!

Greatly helped me to find the background vocals of Sílvia Pérez Cruz.

Here a reading of "La casada infiel" — with S3L18 "… mis caminos" (my pathways): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94-YZobk-ag And here a reading of the entire "Romancero gitano": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhuFqZ6eePY "La casada infiel" is the sixth romanc...

So here we get going again... The album "Thanks for the Dance" is a worthy epilogue to "our man's" oeuvre, at least as far as "true-opinion" can see ("true-opinion" in the sense of the Greek philosopher Plato). It is good to witness such faithful stewardship a...

For those who read German:
https://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/leon ... -1.4693396

The review is followed by a link to a 2007 interview with Anjani Thomas and Leonard Cohen:
https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/sz-d ... jani-83013

Thanks, Hartmut.

(But then I would never quote somebody else's stuff without giving due credit — or apologising in case I don't know the author.
The second and third part of my signature are the only exceptions, hoping that everybody here immediately recognises them.)

You're welcome, Wendy.
I hope I didn't produce too much of a cock-up trying to translate this superb romance.
It's just an attempt at learning English; and my Spanish is not actually worth mentioning.
But the effort generally leads to some better understanding — hopefully not only for me…

La casada infiel Y que yo me la llevé al río creyendo que era mozuela, pero tenía marido. Fue la noche de Santiago y casi por compromiso. Se apagaron los faroles y se encendieron los grillos. En las últimas esquinas toqué sus pechos dormidos, y se me abrieron de pronto como ramos de jacintos. El al...

Der Panther Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt. Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein ...

Gassho

Sorry, but I beg to differ from the previous comments. These are the looks of someone (a priest and zen monk, in the occurrence) who has conquered hell and set the prisoners free. Intense, yes, I agree; but there is nothing scary or menacing about the picture, nor is he crying. The term "uncann...

Jimmy, thanks for your help identifying the passage in "Ulysses" you are referring to. Most generally, the first sentence of a novel is a kind of key, and therefore should be understood, lest the entire thing be incomprehensible. Here, I think the "stairhead" is the flight at the...