Or is that a format problem?Interesting
I never suggested that Jikan meant 'The Silent One'
that somehow got into the air
and was taken up by journalists –
whenever I've been asked
I've given Roshi's bad English translation
which is something like:
"ordinary silence, normal silence, just ok
everything don't sweat it silence"
I think LC writes in that telegrafic form 
I ask him about the graphic signatures, or chops, as he refers to them, that he designed and stamps onto several of the drawings. Perhaps they are too private to explain. They look like a secret code. “Not at all. Not at all,” he murmurs. “This one is the old Chinese writing of my monk’s name, Jikhan,” he says, pointing to one. “It got into the press as ‘the silent one,’ but it just means ordinary silence.” The poet as an absence of communication. Roshi, who assigns the names, likes irony, presumably.
“Yes, could be,” Cohen says. A beat of silence. “Since Roshi doesn’t speak English, it’s almost impossible to discern what he means.”
“These two interlocking hearts I designed for the cover of Book of Mercy,” his 1984 poetry collection, he says, moving along as he describes another chop. “I established this Order of the Unified Heart, that is a kind of dream of an order. There is no organization. There’s no hierarchy. There’s just a pin for people of a very broadly designated similar intent.”
“And yours is?”
He thinks for a minute. “To just make things better on a very personal level,” he says. “You’re just not scattered all over the place. There is a tiny moment when you might gather around some decent intention.”
“And what has been your most decent intention?”
He places his hands on the edge of the table. “I can’t think of any right now. There must be one or two.”
“Beauty, maybe.”
“Beauty, certainly,” he responds.
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