Book of Mercy #16-19

[Diane]

Thanks Doron for relating the Biblical origins of this psalm.

My thoughts sparked by 1.16:

Return, spirit, to this lowly place. Come down. There is no path where you project yourself.

From a Buddhist perspective, there is no path when you believe you can be other than what you think and feel at this moment. This whole psalm reminds me of some lines from WB Yeats that a new poster had as their sig recently:

"...Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start,
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart."

Ladder in your "foul" heart, you can begin:

Come down; from here you can look at the sky. From here you can begin to climb. Draw back your song from the middle air where you cannot follow it. Close down these shaking towers you have built toward your vertigo.

You do not know how to bind your heart to the skylark, or your eyes to the hardened blue hills.

Jimmy O'Connell's poem about being split from nature prompted me to start reading one of the many unread books I have accumulated over the years: Nature, Man and Woman, by Alan Watts, where he discusses the 'West's' disconnection from nature, via the emphasis given to the intellect, and the belief in a supernatural God (God outside nature), and how this relates to our distrust of emotion and our loneliness. He presents a Toaist approach to the subject. Toaism is a philosophy very rooted in Nature. He says that the animals have not lost their sensitivity to their place in the "endless knot of nature", but we have.

Return to the sorrow in which you have hidden your truth. Kneel here, search here, with both hands, the cat’s cradle of your tiny distress. Listen to the one who has not been wounded, the one who says, ‘It is not good that man should be alone.’

God is the one who "has not been wounded", because "He" is the one who is not separated from nature and himself. This is what Alan Watts says:

Sexual love is the most intense and dramatic of the common ways in which a human being comes into union and conscious relationship with something outside himself. It is...the most vivid of man's customary expressions of his organic spontaneity, the most positive and creative occasion of his being transported by something beyond his conscious will...In cultures where the invividual feels isolated from nature...men feel squeamish about the sexual relationship, often regarding it as degrading...especially for those dedicated to the life of the spirit.

Watts thinks it is possible to speak of spirituality and sexuality in the same breath. Leonard Cohen does this all the time doesn't he.

I am reluctant to interrupt your conversation with Manna, Jack, but how would it be if you did not have to feel ashamed of being whatever you were and felt when you had that experience you described above? The reason I am reluctant to interrupt, or even ask you such a question, is because I am not willing to talk on such a personal level as you and Manna in a public place like this. I mostly only talk about concepts and ideas on the forum. I think you are very brave. Thank you.

Recall your longing to the loneliness where it was born, so that when she appears, she will stand before you, not against you. Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

Is our loneliness born in our alienation from ourselves? How can we be with someone when we are in self-denial? Jung said, "the most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely". I have only read the intro to Watts' book so far, but flicking through I came upon this passage:

We are afraid of everything in our nature that is symbolically feminine and yielding. But a man who is (emotionally controlled) cannot be male in relation to the female, for if he is to relate himself to a woman there must be something of the woman in his nature.

Toaism is very much concerned with opposites, Yin and Yang. To me it seems that to balance this woman must also have something of man in her nature, and not deny it, otherwise, when a man reveals his nature a woman will indeed turn against him!

This looks like a very interesting book, and I may read it instead of rambling on tangentially on here.

Diane

[Simon]

Cor blimey Diane, yet another book to add to tha list…! Books are like Whiskeys, you nerver seem to get to the end of the list of everything you should put your hands on. Nature, Man and Woman sounds promissing…

Yes, thank you Doron for pointing the Biblical origins of this psalm. I’m always amazed by those direct references. It opens up so much the essence of these poems.

Recall your longing to the loneliness where it was born, so that when she appears, she will stand before you, not against you.

It seemed to me that it is only the second time LC uses the word “she” in the psalms so far. The other occurrence was in I.4:

I rose up carefully, and I went out of the house to rescue the angel of song from the place where she had chained herself to her nakedness.

Here, in I.16, "she" didn’t seem to refer to the angel of song as in I.4. Not being familiar with the biblical reference, I had to wonder about this "she", and also about the “come down… come down…” summon at the beginning of the psalm. So by one of those unexplainable connexions I first saw that “she” as refering to Kannon, the Japaneese Goddess of Mercy. Kannon is the feminine representation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion. Thus,

Retrun to the sorrow in which you have hidden your truth

becomes a prayer for enlightment.

On the second reading, I came up with a more first level interpretation of “she” as refering directly to “loneliness” in the sentence. In french, “loneliness" is a feminine word, thus to a french mind, there is a grammatical ambiguity about this sentence. You are not sure if he is using “she” to refer to the word “loneliness” or to the feminine figure that was only implied, but not named directly in the previous sentence.

Whether “she” refers to Kannon or to loneliness, “she” should “stand before you, not against you.” In both cases what is desired is a mystical partnership of sort.

Partnership with Kannon on the road to enlightment.

Partership with loneliness very much in the spirit of the wabi-sabi aesthetic.

Wabi

The two dominant principles of Chinese and Japanese art and culture are wabi and sabi. Wabi refers to a philosophical construct, a sense of space, direction, or path, while sabi is an aesthetic construct rooted in a given object and its features, plus the occupation of time, chronology, and objectivity. Though the terms are and should be referred to distinctly, they are usually combined as wabi-sabi, as both a working description and as a single aesthetic principle.

The original connotation of wabi is based on the aloneness or separation from society experienced by the hermit, suggesting to the popular mind a misery and sad forlornness. Only by the fourteenth century in Japan were positive attributes ascribed to wabi and cultivated. As Koren1 puts it,

The self-imposed isolation and voluntary poverty of the hermit and ascetic came to be considered opportunities for spiritual richness.

Indeed, wabi is literally poverty, but it came to refer not to the absence of material possessions but to the non-dependence upon material possessions. Wabi is a divestment of the material that surpasses material wealth. Wabi is simplicity that has shaken off the material in order to relate directly with nature and reality. This absence of dependence also frees itself from indulgence, ornateness, and pomposity. Wabi is quiet contentment with simple things.

In short, wabi is a way of life or spiritual path. It precedes the application of aesthetic principles applied to objects and arts, the latter being sabi. The Zen principles informing wabi enjoyed a rich confluence of Confucian, Taoist, Buddhism, and Shinto traditions, but focused on the hermit's insight and the reasons why the hermit came to pursue eremiticism. These philosophical insights are familiar: the recognition of duality as illusion, the clinging to ego and the material world as leading to suffering, the fear of death precluding a fulfilling life, the appreciation of life's evanescence as a prompt to living in harmony with nature.

The life of the hermit came to be called wabizumai in Japan, essentially "the life of wabi," a life of solitude and simplicity.

Although several fifteenth and sixteenth century figures in Japan stand out in making the transition from wabi to sabi (Shuko, Rikyu, Ikkyu), the process was an organic one already occurring among poets and artisans. The tea ceremony was the first "contrived" expression of sabi, meaning that the wabi principles would be embodied in specific objects and actions.

Sabi

Sabi as the outward expression of aesthetic values is built upon the metaphysical and spiritual principles of Zen, but translates these values into artistic and material qualities. Sabi suggest natural processes resulting in objects that are irregular, unpretentious, and ambiguous. The objects reflect a universal flux of "coming from" and "returning to." They reflect an impermanence that is nevertheless congenial and provocative, leading the viewer or listener to a reflectiveness and contemplation that returns to wabi and back again to sabi, an aesthetic experience intended to engender a holistic perspective that is peaceful and transcendent.

Sabi objects are irregular in being asymmetrical, unpretentious in being the holistic fruit of wabizumai, ambiguous in preferring insight and intuition, the engendering of refined spiritualized emotions rather than reason and logic. Ambiguity allows each viewer to proceed to their capacity for nuances without excluding anyone or exhausting the number and quality of experiences.

The Japanese haiku poet Basho transformed the wabizumai he experienced into sabi poetry, and the melancholy of nature became a kind of longing for the absolute. But this longing never fulfilled -- the "absolute" is not part of Zen vocabulary --makes the tension between wabi and sabi an enriching and inexhaustible experience.

Sabi is literally solitude or even loneliness. This is the atmosphere created by poetry and music, the sensibility provoked by art and drama, the reflectiveness provoked by a landscape. The design principles of sabi were applied to the spectrum of Japanese cultural expressions, including gardens (Zen and tea), poetry, ceramics, calligraphy, tea ceremony, flower arranging, bonsai, archery, music, and theater.

The confluence of wabi and sabi led to using the two separate terms as one.

Ref.: Wabi and Sabi: The Aesthetics of Solitude>>>

So “she”, “standing before you”, loneliness, aloneness, should be welcomed as a partner, not as an enemy.

We may want to remember psalm I.9:

Blessed are you who has given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy

So maybe loneliness is the earthly music to which one enters the cosmic dance with Kannon.

This Cohen is in fact very much wabi-sabi, which will become even more eloquently evident in Book of Longing.

[Manna]

I think the last prayer was more useful to me than this one, but I reserve the right to change my mind or to let it be changed. I've never felt I had to try to make myself worthy of a woman's love. I could broaden this to being or becoming worthy of love at all, but there have been very few instances in my life, if any, when I thought I wasn't already worthy of love simply for being alive.

I do put some effort into trying to puzzle through what Leonard was trying to say. I don't think he intended them to be the riddles they are to me. If I try to figure out what it means to me without any reference besides my own faculty, I will miss more than if I try to consider his position. These are his prayers, not mine, and I think he's better at praying than I am. He's put them out there for me to use when I can, and I am having fun with them, and sometimes more interesting things than fun. Thanks, Leonard.

I do understand the internal struggle that is part of this prayer, and that part may be useful to me. I've never allowed that my spirit may be something that can come and go from me. It's something to think on. What sex would I assign it? How would I envision it? It is I, here, that's all.

Is there anyone out there who is happy with himself in a permanent way? Is that what the absence of that internal struggle would feel like? I know I go through highs and lows - through my daily minutiae, through the blocks of my life. If those highs and lows weren't there, I think I'd be dead. Well, I'd be calmer, anyway, or maybe just bored.

I guess that means I like the struggle. Hm, there's something.

[Manna]

Jack,
I've had this thought- that to pray well, I should be praying all the time, no matter what I'm doing. I never thought I would have the stamina for life-praying that way, though I never actually tried it. But that you were praying and pumping at the same time sounds... It makes sense to me.

I'm not sure what I'm saying. I don't mean prayer as a formal praying prayer, I think I just mean that G-d should be in the thought for everything you do. Maybe. Bah, I don't know.

Maybe I should give it a try sometime.

[lazariuk]

But that you were praying and pumping at the same time sounds...

It sounds like you are thinking that it was something that it was not. Other than our blood no one was doing any pumping, when we were together.

In another post Diane asked me to imagine how it could have been if certain things were different. I am glad she did because I tried to do so and what struck me was how perfect everything seemed to be just the way it was.

Manna you made me think about how I could be praying and being with her at the same time. I never thought about it before but I think I know. I wasn't alone in the experience, there were other people involved and for me the two main ones were her and another woman. What I did know was that I wasn't going to do anything that would in any way cause the other woman any hurt. She was the one that my heart was chasing. On the other hand I also knew that the woman I was with was feeling some very strong emotions and could be easily hurt. Maybe the way I prayed was that I didn't let go of making sure that nothing happened that would be any reason for anyone to get hurt. At the same time the world seemed to be conspiring by putting in front of us both a place and a way to be together that was about as sweet as I could handle. It gave me a way to enjoy the sweetness without any regret and no one got hurt. We did spend some time together after being drawn from the window, the details of which I will keep to myself.

It's so funny that I never realized how perfect it was until I started wondering if it could have been better. Also something that I never thought before was that I can't think of a better way to pray all the time than to be always checking with my heart to see if I am doing the right thing. From my point of view you do that so naturally. It is so easy for you that you probably don't even realize that you are praying. The source of it might come from not having been wounded.

[Manna]

I see the error in my thinking. Sorry for the assumption, I thought you were trying to be delicate and you were just being honest.

[lazariuk]

though I never actually tried it. But that you were praying and pumping at the same time

Well if you and your love ever do want to try it let me suggest the musical accompaniment. A Love Supreme by John Coltrane

[lazariuk]

I see the error in my thinking. Sorry for the assumption, I thought you were trying to be delicate and you were just being honest.

See what I mean - the perfect prayer

I see the error of my ways
I'm sorry
I know I'm forgiven
Now we are back on course

[lazariuk]

I think you are very brave.

I'm brave? What ? Do you see some kind of danger that I should know about? What kind of danger can possibly be here? You all love me very much and would never let anything bad happen to me.

[Boss]

Is our loneliness born in our alienation from ourselves? How can we be with someone when we are in self-denial? Jung said, "the most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely".

Diane, you are right. We do not know ourselves. Filled with information and idea, we scarcely intuit reality. We shun defecation, masturbation, menstruation - anything rooted in nature. Content in our mind play, things appear so comfortable; or do they? Something in our depths 'feels' the disconnectedness. It shows up in dreams, family breakdown, poetry, skin rashes - this secret, silent epidemic. And lonely we remain. Jung was right too, it is terrifying to accept yourself, all of yourself. But that is what all of us must do. For our planet's survival, this is our only recourse.

Thanks for your post.

[mat james]

hunter
hunted
gatherer
"gathered in"
as Leonard said somewhere.

"Welcome, welcome..
the guests arrive..."

Being lured and luring are, perhaps, what these prayers are about?
such fun!
this mortal allure
and spiritual allure.


It is so Leonard-esque


Nice tangent Jack!
What do you think, DB? (and others)

Matj

[Diane]

Blimey indeed, Simon. How does one prioritise the list? Should one use intuition or logic? Or read none of the books or drink all of the whiskey or vice versa? Nature, Man and Woman might stop me rambling for a while, anyway. That is interesting, that loneliness is a feminine word in French. And your slight confusion is quite a clear example of how our language influences interpretation. Your posts are always brimming with interesting stuff and no rambling, like Doron's. I like that.

I see no danger for you, Jack. And we all love you, naturally.

Hi Adam. Nice to bump into you on here ; it's been a while. In fairness, there is something called the "naturalistic fallacy" which means that just because something is "natural" it doesn't necessarily mean it is "good". I'm not sure whether that's true or not, being a bit of a biased 'nature-freak', but I'm sure it's a valid point to consider. But yes, we most certainly do deny or ignore natural processes in our culture. Extinction of species also happens naturally, however, as well as being caused by human activity.

Diane

[Boss]

Dear Diane,

I agree with what you say; however, it is the extinction of all species that is my concern. If there is not radical transformation in how we see ourselves, and one another, the welfare of this planet will be in extreme jeopardy; if it is not already in it now.

But we will change. I reckon Leonard Cohen thought it too in 1992 when he sang:

Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee

And our descendants, when colonising the Universe by propagating life on distant planets and moons in say 15,000 years from now, they will look to us, all of us, and say, "Thank you."

I apologise for going way off track - but that's just me

Adam

[lazariuk]

The begining middle and end of this prayer is

I.16
Return, spirit, to this lowly place.

Return to the sorrow in which you have hidden your truth.

Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

There is probably many ways to do this but I wanted to see for myself if there was a way I could do it.
The use of return makes me think it is a place where I have already been. The use of sorrrow makes me think that it would be something that someone might be sorry about and the use of repentance makes me think that there might be a place where I did something that I was sorry for but maybe never got the chance to be truly sorry for it at the time.

I found such a place. I was seven years old and I was going to a school that used corporal punishment as part of its curriculum and I was the kind of kid that got punished a lot. I had a teacher who I loved and who loved me. Events forced her once to participate in my being punished. I knew it wasn't her fault but I saw that her love for me was making her feel very bad about it and so I saw that for once that I could be the one doing the punishing. I pretended. I pretended that I was mad at her. I pretended that I blamed her for my being punished. I pretended that I felt that she was personally responsible for my pain. I punished her for loving me.

I never got a chance to be sorry for doing that. The usual way things happen is that you do something, you get a reaction and then some time passes and there is a result and you can go on from there. What happened in my case was that brother death stepped in and changed the game. That day the teacher died and in the minds of me and my classmates I was the one blamed for killing her. So I never got to be sorry for what I did, instead I became sorry that my friends were mad at me and blaming me for the teachers death. Then I became sorry that I was going to go to hell for it.

Aside from all that, punishing someone because they love you is a terrible thing to do and I am really sorry that I did it. I wonder what is meant by repentance.

[mat james]

Wabi is quiet contentment with simple things.

Simon's quote.

This sounds like the life for me!