“We’re invited into this arena, which is a very dangerous arena, where the possibilities of humiliation and failure are ample. So there’s no fixed lesson that one can learn about the thing because the heart is always opening and closing, it’s always softening and hardening. We’re always experiencing joy or sadness.”
~ Leonard Cohen
[Thanks, Jonathan Carroll!]
A Deep Happiness
by Leonard Cohen
A deep happiness
has seized me
My Christian friends say
that I have received
the Holy Spirit
It is only the truth of solitude
It is only the torn anemone
fastened to the rock
its root exposed
to the off-shore wind
O friend of my scribbled life
Your heart is like mine—
your loneliness
will bring you home.
Damien Rice performing Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" at the 23rd annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductions held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City on March 10, 2008.
It wasn't all that easy when you up and walked away.
But I'll leave that little story for another rainy day.
I know your burden's heavy as you wheel it through the night;
The guru says it's empty but that doesn't make it light.
So let’s drink to when it’s over
and let's drink to when we meet.
I'll be standing on this corner
where there used to a street.
You can listen to a conversation about his collection of poems, Book of Longing, on Fresh Air (1/1/07).
"The key to long life, is to immediately forget things. If you forget, then instantly and inevitably, a new state of consciousness always arises," says Sasaki Roshi, a Zen master who turned 100 years old this month. My meditation teacher, Shinzen Young interprets for his teacher in this short news clip.
Sasaki Roshi entered a Rinzai monastery when he was fourteen. He earned the title of Roshi (which means "old" and "teacher") when he was forty and moved to California to teach in 1962. His most famous student is Leonard Cohen, the Canadian singer-writer who served as the Roshi's personal assistant during the years he spent in seclusion at Mt. Baldy Zen Center.
Shinzen was ordained as a Shingon monk in Mt. Koya, and has been teaching Vipassana meditation for thirty years. He draws the majority of his teaching analogies from mathematical and scientific concepts and emphasizes the similarity among the contemplative and ethical traditions of the world's religions. He has extensive experience coaching people who are suffering from chronic and acute pain.
Daron Larson
Freelance Contemplative
