A Dark Place.

Sorry I haven’t written a blog recently, but I have been in a dark place. Yes, the cupboard under the stairs. It is only eleven days now until I go to Glastonbury, so I thought it was high time to dig out my tent, rucksack and sleeping bag. I haven’t used them for two years, but they all seem to be in good order. I’ll take them outside for a good airing once it stops raining. It has rained for days, almost non-stop. I’m not worried about that though. I would rather it rained now and not during Glasto. I got my official letter of invitation from Fiona who is in charge of the recycling crew today, so I’m getting quite excited. I’ll study the line-up in the next couple of days and let you know who I hope to see. I ended up sorting out that cupboard for a whole couple of hours and threw out loads of stuff that had accumulated in there over the last few years. I felt quite pleased that I had achieved something.

I haven’t got much other news. I found a few interesting books on my travels. One was a signed first USA edition of The Falls by Joyce Carol Oates. She is a prolific American author. I have never read any of her books, but I thought it might be worth a few quid as it is signed. It’s not worth as much as I hoped though. I think she must do a lot of book signings.

 I also found a nice biography of James Taylor which I might actually read because he is one of my favourite singer-songwriters. A Glimpse Of Nothingness is a nice hardback copy from 1975 written by a Dutch man about his life in an American Zen community. I have started reading that and it’s very interesting. Finally, I found a first edition of a book called Journey Of Insight Meditation by Eric Lerner.

One of the interesting things about this writer is that for forty years he was a close friend and neighbour of Leonard Cohen. As you know Cohen was Jewish but interested in other religions as well. When he was asked how he could be Jewish and practice Zen Buddhism he replied, "Allen Ginsberg asked me the same question many years ago", he said. "Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity. So theologically there is no challenge to any Jewish belief." Cohen was involved with Buddhism beginning in the 1970s and was ordained a Buddhist monk in 1996 but he continued to consider himself Jewish: "I'm not looking for a new religion.

 I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism." Beginning in the late 1970s, Cohen was associated with Buddhist monk and rōshi (venerable teacher) Kyozan Joshu Sasaki who regularly visited him at Mount Baldy Zen Center and served  as his personal assistant during Cohen's period of reclusion at Mount Baldy monastery in the 1990s. Eric Lerner published another book in 2018 about his friendship with Leonard called Matters Of Vital Interest. I’ll look out for that book as well because I wouldn’t mind reading it.

I can’t think of anything else to tell you about at the moment, but if anything exciting happens you will be the first to know. See you later.

Photo taken from official Glastonbury website today.