I recently watched the dvd Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man, a documentary/tribute concert about singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen. He is interviewed on various topics between the songs, and at one point he talks about becoming a Zen monk and his relationship with his Zen teacher, who he refers to by the honorific "Roshi." I loved one particular comment he made about his friendship with his Zen teacher, as it speaks to spiritual and transformative work:
"[Roshi] became a part of my life and a deep friend in the real sense
of friendship: someone who really cared about – or didn't care, I'm
not quite sure which it is – who deeply didn't care about who I was.
Therefore who I was began to wither, and the less I was of who I was,
the better I felt."
In any work of transformation we challenge what is familiar, what we take to be "me." In transformative bodywork like Rolfing®, we shift the familiar felt sense of the body, and the challenge in the process is to let yourself become the someone who is possible in that body that feels different. Openess to the process can result not only in having a "different" body - one that is better aligned in gravity, more open to energy flow, more spacious and lifted - but in transformation rippling through your life as other old and familiar patterns shift and the possibility for what is new and authentic arises.
In spiritual work, we challenge our familiar self images, the "me" who one takes oneself to be. As Cohen indicates, the less you are identified with who you are, the less you care about (i.e., are attached to) who you take yourself to be, the more space there is for true change. Thus, our true spiritual friends are those who are deeply disinterested in our ego self images, and instead curious about what else is there when we create the space for something more - or something less? - to arise.
I had the great good fortune to see Leonard Cohen perform in Seattle last month. What an amazing singer/performer/being.
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