The "Cheesy" Love Song Explained

Just before people think that what I posted previously was a cheesy love song, it's actually a song about Mystical Experiences. (This comes with me taking a class on ME this semester.)

The song/poem "Love Itself" was written by Leonard Cohen who is a Canadian Jewish poet/song writer who has been living in a Zen Buddhist monastry somewhere in Asia for the past 10 years. He is a contemporary of Bob Dylan and they are good friends.

Anyway, Leonard Cohen writes very interesting songs. If anyone is interested, I highly recommand checking out some of his songs/poems. The songs are very inspired and some of them have taken him years to write it. Every word counts.

I believe because of Cohen's Jewish background, he has equated the "essence of the Universe" with Love (with the captital "L"). There is a whole lot of Jewish undertones in the song/poem that I posted previously. He also alluded that such unions with the transcendent is ineffable. It is also very interesting to recognize that the sudden-ness of the union and the short duration of it is very typical of some forms of mystical experiences, and especially pertains to the Zen Buddhist tradition.

You know, I can truly appreciate the song because I have had such experiences before. Some knowledge of experiences, like mystical experiences, have to be acquired through knowledge-by-identity, a term that Forman (1999) coined; as opposed to a "knowledge about", which is the usual knowledge about things factual and observable in the world; and "knowledge-by- acquaintence", which is the knowledge of the taste of a mango or coffee, the colours of the world, etc. But knowledge-by-identity is different... it's only when one is in a particular space and going through that experience, in union with the transcendence for example, that one can have that knowledge. I think this is really cool.

Such experiences probably is what mystics refer to as being empty. Complete and pure emptiness.

Love Itself

The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door--
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door--
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

Then I came back from where I'd been.
My room, it looked the same--
But there was nothing left between
The Nameless and the Name.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I'll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door--
Then Love itself,
Love Itself was gone.
Love Itself was gone.

By Leonard Cohen

Anatman II

I was just doing some reading for my Religious Studies class and I came across some passages about Anatman... I thought to share one in this entry. This particular passage is really just an explanation of anatman. It somehow leads to some spectulations I had about my "reconciliation" of the Creator-God notion and the Buddhist idea of Anatman. Read on:

"Buddhists believe, in fact, that the impermanence of things is a function of their insubstantiality. All persons and things, because dependently originated, are devoid of independent, substantial identities. In this sense, they are said to lack 'selves' or to be essentially marked by the characteristic of 'non-self' (anatman)..." (Gimello 67).

From this passage, "dependently originated" alludes to an origin of some kind. This, if I may take it to mean "created out of something". It is then highly possible for me to reconcile a belief of a Creator-God to this notion of anatman. Anatman is a characteristic or one of the 3 marks of existence, and *not* Reality itself... A belief in a Creator-God can still fit into this framework.

This next sentence on the idea of Anitya (Impermanence), the second mark of existence can further explain what I mean:

"the notion of impermanence, though no substitute for the claimed reality thereof, does inform the Buddhist's mystical experience of reality" (Gimello 66).

This sentence, to me at least, is very clear on the point that the notion of impermanence is *not* equivalent to Reality itself, but it is used as a source for understanding the reality, an instrument of some kind, if you will.

Well, I don't really have a point to make here, but just to clarify my ideas on Anatman that I wrote on my previous entry. Just to give some more information about the marks of existence, since this is what my blog is about.