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Published on: 11/7/2007
Last Visited: 11/7/2007
By Sarah Hampson
...
Almost eight years ago, Cohen came down from Mount Baldy, outside of Los Angeles, California, where he had secluded himself at a Buddhist monastery under the tutelage of Zen master Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi since 1993.He is back in the spotlight with new work.In 2004, he released his seventeenth album, Dear Heather.Earlier this year, expanded editions of his first three albums hit the market, as did the critically acclaimed CD, Blue Alert, that he worked on with his lover, Hawaii-born songstress Anjani Thomas.An exhibition of artwork appeared in June.He acknowledges that his increased creative activity is partly to compensate for the millions he lost in royalties at the hands of his former manager, but there's something different about Cohen.
He seems at ease.He exudes a calmness, as if his age-and more than forty years of study with Sasaki Roshi-have brought him clarity and peace.There is nothing off limits in a discussion with him.Over a bottle of Château Maucaillou, Greek bread, a selection of Quebec cheeses, and a fresh cherry pie, bought for the occasion from the local St. Laurent Boulevard merchants, you learn that he prefers to sleep alone; that he is no longer looking for another woman; the real reason he secluded himself in a Buddhist monastery for almost five years; and that a small, faded portrait of Saint Catherine Tekakwitha, the seventeenth-century native woman and heroine of his novel Beautiful Losers, hangs on the wall in his kitchen, above a table holding a fifties radio and a telephone with on oversize dial pad.He lives in the world but his space is spare.
Excerpted from: He Has Tried in His Way to Be Free , Sarah Hampson, Shambhala Sun, November 2007.
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