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| Joan Baez was a cool hippie chick, an early and enduring American folk singer (Family This) |
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| Zen monk Leonard Cohen, Los Angeles |
FADED BLUE DENIM
By Seven
FAMOUS BLUE RAINCOAT
By Leonard Cohen
It's foreign, the mourning, the dead of December
It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm singing to say or to see if you're better
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
L.A. is warm, yet I dislike where I'm dying
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's sound on Sulfur Street, I think it's seething
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening
It seems that you're building
I hear that you're building
Your home away in the woods
Your little house deep in the desert
You're living for new things now
You're living for nothing now
I hope you're assembling some kind of book
I hope you're keeping some kind of record
Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
They said their Hero left it right here
She said that you gave it to her
The night He made it up there
That night that you planned to go clear
Do you think it compares?
Did you ever go clear?
Woe, the last light I saw through, you seemed such a wonder
Oh, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your plain paisley print shirt was billowy and an aura
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
Seemed a creation of some sinewy tie-dye stain
You'd been to the station to meet every train
But then you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated me to your back
And you treated my woman
A dander of your former life
To a flake of your life
And when I could relax
And when she came back
I saw things not as I might
She was nobody's wife
'ell, a dream and you're there, a thin paisley leaf
Well, I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin hippie treat
One more thin gypsy thief
'ell it seems Jains awake
Well, I see Jane's awake
They offer regards
She sends her regard
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| How to attain zen? Just sit and sit and... |
What can I offer my brothers, such splitters*?
And what can I tell you my brother, my killer?
What can I possibly say?
What can I possibly say?
They'll say I missed the mark. I'll say I was see through
I guess that I miss you. I guess I forgive you
I'm sad you would not point The Way
I'm glad you stood in my way
Though you came by here
If you ever come by here
For Jains more than me
For Jane or for me
Well, your ex is sinking
Well, your enemy is sleeping
While his is set free
And his woman is free
Woe, no thanks for the trouble
Yes, and thanks for the trouble
Now you've left me behind
You took from her eyes
I may be here for good
I thought it was there for good
So I better try
So I never tried
Ha, Jains came by with a Doctrine to compare
And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
They said their Hero left it right here
She said that you gave it to her
The night He made it up there
That night that you planned to go clear
Sincerely, El Moanin'
Sincerely, L. Cohen
*Early British scholars in India came to regard Jains as a breakaway school of Buddhism because there were too many similarities between Buddhism and Jainism for it to be chance. The idea is that one group -- ahimsa-living vegetarians, practicing severe austerities, sky clad, pursuing nonpossession of anything (physical detachment). But early Buddhists would think this a funny breakaway school because they say the right things and claim the right motives but do not live up to their lofty ideals. Instead, if they had wanted to follow the Great Hero (Mahavira, one of many epithets for the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama), they would not follow Vardhamma the Jain (the Nigantha Nataputta in Buddhist literature) but instead practice the Middle Way and avoid extremes and thereby arrive at real moksha (spiritual liberation), which the historical Buddha said was nirvana (nirodha, cessation, the end of all ignorance, rebirth, and suffering). In place of this, Jains cling to the idea of an eternal soul or self just like most other religions and regard rebirth in one final heavenly world as the ideal, the end of all further rebirth. But all worlds in samsara, the cycle, are impermanent, nonself (impersonal), and utterly incapable of fulfilling or satisfying or being completely free of suffering/disappointment. Only nirvana, the unconditioned element, can do that. So in this sense and for this reason, Jains can be seen as "splitters," disgruntled ex-Buddhist monastics who tried to make a better school of Buddhism that eventually cut all ties and came up with a founder and leader that looks almost exactly like the Buddha, except that he's naked (sky clad) and has a slightly different back story and somewhat different Dharma/Doctrine to teach, a different means of reaching liberation. "Nigantha" means "the owners of nothing," and Nataputta is Mahavira the Jain's personal name ("Son of Nata").
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