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Of course he looks at the finger.

Because why on earth would a wise man be pointing at the moon?

Wise men walk behind.

Is this means that they are following the first fools at hand in this world ?

Jean, my bad humor of the moment is not pointed toward you. Or anybody else here. I'm just reacting to some brained washed muppet show who did muslim terrorism recently.

Starring : some puppets who were looking for the perfect world promised by the muslims brain washer terrorists.

Perfection does not exist on this Earth. Dot. No religion or philosophy can change this. We have to live with a certain amount of frustrations and this is not the end of the world anytime people don't drown themselves in self-pity.

Now what I hear from the muslims of my country is just : "protect us from consequences of islamic terrorism acts, here. They are caused by the mental sickness of your people."

No "excuse us for the trouble that our terrorism is causing to your country, and to you, you who are a land of milk and honey to us". No. They blame the victims of their agressions and they paused as victims of their victims.

They would act wiser if they were pointing at the moon : at their terrorists activists who used brain washing as a war weapon to destroy the peaceful environment they want to live into, wherever they try to flew from their violence and control. But no. They are muslims. They can not do anything wrong in their heads as long as they follow their religious dogmas without question.

So, I am mad at this behavior.

But like Albert Ellis said : "I fought Hitler, but not because I was hating him, I was just hating what he was doing". For myself I don't even hate what they are doing, I just don't hate, dot. I think that they are wrong, that they are fools, and I don't want to go where they are going.

Call me a bitch. But a bitch of peace.

Tchocolatl, no offence taken.

(I wouldn't even have noticed your bad humour if you hadn't pointed it out.)

Now I can't follow the reasons for your frustration, because I'm neither into politics nor into refugee assistance nor up to date on recent TV or newspaper events.
So please don't be offended if I answer your question straightforwardly. I mean no reference to any belief-system.

(With all my respect for them, however, especially those I don't share, like Islam, which contains (more than...) one basic element of my own understanding of what I am: acceptance of the fact that we are inside the world, not outside controllers or manipulators.)

My answer is: Yes, they do follow the first fools at hand in this world.

Like a mother following her little one.
Like a professor following a colleague preparing a state-doctorate.
Like a bodhisattva.
Like a friend.

Simple, and therefore not easy.

I'm a believer and I consider all the religions that exists OK in themselves, as well as philosophies. The use some people are doing of those is another thing. I don't think that I control the universe and I don't wish I could.

I mean no reference to any belief-system.

It is impossible, unless you have no brains, which is obviously not the case. It just means that you are not aware of your patterns of thoughs.

I like your kindness very much and I enjoy myself right now, but I run out of time to be fooling around here. Which is the best thing that can happen right now.

Furthermore Jean,

My answer is: Yes, they do follow the first fools at hand in this world.

Like a mother following her little one.
Like a professor following a colleague preparing a state-doctorate.
Like a bodhisattva.
Like a friend.

Simple, and therefore not easy.

Indeed. Not so easy.

You skipped the first step right at the beginning with my post. To be efficient as what you enumerated it takes : Attention. Discipline. "Following", in you sentences above, means being attentive to, and stay attentive to.

You did not gave good attention of what I was saying.

I was not frustrated (deprived or denied of something that I think would be good for me). I was mad (or angry), which is not the same thing. So I was going somewhere and you did not follow at all, you were going completely in another direction. Or you were erring, I don't know. It is difficult to say.

Definition of Frustration :
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defin ... rustration

Synonyms of Angry (or mad) :
http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/angry

Now the feeling of anger is a very saine red signal that something is wrong for you.
I may be wiser not to come here and write about it. This is another matter. But nobody will have his head severed from this, eh?

As I am extremely sensitive to kindness, and because the intention is (almost) as important as the gift for me, I still appreciate your kindness. But beware if you decide to apply this exercise to less caring people.

Diane wrote:The heart doesn't actually break, it only breaks open (John Welwood's phrase). Under such broken-hearted conditions it is apparently possible to feel others' sufferings not as separate, but as inside us. This fearless love demonstrates by its own example that there is a place where humanity's pain becomes shared, balanced, and light. In treating weighty matters with flippancy, grievous concerns with lightness, death with a smile, LC is reminiscent of the bodhisattvas who were said to descend laughingly into hell as if it were a fairground, to help those suffering there.

Yes, Diane, and quite a number of them perish in the enterprise. I have no idea where John Welwood got his information, but I'm afraid that on double-checking it wouldn't resist too well.

The paper-thin hotel graffiti ("You'll go to heaven once you've been to hell") is merely some graffiti on some hotel wall, it's not a safe-conduct. Nor is the bodhisattva-vow. On the contrary, the risk is considerable...

Basing myself on that abject wisecracking quoted before, I think it's not too much if I say that Leonard Cohen has always been good, and often great, and that now, as an old man, he's really playing, along with the grand.

Look at Mansûr al-Hallâj: one of those with "a shabby ending" (and no, Tchocolatl, I'm not going to heed your warning).
One whom some call the Jesus of Islam, and who is the spiritual father of people like Farîd ed-Dîn 'Attâr and Jalâl ad-Dîn Rûmî:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ecZvzb0 ... EOsygyL7ZT

Ya nasîma-r-rîhi qûlî li r-rashâ':
lam yazidnî l-wirdu illâ 'atashâ'.
Lî habîbun, hubbuhu wasta-l-hashâ'.
Lau yasha yamshi 'ala khaddî mashâ'.
Lau yasha yamshi 'ala khaddî mashâ'.
Rûhuhu rûhî, wa rûhî rûhuhu,
rûhuhu rûhî, wa rûhî rûhuhu.
In yasha shi'tu, wa in shi'tu yasha.

(O breath of the wind, say to the gazelle's fawn:
The watering-place nought but augments my thirst.
I have a Friend, His love is deep in my gut.
Should He wish, He'd briskly walk over my cheek.
Should He wish, He'd briskly walk over my cheek.
His soul is my soul, and my soul is His soul,
His soul is my soul, and my soul is His soul.
If He wills, I will, and if I will, He wills.)

(Literally: His love is the centre of my intestine
and: He'd walk over my cheek, or over the side of my body, as a good walker)

The breath of the wind: the world perceived as dynamic, not static. The tail going through the window. Zenon's arrow flying. The miracle. And the ring of Salomon saying: "This too will pass". "More sad".

The gazelle's fawn: "Held you for a little while".

The watering-place nought but augments my thirst: "I was alone on the road / Your love was so confusing".

His love is deep in my gut: the hara, the centre of the ki, the belly of the Buddha, the seat of courage and weighing scales, the place where "she gets you on her wavelength".

He'd briskly walk over my cheek: rejection, depression, hell, me-as-distinct-from-the-rest, "Why hast Thou forsaken me?", being trampled underfoot by "The high indifference some call fate".

His soul is my soul, and my soul is His soul: from "that you've always been her lover" through "to SAY what I have told him to repeat" to "Did I ever love you" and "You got me singing / Even though it all went wrong".

If He wills, I will, and if I will, He wills: from "If it be Your will" to "You got me singing / The Hallelujah song".

Blessed by the Name.

●

When you're shining your shoes while you're shining your shoes (or grooming your horses' feet while you're grooming your horses' feet, or complaining about your lack of concentration while you're complaining about your lack of concentration...), thereby opening "a crack in everything" that is going haywire in your mind — then it doesn't really matter at all whether you're singing the Nasîma r-Rîhi song, or the Hannya Shingyo song, or the Hallelujah song...

●

Such things are not a question of age, of course not.

But I do rejoice in the fact that this profoundly sincere old man has so gloriously come out of hell — not backwards with Prozac, out on the other side.

His empty hands full of gifts.

Which warning? Anyway I don't want to commend you (or anybody else for instance) so do whatever pleases you my dear Jean - as far as I am concerned.

I wonder what Leonard Cohen has to do with shabby endings.

Or shabby beginnings? Or shabby anything in the middle?

He is an international star from birth and he will be until death. A shining star and a strong man.

Now the Swan it floated on the English river
Ah the Rose of High Romance it opened wide
A sun tanned woman yearned me through the summer
and the judges watched us from the other side

I told my mother "Mother I must leave you
preserve my room but do not shed a tear
Should rumour of a shabby ending reach you
it was half my fault and half the atmosphere"

The Traitor

Jean, it's a song. A character in the song.

I don't know the real Leonard Cohen, only his persona, but anyone that can endure (even wish) stardom and stay alive and kicking must be strong in real life.

I guess that this little discussion is useless, as you probably meant Leonard Cohen the persona not the person.

Let stick with the persona. I must slip into silence, and deeper silence, now. Have fun, guys!

Hello Joe, thank you for your probing, sensitive review. I really don't know why people are criticizing this album. Sure it is 'polished,' but we dress for the occasion, and in the case of PP it is tastefully balanced, weaving a 'sound' and beautiful piercing sweet lyrics; it is finely wrought. (p.s. Leonard - nice suit; great fit).

Of course, people have a right to their opinions and tastes, though I wonder whether it's a case of also getting past expectations. Having read some reviews here before listening to 'Popular Problems' I braced myself for I don't know what. Then I heard it and all the walls crumbled.

I loved it from the first listen and more so with each subsequent one (good headphones help). 'Popular Problems' resonates long after the final song is finished. It means more to me than I can say.

Many thanks for this poetic analysis, Joe.

I'm always interested by how sure one is that one understands an image or a meaning in LC, only to see that other people understand it completely differently.

I was absolutely 100% sure it was about Hurricane Katrina. I still think it is, but maybe I'm wrong?

I hope 'You got me singing' is about his grandchild, but I'm not so sure about that.