The Way of It

I don’t consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.

-Leonard Cohen

I corresponded with a famous rabbi
but my teacher caught sight of one of my letters
and silenced me.
“Dear Rabbi,” I wrote him for the last time,
“I do not have the authority or understanding
to speak of these matters.
I was just showing off.
Please forgive me.
Your Jewish brother,
Jikan Eliezer.”

(From Leonard Cohen’s Book of Longing, p. 5)

At the end of the day the teachers are gone, the teachings are gone, the girlfriends are gone, the children are too busy playing with their friends, nobody seems to be paying attention.

What are you going to do?

What is going to be enough?

What is the purpose of this questioning? It’s an invitation, to myself, to join the silence of what sits with me and take 100% responsibility for my own life. Not 99%, or 99.9%. Any % that I leave for someone or something to fulfill is the hook that I use to keep myself bound to the world of “this and that,” to a seemingly safe world, the world of hope and illusion, the world of confusion and suffering.

Standing at the top of the 100 foot pole? Just take the next step.