Leonard Cohen interview

[Longdog]

Hi

Just thought some of you might be interested in this interview with Leonard Cohen (don't know if you can get it outside UK, sorry)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/mainfram ... 4/frontrow

Talks about his life, poetry, music and thoughts on and experiences with Buddhism.

Kev

[will]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Works ok here Kev.

G,W

[Dojin]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

I cant open it

Leonard Cohen is by far my favorite song writer. he touches me almost with everyone of his songs.
i am actually reading on of his books of poems now. i read one of his novels and it was crazy sexual and perverse and just sick in a way. it was like reading the ramblings of a man obsessed and in pain.

may i suggest a song called a thousand kisses deep...
i heard in an interview he said it was about just letting go and accepting and actually finding peace and joy in it.
i always thought this song as a containing some zen wisdom he had picked up during his time as a rinzai zen monk.

" You lose your grip, and then you slip
Into the Masterpiece. " - Leonard Cohen

[CinnamonGal]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Thanks Zen, I will listen to it for sure!

I heard Lennart spent some time in a Zen monastery. Swedish radio made a one hour long radio profile on him and I was struck by how uninterested he was about talking of the past, despite the reporter's attempts to bring it back. Some of it he seemed to have forgotten but wasn't bothered at all.
He said that it did not matter and he was interested in the present, for example his friends coming over for dinner. I guess the person making the program soon had to accept it would be not what he/she expected. We could be just as well listening the old neighbour next door talk about his day. I certainly had to drop my expectations and ideas of who the person was.

Gassho,

Irina

[CinnamonGal]

Sorry!

Sorry Kev, I got the name of the author of the post wrong! My apologies!

Gassho,

Irina

[Longdog]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

No worries Irina :wink: I think the interview you heard was probably better and in more detail but as some one who knows of him and his songs but not about him it was intriguing.

He seems to be doing the interview to promote his new tour as he's skint from his manager relieving him of £5 million while he was in the monastary. Apparently he rarely does them.

Odd that Will can get it in China but not Zen, hey ho, the wonders of the net I guess :lol:

Do you know who the 100+ year old Rinzai Roshi is he refers to? Or which monastary it is he was at?

i'm interested in his new book of poetry, have to see if I can get in in the library.

In gassho, Kev

[Stephanie]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Leonard Cohen's teacher is Joshu Sasaki Roshi (the New York Times ran a wonderful article on him in December 2007), who teaches at Mount Baldy Zen Center in Southern California, perhaps the most notoriously rigorous, macho, and intense Zen training center in America. Though Leonard's stint as a monk there was relatively recent, he has been studying with Joshu Roshi since the 1970's.

Poems and songs from the 1970s on reference Cohen's Zen practice. I agree with "Zen" that the songs on Ten New Songs (released shortly after Cohen ended his five-year stint as a monk on Baldy) are perhaps the most overt.

Cohen has said many times that he identifies as a Jew, is happy with his religion, and does not need another one (see his modern-day Psalms in Book of Mercy), but is also obviously very serious about his Buddhist practice. I think he's even a bit coy and modest about it. He makes self-deprecatory jokes about not understanding Buddhism very well but is obviously (to me, at least) a very realized Zen practitioner.

I deeply admire him and count him as one of my heroes, as he is a very committed practitioner but also very much a lover of the world who didn't give up his wine, women, and song even while in the monastery.

He has lived quite a remarkable life. He also notoriously struggled with depression most of his life but has said that only recently it seems to have lifted, thanks to his Zen practice (the drugs never worked for him).

[Stephanie]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Some more good Cohen interviews that reference his Zen practice:

"Several Lifetimes Already": Pico Iyer interview from The Shambhala Sun, 1998
70 facts about Leonard Cohen from The Guardian, 2004
Another interview from The Shambhala Sun, 2007

[Longdog]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Looks like we've got an authority on him here :wink:

Thanks for that info Stephanie (and welcome back), he certainly has me intrigued.

In gassho, Kev

[Dojin]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

I once read that Leonard Cohen's zen name is Jikan meaning the one who is silent. i find it very interesting that a man who writes books poems and songs for his living be considered silent. yet i do notice a certain shyness in his work and he actually tries to speak of things unspeakable which can not be put in to words... i must say he does a great job ( in my opinion )

i have read his latest book of poems and i strongly suggest it. it is very personal and very interesting. it is like looking in to his soul, at least i felt it was like that.

[Stephanie]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Thanks Longdog. I obviously am a big fan of Leonard Cohen, used to listen to his CDs on the way to and from sesshin or Sunday morning meetings at the Zen center.

From Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs of Leonard Cohen:

ROSHI AGAIN

I saw Roshi early this morning. His room was warm and fragrant. Soon he was hanging from a branch by his teeth. That made me laugh. But I didn't want to laugh. Then he was playing my guitar. From above he looked old and tired. From below he looked fresh and strong. Destroy particular self and absolute appears. He spoke to me gently. I waited for the rebuke. It didn't come. I waited because there is a rebuke in every other voice but his. He rang his bell. I bowed and left.

I visited him again after several disagreeable hours in the mirror. He hung from the branch again. He looked down fearfully. He was afraid of falling. He was afraid of dying. He was depending on the branch and on his teeth. This is the particular self. This is the particular trance. He played my guitar. He copied my own fingering. He invented someone to interrupt him. He demonstrated the particular trance being broken by the question: What is the source of this world? He asked me to answer. His voice was calm and serious. I was so hungry for his seriousness after the moronic frivolity and despair of hours in the mirror. I could not answer. Difficult, he said, reaching for his bell. I bowed and left.

MY TEACHER

My teacher gave me what I do not need, told me what I need not know. At a high price he sold me water beside the river. In the middle of a dream he led me gently to my bed. He threw me out when I was crawling, took me in when I was home. He referred me to the crickets when I had to sing, and when I tried to be alone he fastened me to a congregation. He curled his fists and pounded me toward my proper shape. He puked in disgust when I swelled without filling. He sank his tiger teeth into everything of mine that I refused to claim. 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. He let me be a student of a love that I will never be able to give. He suffered me to play at friendship with my truest friend. When he was certain that I was incapable of self-reform, he flung me across the fence of the Torah.

from Book of Longing:

ROSHI AT 89

Roshi's very tired,
he's lying on his bed
He's been living with the living
and dying with the dead
But now he wants another drink
(will wonders never cease?)
He's making war on war
and he's making war on peace
He's sitting in the throne-room
on his great Original Face
and he's making war on Nothing
that has Something in its place
His stomach's very happy
The prunes are working well
There's no one going to Heaven
and there's no one left in Hell

WHEN I DRINK

When I drink
the $300 scotch
with Roshi
it quenches every thirst
A song comes to my lips
a woman lies down with me
and every desire
invites me to curl up naked
in its dripping jaws

No more, I cry, no more
but Roshi fills my glass again
and new passions consume me
new appetites
For instance
I fall into a tulip
(and never hit the bottom)
or I hurtle through the night
in sweaty sexual union
with someone about twice the size
of the Big Dipper

When I eat meat with Roshi
the four-legged animals
don't cry any more
and the two-legged animals
don't try to fly away
and the exhausted salmon
come home to my hand
and Roshi's wolf
biting at its broken chain
creates a sensation
in the cabin
by making friends with everyone

When I chow down with Roshi
and the Ballantine flows
the pine trees inch into my bosom
the great boring grey boulders
of Mt. Baldy
creep into my heart
and they all get fed
with the delicious fat
and the white cheese popcorn
or whatever it is
they've wanted all these years

ROSHI

I never really understood
what he said
but every now and then
I find myself
barking with the dog
or bending with the irises
or helping out
in other little ways

EARLY MORNING AT MT. BALDY

Alarm awakened me at 2:30 a.m.:
got into my robes
kimono and hakama
modelled after the 12th-century
archer's costume:
on top of this the koroma
a heavy outer garment
with impossibly large sleeves:
on top of this the ruksu
a kind of patchwork bib
which incorporates an ivory disc:
and finally the four-foot
serpentine belt
that twists into a huge handsome knot
resembling a braided challah
and covers the bottom of the ruksu:
all in all
about 20 pounds of clothing
which I put on quickly
at 2:30 a.m.
over my enormous hard-on

SEISEN IS DANCING

Seisen has a long body.
Her shaved head
threatens the skylight
and her feet go down
into the apple cellar.
When she dances for us
at one of our infrequent
celebrations,
the dining hall,
with its cargo of weightless monks
and nuns,
bounces around her hips
like a Hula Hoop.
The venerable old pine trees
crack out of sentry duty
and get involved,
as do the San Gabriel Mountains
and the flat cities
of Claremont, Upland
and the Inland Empire.
Ocean speaks to ocean
saying, What the hell,
let's go with it, rouse ourselves.
The Milky Way undoes its spokes
and cleaves to Seisen's haunches,
as do the worlds beyond,
and worlds unborn,
not to mention darkest holes
of brooding anti-matter,
and random flying mental objects
like this poem,
fucking up the atmosphere.
It's all going round her hips,
and what her hips enclose;
it's all lit up by her face,
her ownerless expression.
And then there's this aching fool
over here, no, over here
who thinks that
Seisen's still a woman,
who's trying to find a place to stand
where Seisen isn't Dancing.

MY CONSORT

There is this huge woman,
(O G-d she's beautiful)
this huge woman
who, even though she is all women,
has a very specific character;
this huge woman
who sometimes comes to me
very early in the morning
and plucks me out of my skin!
We 'roll around heaven'
several miles above the pine trees
and there's no space between us,
but we're not One
or anything like that.
We're two huge people,
two immense bodies
of tenderness and delight,
with all the pleasures felt and magnified
to match our size.
Whenever this happens
I am usually ready to forgive everyone
who doesn't love me enough
including you, Sahara,
especially you.

EARLY QUESTIONS

Why do cloisters of radiant nuns study your production, while I drink the tea called Smooth Move, alone in my cabin during the howling winter?

Why do you mount the High Seat and deliver an incomprehensible discourse on The Source of All Things, which includes questionable observations on the contract between men and women, while I sit on the floor twisted into the Lotus Position (which is not meant for North Americans), laying out the grid-lines of shining modern cities where, far from your authority, democracy and romance can flourish?

Why do you fall asleep when, in order to familiarize you with our culture, I screen important sex videos, and then when they're finished, why do you suddenly wake up and say: "Study human love interesting, but not so interesting"?

Why can't the Great Vehicle, which rolls so merrily through the quaint streets of Kyoto, make it up the switchbacks of Mt. Baldy? And if it can't, is it any good to us?

Why do the irises bend to you, while dangerous pine cones fall from a considerable height on our unprotected bald heads?

Why do you command us to talk, and then talk instead?

It is because a bell has summoned me to your room, it is because I am speechless in the honor of your company, it is because I am reeling in the fragrance of some unutterable hospitality, it is because I have forgotten all my questions, that I throw myself to the floor, and vanish into yours.

THE MOON

The moon is outside
I saw the great uncomplicated thing
when I went to take a leak just now.
I should have looked at it longer.
I am a poor lover of the moon.
I see it all at once and that's it
for me and the moon.

SWEET TIME

How sweet time feels
when it's too late

and you don't have to follow
her swinging hips

all the way into
your dying imagination

[Longdog]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

OOh yum, so much there, I'll have to go back for seconds (amd more) once Beren is in bed.

I particularly like 'The Teacher' says alot about students. Hungry baby is stopping me digesting the rest...

Good typer or cut and paster?

In gassho, Kev

[Stephanie]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Typed 'em out from the copies of his books I have sitting right next to me, I did

[Longdog]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

Gassho

[CharlesC]

Re: Leonard Cohen interview

.