Sadly, use of ritual can feed that neglect. Knowledge of philosophy can also feed that. It’s a great tragedy. If Buddha came here, if Nagarjuna [a great Indian Buddhist philosopher, circa the second century C.E.] came here, I think they would feel very critical about this; they would give us a big scolding. Nagarjuna would say that all our complex philosophies are not meant just for academics, our elegant rituals are not just for theatrics.
What about those who think Buddhism is simply an unfair rejection of the world? Even today, the pope thinks Buddhism is too depressing and negative.
Most importantly, those people who consider themselves Buddhists must practice the Buddha’s dharma sincerely—that will be the proof of the value of Buddhism. Some Tibetans today also say that in the past, the way of life was that the dharma almost served as a livelihood or a routine profession. The Buddhist was not thinking of nirvana, not caring for liberation, just how to make a living. Officials used it for their lives, monks, nuns and lamas for their lives. Inside, in their inner world, they were like ordinary people, lusting and hating. So the dharma became a poison in this way.
When there is too much focus on the Buddhist institution, and the country goes to waste, that’s what it means when people say Buddhism ruined the country. According to that reality, these accusations become true.
Therefore, the best answer for this criticism is for ourselves to practice sincerely. We can aim for nirvana and Buddhahood. But in the meantime, we can be practical, develop the education field and improve the worldly life in various ways to benefit society and humanity. In this way, we can be fully engaged.
Are there particular dharma teachings that are especially useful for people at different ages—for example, for younger people filled with turbulent emotions or for older people worrying about death?
I don’t think so. Buddha dharma is dealing with emotions. Young and old, the emotional world is the same. Some feelings closely associated with the physical body may differ in emphasis.
Then would you say that young persons benefit from meditating about death as much as older persons do?
Yes, in general. However, just to think about death alone, I don’t know how useful it is. For a materialist who doesn’t believe in future life, meditating on death might develop a bit more contentment, but it won’t bring great benefit. In Buddhism, meditation on death is important in the context of the matter-of-fact expectation of limitless lives and the sense of the possibility to transform our mind while evolving through those lives. The time of this life with liberty and opportunity becomes very important, actually the most precious time; wasting such a lifetime is a great tragedy. So we concentrate and meditate on death and impermanence until we powerfully feel that our precious lives with liberty and opportunity might get wasted if we don’t practice. In this case, since through ultimate wisdom you can attain ultimate freedom and even the exalted state of Buddhahood, you are energized by meditating on impermanence and death. Otherwise, just to do it in a materialist context might just make someone feel demoralized. That would be wrong, don’t you think?
What do you think about the relationship of religion and politics?
I think politics is a technique or method to serve the community and to lead society. And what is the meaning of “religion”? Broadly speaking, religion is the warm heart. All human activities are furthered by the warm heart—the compassionate heart. Every human activity can be positive and also can be a religious activity. As for politics, unfortunately, some people consider that, in politics, there is no morality, it’s just lies, bullying, cheating. That’s not genuine politics. It’s just savagery. Even religious teaching, when conducted with a motivation to deceive, exploit or dominate, is also quite immoral. On a general level in the West, religion means to believe in God the Creator, and with the motivation of serving God, one serves society and engages in politics, serves humanity or society morally as well as politically. And so there is no contradiction.
So in the Western dialogue about church and state . . .
Ah! That’s different. “Church” means the religious institution. Of course that should be separate. Combining them causes too many difficulties. The spirit of democracy, competition and contest, as in the United States, is very important, so if religious leaders were to engage in such contests, it would lead to difficulties. Religious institutions should not get involved in the democratic competition—only individuals.
Turning to Tibet: You have said that Tibetans are basically more jolly and content than most of us in the West. Why?
There are many factors. First, Tibet maintained a small population, so generally speaking survival was not very difficult. The nomads have plenty of meat, plenty of cheese, plenty of milk, no problems. So it seems they can lie down all day; then, when they get hungry, they just get up and kill one yak. Of course, they have plenty of pasture, no boundary at all, everywhere. Then there are the farmers; perhaps they have to work more, but again, there is sufficient land for a small population. So these are economic factors for their contentment.
Then, Tibet had a lot of Buddhist teaching: the teaching of karmic evolution, the teaching of rebirth and the concept of the nature of suffering of the samsara [endless cycle of unhappy lives]. So no matter how difficult this life gets, still we put a lot of hope in the future. In daily life, at least some portion of our mind is thinking about the long-term future, just beginning with the next life. So when you face some difficulty in this life, since your whole mind is not focused only on it, even tragic things can happen, and you’re not so disturbed. When your whole mind, your whole hope, is concentrated on something within this life, then when something happens, you have much more worry, much more anxiety. We often say, when some tragedy happens, it’s all due to karma. In that way, we lay less blame on others; we feel at least less bitter.
BOB DYLAN
by Mikal Gilmore
November 22, 2001
In 1998, when you received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, you said something that surprised me—maybe surprised other people as well. You said, “We didn’t know what we had when we did it, but we did it anyway.” That was interesting because ‘Time Out of Mind’ plays as an album made with purpose and vision, with a consistent mood and set of themes. Was it, in fact, an album you approached with forethought, or was its seeming cohesiveness incidental?
What happened was, I’d been writing down couplets and verses and things, and then putting them together at later times. I had a lot of that—it was starting to pile up—so I thought, “Well, I got all this—maybe, I’ll try to record it.” I’d had good luck with Daniel Lanois [producer of the 1989 album Oh Mercy], so I called him and showed him a lot of the songs. I also familiarized him with the way I wanted the songs to sound. I think I played him some Slim Harpo recordings—early stuff like that. He seemed pretty agreeable to it, and we set aside a certain time and place. But I had a schedule—I only had so much time—and we made that record, Time Out of Mind, that way. It was a little rougher. . . . I wouldn’t say rougher. . . . It was . . . I feel we were lucky to get that record.
Really?
Well, I didn’t go into it with the idea that this was going to be a finished album. It got off the tracks more than a few times, and people got frustrated. I know I did. I know Lanois did. . . . I felt extremely frustrated, because I couldn’t get any of the up-tempo songs that I wanted.
Don’t you think a song like “Cold Irons Bound” certainly has a drive to it?
Yeah, there’s a real drive to it, but it isn’t even close to the way I had it envisioned. I mean, I’m satisfied with what we did. But there were things I had to throw out because this assortment of people just couldn’t lock in on riffs and rhythms all together. I got so frustrated in the studio that I didn’t really dimensionalize the songs. I could’ve if I’d had the willpower. I just didn’t at that time, and so you got to steer it where the event itself wants to go. I feel there was a sameness to the rhythms. It was more like that swampy
, voodoo thing that Lanois is so good at. I just wish I’d been able to get more of a legitimate rhythm-oriented sense into it. I didn’t feel there was any mathematical thing about that record at all. The one beat could’ve been anywhere, when instead, the singer should have been defining where the drum should be. It was tricky trying to steer that ship.
I think that’s why people say Time Out of Mind is sort of dark and foreboding: because we locked into that one dimension in the sound. People say the record deals with mortality—my mortality for some reason! [Laughs] Well, it doesn’t deal with my mortality. It maybe just deals with mortality in general. It’s one thing that we all have in common, isn’t it? . . . You know, I’m not really quite sure why it seems to people that Time Out of Mind is a darker picture. In my mind, there’s nothing dark about it. It’s not like, you know, Dante’s Inferno or something. It doesn’t paint a picture of goblins and goons and grotesque-looking creatures or anything like that.
It was during the final stages of the album that you were hit with a serious swelling around your heart and were laid up in the hospital. You’ve said that that infection was truly painful and debilitating. Did it alter your view of life in any way?
No. No, because it didn’t! You can’t even say something like, “Well, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Even that excuse didn’t work. It was like I learned nothing. I wish I could say I put the time to good use or, you know, got highly educated in something or had some revelations about anything. But I can’t say that any of that happened. I just laid around and then had to wait for my strength to come back.
Do you think that the proximity of your illness to the album’s release helped account for why reviewers saw so many themes of mortality in ‘Time Out of Mind’?
When I recorded that album, the media weren’t paying any attention to me. I was totally outside of it.
True, but the album came out not long after you’d gone through the illness.
It did?
Yes. You were in the hospital in the spring of 1997, and ‘Time Out of Mind’ was released in autumn that same year.
Okay, well, then it could’ve been perceived that way in the organized media. But that would just be characterizing the album, really.
I want to step back a bit, to those years preceding ‘Time Out of Mind.’ First, I’d like to ask you about an occasion at an earlier Grammy Awards, in 1991, when you received a Lifetime Achievement Award. At that point, America was deep into its involvement in the Gulf War. You came out onstage that night with a small band and played a severe version of “Masters of War”—a performance that remains controversial even today. Some critics found it rushed and embarrassing, others thought it was brilliant. Then, after Jack Nicholson presented you the award, you made the following comment: “My daddy [once said], ‘Son, it’s possible to become so defiled in this world that your own mother and father will abandon you. And if that happens, God will always believe in your own ability to mend your ways.’ ” I’ve always thought that was one of the more remarkable things I’ve heard you say. What was going through your mind at that time?
I don’t remember the time and place my father said that to me, and maybe he didn’t say it to me in that exact way. I was probably paraphrasing the whole idea, really—I’m not even sure I paraphrased in the proper context. It might’ve been something that just sort of popped in my head at that time. The only thing I remember about that whole episode, as long as you bring it up, was that I had a fever—like 104. I was extremely sick that night. Not only that, but I was disillusioned with the entire musical community and environment. If I remember correctly, the Grammy people called me months before then and said that they wanted to give me this Lifetime Achievement honor. Well, we all know that they give those things out when you’re old, when you’re nothing, a has-been. Everybody knows that, right? So I wasn’t sure whether it was a compliment or an insult. I wasn’t really sure about it. And then they said, “Here’s what we want to do” . . . I don’t want to name these performers because you know them, but one performer was going to sing “Like a Rolling Stone.” Another performer was going to sing “The Times Are A-Changin’.” Another was going to sing “All Along the Watchtower,” and another was going to sing “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” They were going to sing bits of all these songs, and then they were going to have somebody introduce me, and I would just collect this Lifetime Achievement Award, say a few words and go on my merry way. The performers, they told me, had all agreed to it, so there really wasn’t anything for me to do except show up.
Then the Gulf War broke out. The Grammy people called and said, “Listen, we’re in a tight fix. So-and-so, who was going to sing ‘Times Are A-Changin’,’ is afraid to get on an airplane. So-and-so, who was going to sing ‘Like a Rolling Stone,’ doesn’t want to travel because he just had another baby and he doesn’t want to leave his family.” That’s understandable. But then so-and-so, who was going to sing “It’s All Over, Baby Blue,” was in Africa and didn’t want to take a chance flying to New York, and so-and-so, who was going to sing “All Along the Watchtower,” wasn’t sure he wanted to be at any high-visibility place right then, because it may be a little dangerous. So, they said, “Could you come and sing? Could you fill the time?” And I said, “What about the guy who’s going to introduce me [Jack Nicholson]?” They said, “He’s okay. He’s coming.” Anyway, I got disillusioned with all the characters at that time—with their inner character and their ability to be able to keep their word and their idealism and their insecurity. All the ones that have the gall to thrust their tortured inner psyches on an outer world but can’t at least be true to their word. From that point on, that’s what the music business and all the people in it represented to me. I just lost all respect for them. There’s a few that are decent and God-fearing and will stand up in a righteous way. But I wouldn’t want to count on most of them. And maybe me singing “Masters of War” . . . I’ve said before that song’s got nothing to do with being antiwar. It has more to do with the military industrial complex that Eisenhower was talking about. Anyway, I went up and did that, but I was sick, and I felt they put me through a whole lot of trouble over nothing. I just tried to disguise myself the best I could. That was more along the line of . . . you know, the press was finding me irrelevant then, and it couldn’t have happened at a better time, really, because I wouldn’t have wanted to have been relevant. I wouldn’t have wanted to be someone that the press was examining—every move. I wouldn’t have ever been able to develop again in any kind of artistic way.
But certainly you knew by playing “Masters of War” at the height of the Gulf War, it would be received a certain way.
Yeah, but I wasn’t looking at it that way. I knew the lyrics of the song were holding up, and I brought maybe two or three ferocious guitar players, you know? And I always had a song for any occasion.
Truthfully, I was just disgusted in having to be there after they told me what they intended to do and then backed out. I probably shouldn’t have even gone myself, and I wouldn’t have gone, except the other guy [Nicholson] was true to his word. [Taps his fingers rapidly on the tabletop]
What about that statement you made, about the wisdom your father had shared with you? It could almost be read as a personal statement—you talking about your own life. Or was it about the world around you?
I was thinking more in terms of, like, we’re living in a Machiavellian world, whether we like it or we don’t. Any act that’s immoral, as long as it succeeds, it’s all right. To apply that type of meaning to the way I was feeling that night probably has more to do with it than any kind of conscious effort to bring out some religiosity, or any kind of biblical saying about God, one way or another. You hear a lot about God these days: God, the beneficent; God, the all-great; God, the Almighty; God, the most powerful; God, the giver of life; God, the creator of death. I mean, we’re hearing about God all the time, so we better learn how to deal with it. But if we know anything about God,
God is arbitrary. So people better be able to deal with that, too.
Some people have claimed starting in the 1990s your shows grew more and more musical. You’ve opened the songs up to more instrumental exploration and new textures and rhythmic shifts—like you’re trying to stretch or reinvent then. And it seems that some of your most impassioned and affecting performances, from night to night, are your covers of traditional folk songs.
Folk music is where it all starts and in many ways ends. If you don’t have that foundation, or if you’re not knowledgeable about it and you don’t know how to control that, and you don’t feel historically tied to it, then what you’re doing is not going to be as strong as it could be. Of course, it helps to have been born in a certain era because it would’ve been closer to you, or it helps to be a part of the culture when it was happening. It’s not the same thing, relating to something second- or thirdhand off of a record.
You heard records where you could, but mostly you heard other performers. All those people, you could hear the actual people singing those ballads. Clarence Ashley, Doc Watson, Dock Boggs, the Memphis Jug Band, Furry Lewis—you could see those people live and in person. They were around.
The Rolling Stone interviews Page 42