Religion is commodified; the educational system is a sham; and yet,[Bob] Dylan wonders, everyone has to stand naked sometime.

Jay Michaelson

Categorized in : Educational Bob Naked

The Buddha’s dharma didn’t teach peace and relaxation; it taught awakening—often rude awakening.

rude awakening relaxation

All relaxation does is allow the truth to be felt. The mind is cleared, like a dirty window wiped clean, and the magnitude of what we might ordinarily take for granted inspires tears.

relaxation inspire dirty

Sometimes, sitting there on the cushion failing to watch your breath, it can feel like you’re the only weirdo weird enough to be wasting your time in this way. But you’re not! There are generations of weirdos, monasteries full of them, and we have the benefit of their accumulated wisdom.

generations sitting watches

[Bob] Dylan thus deserves the Nobel Prize, not just for "new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," as the Nobel committee aptly described his work, but also for embodying the contradictions within it.

bob expression song

There’s no path to liberation that doesn’t pass through the shado... by Jay Michaelson

There’s no path to liberation that doesn’t pass through the shadow.

liberation shadow path

What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving c... by Jay Michaelson

What a miracle, that all we have to do to be beautifully loving creatures is just relax and allow.

relax creatures miracle

At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all. by Jay Michaelson

At the last stages of the journey, there’s no journey at all.

stage lasts journey

Unlike many Sixties rockers,[Bob] Dylan sang about getting old, about broken dreams. His return to roots music pointed the way for many of his contemporaries to forsake trying to sound 'current' and to instead make music that would stand the test of time.

broken roots dream

Weirdly, by the way,[Bob] Dylan also managed to write several beautiful love songs, like "To Make You Feel My Love" (covered by Adele, Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, and who knows who else) and "Most of the Time." Go figure.

writing song beautiful

The most recent incarnation of [Bob] Dylan has been the traveling journeyman/ charlatan who sings roots music, snarls dark lyrics that make "All Along the Watchtower" sound like a Disney tune, hosts an old-school radio show, and turns up in some unusual places, like ads for Chrysler and Victoria's Secret.

roots dark school

There has been a ton of excellent music in this period (along with a few misses), evoking scenes like a bar-room brawl at a border-town dive, a washed-up singer in a smoky lounge, and the scenes of violence in Bob Dylan latter-day music videos.I think the ethos of this period is best summed up in the 2001 song "Summer Days".

summer song thinking

In late [Bob] Dylan, music is the key to immortality, even though... by Jay Michaelson

In late [Bob] Dylan, music is the key to immortality, even though the summer days are long gone.

keys summer long

[Bob] Dylan's many quotations from classic American roots music (that song is from an album aptly titled Love and Theft) join the aging poet to a tradition that preceded him and hopefully will outlive him as well.

bob roots song

More of the symbols are stock (does [Bob] Dylan really have hogs lying out in the mud somewhere? I doubt it), but that's the point.

bob doubt lying

The best songs of this [modern] period - the apocalyptic "High Water," for example - return [Bob] Dylan to where he was in his first phase, updating and transforming American traditional music.

phases song water

Except in these latter-day songs, [Bob] Dylan is a grizzled old prophet who's already been to hell and back.

hell-and-back bob song

[Bob] Dylan, like Johnny Cash and only a handful of others, simultaneously embodies the American dream and the harsh wake-up call that comes after it.

cash bob dream

While [Bob] Dylan's folk fans thought he was selling out [in 1965-67], actually Dylan was lodging a stronger, deeper critique of American hypocrisy.

stronger fans hypocrisy

[Bob] Dylan would cut out phrases from magazines and then paste t... by Jay Michaelson

[Bob] Dylan would cut out phrases from magazines and then paste them together.

phrases cutting together

I thought that coming out was going to be the end of my religious life but actually it was the beginning. Because it only afterwards that I could be honest about who I was, what I wanted, how I understood spirituality.

spirituality honest religious