Book of Mercy #20-24

[blonde madonna]

DM, when you use words like ‘sexually grueling’ and ‘submissive’ in close proximity I just want to call Germaine Greer and let her sort you out. But, hey, welcome to the forum.

Mat did you trip over that line or did you see it and just decide, what the heck, I’ll fly over it ‘open minded and open mouthed’? I personally prefer you in mystic mode for this thread.

Thankfully Lizzy is talking BoM! I agree with everything you said about this verse Lizzy. Excuse my selective quoting here

there seems to me to occur a subtle shift from what might be considered criticism or bitterness...making the point that Roshi did what was necessary to break him down, to get Leonard's ego and self-will out of the picture and...then turned him back to his spiritual base, the Torah, for the study of G~d...this is really all about immense gratitude to Roshi for his love and true friendship, the depth of each to which Leonard aspires. In this situation, the "love" and "my truest friend" may, at once, be G~d and Roshi.

The only thing I would add (again, am I being boring with this?) is that I think the words teacher and friend are not specifically referring to Roshi or God but can be interpreted more generally. Although Cohen has had a special relationship with Roshi he maintains that the Jewish faith is important to him and he has mentioned other spiritual teachers who have influenced him. What is coming through in the verse for me is how all the different experiences of life teach in some way.

The talk of crickets made me think of the last verse of 'The Night Comes On' (which has an autobiographical feel as well)

Now the crickets are singing
The vesper bells ringing
The cat's curled asleep in his chair
I'll go down to Bill's Bar
I can make it that far
And I'll see if my friends are still there
Yes, and here's to the few
Who forgive what you do
And the fewer who don't even care

For me it seems to sum up what makes up life and therefore what is important. This verse makes reference to nature, spirituality, culture, religion, home, friends, good times and just generally being 'in the world'. I think part of what Cohen is doing, in the verses of BoM, is trying to fuse the different strands of his experiences, what he has learnt, combining the cricket's song and the Vesper bells.

That's as close as I can get to explaining my thoughts. I'd like to know what others think.

[lizzytysh]

Hi Madonna ~

Thanks .

You've made some good points about broadening teacher and friend. I think through Leonard's various writings that we've experienced his capacity to learn lessons and be aware of those lessons from the seemingly most mundane and ordinary events in our lives [though the ride through the pine trees seems anything but ... in this, I got a sense of what a blast Roshi must be to spend time with at times. This conjures an image for me of Roshi driving at that incredible speed... knowing the route so intimately that he has has mastered it, as well, laughing out loud and enjoying the possibly white-knuckled reactions he's getting from Leonard... it seems some insight on the value of life may have appeared front-and-center for Leonard during that ride ~ and the importance of remaining in the jeep may have been a point of view he leapt from ]. Leonard's Jewish faith could definitely also be considered his dear, deep and abiding friend. I think my restricting of what this verse related to had to do with time and place and it seemed to be referencing what was occurring at the monastery.

I really appreciate your selection of that verse from Leonard's song and how you've pointed out all that it includes. For a moment, I considered including Leonard himself as one of his own friends, but decided against it.

Parenthetically, Anjani recently made a comment regarding her being in Ghent ~

the beauty of Ghent is reflected in her people

live well
be well
eat well
(that's really all there is to life, right?)

Parenthetically, again, I get a sense of how easy she must be for Leonard to be with... comparing the two perspectives. Her comment isn't as expanded as yours below, but the essence is the same ~

For me it seems to sum up what makes up life and therefore what is important. This verse makes reference to nature, spirituality, culture, religion, home, friends, good times and just generally being 'in the world'.

I can understand how these same elements came through for you in Leonard's BoM verse. Thanks for pointing them out. I always love Leonard's ~ or anyone's ~ references to crickets. They are such an evocative soundscape of summer nights.

. . . He drove me through the pine trees at an incredible speed to that realm where I barked with a dog, slid with the shadows, and leaped from a point of view.

I love these images. Barking with a dog... sliding with the shadows... and leaping from a point of view. Forced to reconsider and abandon one's own positions. Roshi taking him to the virtual edge, somewhat akin to what it seems rock and mountain climbers and other 'extreme sports' people experience. Confronting the physical so intensely that you push through the physical barriers to reach the metaphysical, mystical, and spiritual. Really liberating stuff .

"Sliding with the shadows" ~ such an image. I picture the shadows of trees that are always at some angle... was the vehicle at such top speed that it slid, too, perhaps on 'two wheels' or at least literally sliding at times. Are the shadows internal as well? Forgive my rambling here... guess I'll stop. Just really want to bring those images closer.

Whoops. Here are some of Doron's previous comments on this verse:

he flung me across the fence of the Torah – “The fence of the Torah” is an expression taken from a well-known Jewish source, Mishnah, Avot 1:1 (known in English also as “Ethics of the Fathers” or “Sayings of the Jewish Fathers”). I have already quoted it earlier, during our discussion of I.14 (“Book of Mercy #11-15” thread, on the eighth page). This line also brings to mind the poem “One Of My Letters” (BoL, 5), in which Roshi “silenced” him, apparently cutting short his correspondence with “a famous Rabbi”. Did the correspondence with the rabbi make Roshi jealous? And here, when he flings him across the fence of the Torah, in which direction is it: in or out? I have some more thoughts about all this, but I’ll leave some for later.

Somehow, this fact got eclipsed in my thinking. Very significant that this is an actual Jewish expression from "Ethics of the Fathers"/"Sayings of the Jewish Fathers" ~ I'd be interested to hear your further thoughts on this directional issue. For me, it's as though Roshi insisted on Leonard's being fully present in the moment with the whole of his attention and focus... reminiscent of the snap with a switch when one begins to fall asleep in the meditation hall... one cannot serve two masters, so to speak. So, continuing the correspondence at that particular point in time would only keep him distracted from the lessons of the monastery. Once the 'lessons' were learned... " . . . teacher, are my lessons done?" to whatever extent they were useful or needed for Leonard, Roshi released Leonard back to his Jewish teachers... the "famous Rabbi" and, no doubt, others of his synagogue. That's my take on it .


~ Lizzy

[Manna]

I'm not all that familiar with Leonard's relationship to Roshi. I had the same question as BM - wondering how one can be so sure that this is about that relationship. Does anyone know when/how/where they met?

Everything in this world is a teacher, though maybe not for me.

[lizzytysh]

Hi Manna ~

There are a number of quotes by Leonard about Roshi to support this thought as being reasonable, but I'm terrible at locating such things. I'm trying, though. Eventually, I'll bring some of them to you, if no one else does in the interim... I'll prepare myself for the Edited lines it'll incur. I'd still rather bring them to you in Leonard's words than my descriptions.


~ Lizzy

[lizzytysh]

Here's at least a beginning before I go to lunch, Manna. It helps for answering how Leonard got to know Roshi. I got it on the Files here... it's excerpted from

STORY WITH NO MORAL

[What goes here is a photo of Leonard standing in his monk's robe in the mountains, on top of a mountain or hill, partially profiled, looking at the sky.]

Cohen Between Earth And Sky
by Gilles Tordjman
Translated by Keith Campbell
Les Inrockuptibles, France, October 15, 1995

For twenty years, Cohen's life has been intertwined with that of the Zen community on Mount Baldy, without the shadow of some questionable revelation pointing to the reasons for his fascination, without the idea of religious conversion placing itself in a spirit naturally given to the most exaggerated types of refusal. "Twenty-five years ago, when I was living in Hydra, I made the acquaintance of a friend, Steve Stanfield. He was part of a small group of people who were studying Buddhist texts in a very interesting way. Upon his return to L.A., someone told him that his master had moved to the area. He began studying with him and told me about it." Spoken in a voice so deep that one can count its each individual vibration, this explanation explains nothing. This is very normal. Very Zen, in fact. There's nothing to find in the way of doctrine or interpretation. No place for passionate conviction, or the absurdities of a catechism. It's more of a great love story between a son who never had the chance to hate his father and a grandfather who never had the bad luck to have children to love. Sasaki Roshi: 88 years old; twenty-first in the succession line of Zen Buddhist patriarchy; first in line when there's something to drink.

Master Bajiao said to the assembled monks: If you have a stick, I give you a stick. If you are without a stick, I am without one also.

. . .

The days alternate between sessions of seated mediation, or zazen, and private interviews with the Roshi during which the master suggests to the student a koan, a sort of contradictory parable that the student must resolve in the most personal manner possible All this would seem to lead to a rather run-of-the-mill spirituality and its arsenal of stock answers if there wasn't a constant maintenance of negation taking place. In the sesshin are thus found believers, agnostics, rationalists and mystics. The explanation, somewhat hackneyed, insists on the absence of all religious constraints: if the substance is Buddhist inspiration, the form is that of an individual task of self-improvement -- one of a harshness that would seem pointedly inhuman if there wasn't in the eyes of the people of Mount Baldy that sort of radiant clarity so foreign to those who live in fear. When one asks him of the seeming spread of soft Buddhism throughout the showbiz world, Leonard Cohen laughs softly: "This sort of practice will never become trendy. It's too hard. It's not exactly religion. Men need religion, because man needs something to hang on to. So if you consider the canon of the sutras or the image of God as a separate, objective thing, so much the better if it works for you. In any event, I feel that the great religions have reached their capacity of believers and that a great many people are searching for alternate forms of worship. Here, there's no worship. Even though I've been living like this for some time, I have never considered myself a Buddhist. Two years ago Roshi told me, 'In the twenty years that I've known you, Leonard, I've never tried to convert you. I've been content to serve you sake.'"

Sasaki Roshi enters the Teisho (sermon on the scriptures) lecture room in quite the ceremonious fashion considering the early hour. From his podium, the master delivers the day's parable in raspy-voiced Japanese. Shinzen Young, international Zen Buddhist luminary, carefully translates the parable's animal metaphors for those assembled. Slight laughs pierce the silence as the joke takes the place of rhetoric; this intensity is not austere. An American journalist once told of witnessing the sexual-endurance records set by a couple of the faithful. One of the first spiritual interviews between Leonard Cohen and his master had as its central concern the relative merits of Courvoisier and Remy Martin. Immersing oneself in the deepest fashion possible in bodily sensations: Zen. To impose taboos in the name of universal moral principles: not Zen.

Shinzen Young confirms: "In Buddhism, your worship doesn't come from the observation of rules; it can only come from yourself. Buddhism doesn't really concern itself with intellectual gymnastics regarding morality. Questions like "Do I have the right to kill the man that raped my wife" aren't part of the tradition. Buddhism contents itself with four basic commandments which are: don't kill, don't steal, don't cause harm and don't lie. Even these are only general, guiding principles; for the rest, it involves finding solutions to moral problems through meditation."

"The fundamental point is the following: if people need rules, it's because their vision of the world is clouded by a profound ignorance of themselves. It is much more important to work through this cloudiness and its impurities than to hope for some sort of pre-packaged moral purity expressed in rules and taboos. To sum it all up, I'd say that Buddhism is highly moral but not at all moralistic."

. . .

"The thing that attracted me, in the first place, was this...emptiness. It's a place where it's very difficult to hold fast to one's ideas. It's very close to certain forms of extreme Judaism. Take this conviction, for instance, amongst certain of the more orthodox Jews, that one can't say the name of God, or that one cannot even define what God is. It's a movement in one's spirit that perhaps makes one more predisposed to a more clear comprehension of Zen. I always liked this aspect of Judaism, the fact than noone really speaks of God; there is this sort of charitable void that I found here in a very pure form." One then thinks, evidently, that this aspect of things might have also been found in other hermetic traditions, particularly Jewish ones. "If I'm not interested in the Kabbale, it's no doubt because life is too short to compare everything. One can't drink two cups of tea at the same time, you know. Things aren't made that way. Zen arrived at a certain moment in my life; I met this old man and I liked what he wasn't saying."

. . .

[lizzytysh]

INT: You speak about will in Book of Mercy. There's one psalm about the will and it seems to be a wall that prevents something happening or some opening of a channel

LC: Well, we sense that there is a will that is behind all things, and we're also aware of our own will, and it's the distance between those two wills that creates the mystery that we call religion. It is the attempt to reconcile our will with another will that we can't quite put our finger on, but we feel is powerful and existent. It's the space between those two wills that creates our predicament.

INT: I am struck, in Book of Mercy, by the relative absence of will. One of course needs a thread of will to pray. One even needs a thread of will to write a psalm.

LC: Those are really ticklish questions. I think you put your finger on it. Somehow, in some way, we have to be a reflection of the will that is behind the whole mess. When you describe the outer husk of that will which is yours, which is your own tiny will -- in all things mostly to succeed, to dominate, to influence, to be king -- when that will under certain conditions destroys itself, we come into contact with another will which seems to be much more authentic. But to reach that authentic will, our little will has to undergo a lot of battering. And it's not appropriate that our little will should be destroyed too often because we need it to interact with all the other little wills. >From time to time things arrange themselves in such a way that that tiny will is annihilated, and then you're thrown back into a kind of silence until you can make contact with another authentic thrust of your being. And we call that prayer when we can affirm it. It happens rarely, but it happens in Book of Mercy, and that's why I feel it's kind of to one side, because I don't have any ambitions towards leading a religious life or a saintly life or a life of prayer. It's not my nature. I'm out on the street hustling with all the other wills. But from time to time you're thrown back to the point where you can't locate your tiny will, where it isn't functioning, and then you're invited to find another source of energy.

INT: You have to rediscover the little wills in order to take up various positions again.

LC: Yeah, that's right. The various positions are the positions of the little will.

Hi again, Manna ~

This is getting a little off track re: Roshi's and Leonard's friendship, but I feel it relates to this verse and the things we're saying, anyway, so here it is .

It's from Leonard Cohen
as interviewed by Robert Sward

[another great photo of Leonard goes here... this time, younger and wearing a black cap, with a stone wall in the background]

This interview took place in Montreal, Quebec - 1984.
[Text and Photo © 1984, 2001, Robert Sward. All rights reserved.]

[lizzytysh]

Here's another excerpt from an article by Pico Iyer. I always love his writings on Leonard. It's an interesting comment regarding "If It Be Your Will" ~ could he have, at once, been 'addressing'/praying to Roshi/G~d [the latter not suggesting that they're one and the same... just to be respective with the earlier slashed words?

LEONARD COHEN UNPLUGGED

BUZZ, LOS ANGELES (APRIL 1998)

by Pico Iyer

In an austere Zen monastery up on Mount Baldy, the once sybaritic,
sex-obsessed poet has finally found his soul-mate.

. . .

Cohen has, in fact, been a friend of Joshu Sasaki ever since 1973, though he has not made a fuss about it, and votaries will get clues to this part of his existence only from a couple of tiny elliptical vignettes in his 1978 book, Death of a Lady's Man, and occasional songs ­ like "If It Be You Will" ­ that, like his 1984 collection of psalms, Book of Mercy, express absolute submission. Apart from his 26-year-old son, Adam, and his 23-year-old daughter, Lorca, the Japanese roshi seems to be the one still point in Cohen's endlessly turning life, and now he accompanies the man he calls his friend to Zen centers from Vienna to Puerto Rico, and goes through punishing retreats each month in which he does nothing but sit zazen, 24 hours a day for seven days on end.

Well, I'm getting distracted... I'm reading these super articles packed with varying kinds of information about Leonard, and I keep wanting to bring this, that, and the other here. So, later, I return to this endeavour and try to stick to my goal. I know that Leonard said that he went to the monastery to be near Roshi and that if Roshi had been a professor of math in a German university, then he would have been studying math at a German university. [Maybe he said a university in Berlin... I can't recall, but that was the jist of it.] He has also said that Roshi was his best friend... but danged if I can find where he said it . The soulmate sub-title above says a lot in itself.


~ Lizzy

[mat james]

Thanks for the re-fresher course Lizzy!
I particularly empathised with this understanding of Leonards;

if people need rules, it's because their vision of the world is clouded by a profound ignorance of themselves

That about sums up the Zen perspective, for me.
Many others (eg:the Greeks) came up with this idea also, of course."Know Thyself"

clouded by a profound ignorance

I like that phrase.

Blonde M. wrote

Mat did you trip over that line or did you see it and just decide, what the heck, I’ll fly over it ‘open minded and open mouthed’? I personally prefer you in mystic mode

Yes, the mind and the mouth can work in mysterious ways!
Didn't Leonard say;

I don't have any ambitions towards leading a religious life or a saintly life or a life of prayer. It's not my nature. I'm out on the street hustling with all the other wills.

I'll take this as approval.
Matj

[lizzytysh]

I wanted to add in to my earlier comments that the beginning of this verse has the feel to me of a young person who complains about their parents [I remember my own heaves and sighs as I felt irritated as they told me things I really did already know and thought that their repetition was unnecessary, even somehow boring]. With time, however, I came to realize that some repetition was necessary and their words had been wise... and the goodness of their friendship.

In the alternative, sometimes we endure things we don't like in order to benefit with the parts of something that we do. With the grueling nature of Leonard's time in the monastery and all of its tactics and traditions, with Roshi the head of implementing it all, I've never felt that Leonard took personally. He understood that it was simply part of the routine of monastery life... and there was an aspect of that routine that he appreciated. I don't know if my copy-and-pasting included/excluded the specific references, but Leonard has often enough made it a point that if it weren't for Roshi [the man/his friend], Leonard would not have been there, subjecting himself to it all. It brought him highly valued time with his dear friend, though; time that he knew he was going to have to submit to the rigors of monastery life to obtain it.

For me, this verse concludes in being a sweet acknowledgement and appreciation of that time that, as Madonna has pointed out, included elements of all of life. The rigours of the monastic life simply had to be included and were wisely placed first. For me, the verse is basically about that.


~ Lizzy

[blonde madonna]

Oh dear Mat, wouldn't it have just been easier to call me a dumb blonde again?
It's a shame you didn't put as much thought and effort into your post to DM.
I don't see it as being about rules, but about respect.
Would you say the same thing to your 18 year old daughter or son?
Doesn't Buddhism teach that everyone at some time has been our mother?

[blonde madonna]

I wanted to add in to my earlier comments that the beginning of this verse has the feel to me of a young person who complains about their parents

Lizzy, I had a similar thought, it is also something school students often say about their teachers.

Leonard has often enough made it a point that if it weren't for Roshi [the man/his friend], Leonard would not have been there, subjecting himself to it all. It brought him highly valued time with his dear friend, though; time that he knew he was going to have to submit to the rigors of monastery life to obtain it.

He really doesn't give much in the way of explanation as to why he would spend five years of his life on Mt Baldy does he? Is that a Zen thing? I think this verse and reading your thoughts on it Lizzy have made it a little clearer for me.
Thanks
BM

[damellon]

Blonde Madonna

You're needed elswhere. Liverpoolken has a message for you on the Dylan remix site. Hurry.

[mat james]

Blonde Mad. says'

Would you say the same thing to your 18 year old daughter

Answer : yes.
for sure.
And she would cringe!
and laugh and shake her head.
They are rather conservative these days!

[lizzytysh]

Hi Mat ~

With this [below], my sense is that it relates less to how conservative they are these days and more to the kinds of things most daughters wouldn't want to hear from their fathers.

And she would cringe!
and laugh and shake her head.
They are rather conservative these days!

Hi Madonna ~

Thank you for your comments regarding mine on this verse . Can't tell you how good that makes me feel, as I'm very intimidated by the Jewish aspects of these verses; so I think my bravery with this one was the result of my feeling it had less to do with Jewishness than most of the others. Of course, when I started commenting, I'd forgotten about the fence of the Torah and its Jewish source. [I wish Judith was still around participating in these discussions .]

So, now, Doron... since I see you still around, though not commenting... would you mind sharing what some more of your thoughts are on this? I know they'll be elucidating. For starters, in or out?

. . . he flung me across the fence of the Torah – “The fence of the Torah” is an expression taken from a well-known Jewish source, Mishnah, Avot 1:1 (known in English also as “Ethics of the Fathers” or “Sayings of the Jewish Fathers”). I have already quoted it earlier, during our discussion of I.14 (“Book of Mercy #11-15” thread, on the eighth page). This line also brings to mind the poem “One Of My Letters” (BoL, 5), in which Roshi “silenced” him, apparently cutting short his correspondence with “a famous Rabbi”. Did the correspondence with the rabbi make Roshi jealous? And here, when he flings him across the fence of the Torah, in which direction is it: in or out? I have some more thoughts about all this, but I’ll leave some for later.

~ Lizzy

[mat james]

Yes!Where is DB?
I thought you said you had more to say Doran.
And as Simon seems to have absconded, you may need to pick up the pieces .
I have offered no interpretation this time as I am out of my depth on this one.
Matj.