relook at Book of Mercy

[lazariuk]

I was wondering how to begin looking at Book of Mercy from the beginning and then I came across something that Mat wrote in another thread.

I'm just prattl'ing on Jack, pay no heed.

It was what I needed to start because it said something to me about a curiosity I had concerning something on the cover of the book. Why Leonard partly used the color gold for his entwined hearts.
My attention seems to have a life of it's own and if someone told me to pay no attention to something chances are that is exactly where my attention will go. It went.
So to the words "I'm just prattling on" I pictured an aimless wandering river and I pictured the glittering of the water and this reminded me of a little poem I once wrote to describe something about the way my attention works.
"I was born like this
I am one of the litter
Born to follow
Whatever would glitter"
Then I thought that there is nothing that glitters better than gold and so I thought that maybe Leonard used gold to attract someone like me to his book, someone with a lot of curiosity. Then I was reminded of a poem by Robert Frost that begins with:

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.

That got me thinking that every single one of us is born with a beautiful curiosity and then I thought that maybe the color gold is being used to attract all of us to looking at this book with a bit of a childlike curiosity. I liked the sound of that better and it seemed to suit something that leonard once said about this book and that was that it was kind of a sunday school thing.
One of the other thoughts that I had about the use of the color gold which I think now was a mistake was that I thought it had something to do with money.

Frost's poem ends with "nothing gold can stay"
It might be crazy and absolutely wrong to think it can be regained, but what else have we got to do while we are waiting for the miracle?

[Manna]

[lazariuk]

When looking back on what was said during the first go around I saw that it was:

LC as dedication in Book of Mercy wrote:
for my teacher

Doesn't it make it a buddhist book right from the start?

I wonder if it was assumed that Roshi was that teacher.

I don't think it was.
I think it was Ramesh S. Balsekar for a number of reasons.

Leonard never seemed to have a problem with using the name Roshi when he meant Roshi and used the name often in poems and writings. If it was dedicated to Roshi I think he would have written "for Roshi"

I don't ever remember him referring to Roshi as his teacher. I think friend maybe and a lot of other things but I don't remember him using the word teacher. He did say that he never understood Roshi and I think a teacher is someone who you understand.

In one of his songs where he uses the word teacher he is speaking of an Indian teacher and Ramesh S. Balsekar is an Indian teacher.

During the time when Anjani and Leonard were becoming closer and she was going through some hard times she said that he gave her a book that she found to be very helpful. The book was by Ramesh S. Balsekar. If Leonard cared for Anjani, and it seems like he does, would he not want to pass on to her something that he knew from experience would be helpful?

It is no secret that Leonard often visited Ramesh S. Balsekar and spent time with him and that Ramesh S. Balsekar is a teacher and so i think it is at least possible that Ramesh S. Balsekar is who he is referring to.

[lazariuk]

The book begins with the words

I stopped to listen

In much of Leonard's songs and writing there seems to be this stopping. The book before was "Death of a Lady's Man" Death is a stopping.
One of his songs that he said that he was very happy he wrote had the words
"If it be your will, that I sing no more"
That seems to point to a stopping.

Book of Mercy has a mysterious stop in it. It is divided into Part 1 and Part 2. His other books didn't have that division, that I know of. Does "Book of Longing" ?

My curiousity is drawn toward what might have happened between part 1 and part 2.

[lazariuk]

The book begins with the words

I stopped to listen

In the book before this one he is speaking about the death of a man and one of the things that the man is doing is preaching to birds. That is something that Leonard has been known to do.
When I look at this line "I stopped to listen" it connects me to the song Anthem which begins with

"The birds they sang
at the break of day
start again,
I heard them say"

Now we have the birds preaching to him which is quite a difference.
The difference might be in the listening.

How do you listen well?
Recently I stumbled upon what has been called the golden rule of communication or "Miller's Law" and it goes like this:

To understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to imagine what it could be true of. --Miller's Law

That seems pretty good to me but I think I would replace the "you must assume" with the word "know" and the "could be" with "is"
What do others think? How do you listen well?

[lazariuk]

I don't ever remember him referring to Roshi as his teacher.

Ah Ha !

A mistake. There were many times Leonard spoke of Roshi as his teacher.

[Manna]

when he listened, what did he stop?
Do you think he might have worded it, "I began to listen" and have the same meaning?

[lazariuk]

when he listened, what did he stop?
Do you think he might have worded it, "I began to listen" and have the same meaning?

I like to experiment and so do you. I stopped to listen. When I did it occurred to me that I had done this before. I stopped lots of times to listen. Once I stopped speaking for five weeks to listen. When I remember that time I remember thinking at that time that I had done that before. Stopping to listen.

Now I wonder how far back it goes. Was I stopping to listen before I learned to speak? When did it start that you need to stop to listen?

I began to listen wouldn't have the same meaning because the listening once didn't involve words or stopping, and "I began to listen" are words that would not adequately describe what was wordless.

Does that make sense to you?

[Manna]

I stopped to listen.

what did you stop?
did you stop walking? smoking? looking? did you stop everything?
(everything else, that is, that you could consciously stop?)
Focusing all your conscious energy on the listening?

[Manna]

I think the to listen implies the kind of beginning I was thinking of.

[lazariuk]

what did you stop?
did you stop walking? smoking? looking? did you stop everything?
(everything else, that is, that you could consciously stop?)
Focusing all your conscious energy on the listening?

Yes
But the problem was that what I was listening for didn't stop and continued in all the things and people that I turned away from to listen.

[abby]

I'm gonna make it a point not to read what's been written before I came along about what I'm going to write about and here I am coming along without any idea what's appropriate.

I don't know who 'he' is and I don't know what 'he' was doing in Psalm 1. 'I' is safely Leonard. I'm not much interested in who he might be unless you tell me you know.

Leonard heard 'him' going about whatever work he was going about while Leonard himself was doing something else or the same thing but separately. Upon hearing, he stopped what he was doing and tried to figure out whether he was going to get a little respite from his general condition. (We're all so lonely.) After the letdown of not being spared, he again hears the possibility of less ache. Perhaps then he becomes aware of his longing. He abandons (turns his attention from) himself to not knowing when he should be surrendering (no crushing involved). To try to deal with the ridiculous situation in which he finds himself, he turns to strategy. Strategies can fail. A more genuine, in-the-moment way of coping is called for. He says he wasted years doing this. The stopping and starting? The listening? Trying to let go? Coming up with strategies?

I've wasted a lot of time waiting for something that hasn't happened and may never happen, also failing to be where I am.

But it needn't be so hard. Instead of indulging the pride of waiting, he does the crazy thing of asking for help. (I ache. Comfort me.) Does this mean he prays? Or that he begs the nameless other man? Whichever, it doesn't immediately summon the desired end- the universe's agenda is not the same as ours. We can't offer much. What is the significance of buttons in particular? I offer what small thing I can because what else am I to do when asking for such a serious thing as love? There is no way he will be able to match the gift he is receiving; why try? The situation doesn't look entirely promising, and he's worried about whether this is the real thing. Is the other man going to get to the throne already? Is it going to stop hurting so much?

The angels are either backup singers or people in attendance who are also important for the ceremony or heavenly things. Either way, they are a very important part of how what is about to happen has the potential to move its witness. Do they know he does not deserve what he is about to receive? They agree that the ceremony is the right thing for the moment at hand. Are they acting the part? Does the energy of trying (as the angels agree to do) turn the scene into a genuine thing, just as when we act like the person we want to be we find that what comes of it is just (about?) as good as if we were the person we want to be?

With what the angels do, the scene is turned into a genuine thing; 'the court is established on beams of golden symmetry...' The ceremony has begun and it has begun right. Symmetry requires two parts, so one part is the genuine thing and what is the other part? The agreement to try it out and see what happens?

Golden symmetry is something desirable. Has a miracle occurred? Who knows, but in the maybe miraculous moment, there is Leonard, still in the world, still who he was before the delicate transition. Somebody tell me what you know of golden symmetry.

In the moments in which we are granted the kind of experience that is happening here, we necessarily remain so totally ourselves that, what, the experience can't be total and has to be cracked?

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Abby

[lizzytysh]

Not much of a response to your interesting post, but I have to get ready to leave. Just wanted to comment on two things.

First, I can sure relate to this:

I've wasted a lot of time waiting for something that hasn't happened and may never happen, also failing to be where I am.

Second, I've never heard the phrase "golden symmetry" and, until I have time to Google it later, I hope someone else will expound. It sounds like something I ought to have been aware of my entire life, for my life to have gone better. Such a beautiful phrase.


~ Lizzy

[lazariuk]

Somebody tell me what you know of golden symmetry.

The tiny little bit that I know about symmetry is that it is the result of that mysterious force in nature called gravity. When attraction is occuring as in spheres organizing themselves around a center sphere they naturally move toward symmetry. This is because gravity is unidirectional as oppose to radiation forces which are omnidirectional, which they seem to be counterbalancing. There is also something about moments of near perfect symmetry not being able to last long.

[Manna]

I know a little about something called the golden ratio. It is a relationship between two numbers such that (x + y)/x = x/y. The numbers 1 and 1.6 are pretty close, but the real answer for the other number, when one number is 1, is an irrational number, like pi. This ratio is considered by some artists and architects to be very important for composition.