Leonard Cohen is Happy Now.
Last night I arrived home from work really late, like 1.30am late. I still had adrenaline rushing around in my body and knew I wouldn’t be able to just go to sleep, so I turned on the TV with the thought:
“I hope this TV has a deep profound message for me tonight.”
There was a doco on about the making of Leonard Cohen’s new album. Leonard Cohen, he’s that guy from the 60’s who wrote amazing poetry/lyrics to music and was always depressed but in a really good way, a bit like Morrissey's grandpappy. He celebrated despair in a way that made you feel good about being in the deep abyss of existential angst.
But tonight he starts talking about happiness. Leonard Cohen was at a Zen Center in Mount Baldy for several years as Zen monk Jikan. He finds his spiritual practice helps him greatly, in that he’s not depressed so much anymore. But he says he still has his bad days and that even the most enlightened beings still feel despair. He says that the brain cells for anxiety are the ones that die first as you get older, so maybe that’s what’s happening to him.
Then he starts talking about LOVE.
Ok, Leonard, tell me about LOVE. That fucker of an emotion that gets us all in the end, that rips out your guts and leaves them hanging out from a hole in your belly that everyone can see, while you try in vain to stuff them back in. Having just broken up out of a 2 year relationship, I really wanna know what you have learned about LOVE Leonard. I need a nugget from the universe right about NOW. And Leonard delivered.
He said the key to love, as he understands it is to find, or rather create a state of grace wherein you just become LOVE. Then you cease actually even wanting it, or desiring it, because you are LOVE and then all the gender politics and power struggles that come from wanting something that you think is outside of you just dissolve away. That easy and, that difficult.
Thanks Leonard, I’d tip my hat to you if I was wearing one. I turned off the TV and went and had a long hot bath surrounded by liquid love that seeped into my pores.
M. xxx
“I hope this TV has a deep profound message for me tonight.”
There was a doco on about the making of Leonard Cohen’s new album. Leonard Cohen, he’s that guy from the 60’s who wrote amazing poetry/lyrics to music and was always depressed but in a really good way, a bit like Morrissey's grandpappy. He celebrated despair in a way that made you feel good about being in the deep abyss of existential angst.
But tonight he starts talking about happiness. Leonard Cohen was at a Zen Center in Mount Baldy for several years as Zen monk Jikan. He finds his spiritual practice helps him greatly, in that he’s not depressed so much anymore. But he says he still has his bad days and that even the most enlightened beings still feel despair. He says that the brain cells for anxiety are the ones that die first as you get older, so maybe that’s what’s happening to him.
Then he starts talking about LOVE.
Ok, Leonard, tell me about LOVE. That fucker of an emotion that gets us all in the end, that rips out your guts and leaves them hanging out from a hole in your belly that everyone can see, while you try in vain to stuff them back in. Having just broken up out of a 2 year relationship, I really wanna know what you have learned about LOVE Leonard. I need a nugget from the universe right about NOW. And Leonard delivered.
He said the key to love, as he understands it is to find, or rather create a state of grace wherein you just become LOVE. Then you cease actually even wanting it, or desiring it, because you are LOVE and then all the gender politics and power struggles that come from wanting something that you think is outside of you just dissolve away. That easy and, that difficult.
Thanks Leonard, I’d tip my hat to you if I was wearing one. I turned off the TV and went and had a long hot bath surrounded by liquid love that seeped into my pores.
M. xxx
posted by Meri quoteth: at 3:09 AM
6 Comments:
Well, even Leonard said that he has only _moments_ of this state of grace, this non-wanting, non-desiring state of just enjoying being LOVE, but the moments are pretty nice even though they are short... xx Stormy.
What I knew about love, or thought I knew, I've lost.
That's a pretty serious challenge, when you think about it.
But, dear Anonymous, what you _knew_ about love, has nothing on what you _experienced_ about love. Knowing and experiencing are two different things. Don't ya think?? And the less you know, the more you experience. yes?
But, dear Anonymous, what you _knew_ about love, has nothing on what you _experienced_ about love. Knowing and experiencing are two different things. Don't ya think?? And the less you know, the more you experience. yes?
Leonard Cohen is the man alright. But is there seriously a Zen Monk Center at a place called Mount Baldy? Man, that's too funny.
I love this entry! My dear you do write so well.
What you said Leonard said reminds me of one of my favourite Osho quotes:
"Love appears as relationship, but begins in deep solitude, Love expresses as relating, but the source of love is not in relating; the source of love is in meditating. When you are absolutely happy in your aloness - when you don´t need the other at all, when the other is not a need - then you are capable of love. If the other is your need you can only exploit, manipulate, dominate, but you cannot love.
... The moment you feel you are no longer dependent on anyone, a deep coolness and a deep silence settles inside, a relaxed let-go. It does not mean you stop loving. On the contrary, for the first time you know a new quality, a new dimension of love"
Osho: "Love, freedom, aloness. The koan of relationships"
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