--- title: Leonard Cohen Dated Marina Abramovic description: 'Now here he was in real life, meeting my pain with his own. It made me feel less alone.' canonical: https://time.com/4570605/marina-abramovic-leonard-cohen/ author: Marina Abramović article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-11-14T22:10:34.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:19.824Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Marina Abramović: My Dinner Date With Leonard Cohen og:description: 'Now here he was in real life, meeting my pain with his own.' og:url: https://time.com/4570605/marina-abramovic-leonard-cohen/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13bb080c4cdcc54/6988ae79cd1bba64ce7031a2/leonard-cohen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Leonard Cohen Relaxes og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Marina Abramović: My Dinner Date With Leonard Cohen twitter:description: 'Now here he was in real life, meeting my pain with his own.' twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta13bb080c4cdcc54/6988ae79cd1bba64ce7031a2/leonard-cohen.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Marina Abramović: My Dinner Date With Leonard Cohen by [Marina Abramović](https://time.com/author/marina-abramovic/) ## Marina Abramović Nov 14, 2016 10:10 PM UTC  Leonard Cohen in London in June 1974. Leonard Cohen in London in June 1974.Michael Putland—Getty Images by [Marina Abramović](https://time.com/author/marina-abramovic/) ## Marina Abramović Nov 14, 2016 10:10 PM UTC I always loved [Leonard Cohen’s music](http://www.vogue.com/13350897/leonard-cohen-birthday/). Once, I went on a date with him. I’d been complaining about my love life to Rufus Wainwright and his husband Jörn Weisbrodt—I’d just been through a bad breakup—and they said, “Why don’t you go out to dinner with Leonard? He’s single.” [Rufus knew Cohen](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/11/11/leonard-cohen-rufus-wainwright) from Montreal, so he phoned him and asked. It happened that I was traveling to Los Angeles for my work, so it was perfect. Leonard came to my hotel, and—I’ll never forget it—there he was waiting in the lobby, this tiny man with a gray flannel shirt, gray trousers, with the fedora. He said, in that voice, “Let’s go to dinner.” We went to dinner. I don’t remember where we ate or what we ate. He took me somewhere, I don’t know. We talked and talked; everything around us disappeared. He told me about the dark times he’d gone through. I’d listened to [so many of his songs](http://time.com/4567693/leonard-cohen-hallelujah-history/), especially after my breakup, listened so closely to that deep, dark voice singing, “I’m your man,” and “There is a crack in everything/That’s how the light gets in.” Now here he was in real life, meeting my pain with his own. It made me feel less alone. I knew he’d been through as much as me, maybe more. [**Watch: Kate McKinnon Sings ‘Hallelujah’ for SNL Cold Open**](http://time.com/4569018/saturday-night-live-hillary-clinton-kate-mckinnon-hallelujah/) He was close to 80 at the time, but he had an incredible vitality — even his descriptions of severe depression were completely alive. He told me how he’d found a Zen master in Los Angeles, an old, old man, close to 100, who’d never heard of Leonard Cohen or his music. Leonard went to the master’s monastery and stayed for a year; when he came back to the real world, his depression got even worse. So he returned to the monastery, and stayed for five years, waking every morning at four to meditate, washing his master’s room and making breakfast, lunch, and dinner for him. Every day. Five years. “Marina,” he said, “one day I woke up, and the depression wasn’t there anymore.” We talked for four hours, but it could have been 30 seconds—the time vanished. I was enchanted to hear about Leonard’s five isolated years of concentration and discipline and spirituality, away from his work, away from everything and everybody except for that very old man. I have gone on many retreats — sometimes for a week or two; once, in Tibet, for three months — but five years was far beyond anything I’d ever attempted. It was a renunciation I’m not sure I would be capable of. Leonard told me that even though he had left the monastery, he still woke up every day at four in the morning to meditate. I looked at him with fresh understanding. This, I suddenly saw, was what gave him that incredible aliveness in the eyes, in the movement of his limbs. He was like a little bird — he just jumped. I had never encountered a presence quite like this. Such aliveness doesn’t just go when the body goes. Leonard is gone, but his voice and his energy will be with us forever. _Abramović is an artist and the author of the memoir_ [Walk Through Walls](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101905042/?tag=timecom-20). ### See Leonard Cohen’s Life in Pictures  Leonard Cohen in 1967. Jack Robinson—Condé Nast/Getty Images  Leonard Cohen performs at the Musikhalle on May 4, 1970 in Hamburg, Germany. Gunter Zint—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen performs at the Isle Of Wight Festival, on Aug. 30 1970. Michael Putland—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen in April 1972 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. GAB Archive/Getty Images  Leonard Cohen in April 1972 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Gijsbert Hanekroot—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen in London in June 1974. Michael Putland—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen on April 25, 1976 in Frankfurt, Germany. Istvan Bajzat—AP  Leonard Cohen in 1985. ullstein bild/Getty Images  Leonard Cohen performs at Het Muziektheater in Amsterdam, Netherlands on April 18, 1988. Frans Schellekens—Redferns  Leonard Cohen in London in 2001. Eamonn McCabe—Getty Images  From left: Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins and Taylor Swift at the 41st Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Ceremony on June 17, 2010 in New York City. Larry Busacca—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in New York City, on March 10, 2008. Jason DeCrow—AP  Leonard Cohen and Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy, attend the 52nd annual GRAMMY Awards-Special Merit Awards on Jan. 30, 2010 in Los Angeles. Frederick M. Brown—Getty Images  Leonard Cohen accepts an award presented by Salman Rushdie at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston, on Feb. 26, 2012. Josh Reynolds—AP  Leonard Cohen at the O2 Arena on Sept. 15, 2013 in London. Simone Joyner—Getty Images ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4570605/marina-abramovic-leonard-cohen/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4570605/marina-abramovic-leonard-cohen/"},"headline":"Marina Abramović: My Dinner Date With Leonard Cohen","datePublished":"2016-11-14T22:10:34.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:19.824Z","description":"'Now here he was in real life, meeting my pain with his own. 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