Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists by Larson Kay

Author:Larson, Kay
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781101572481
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Published: 2012-07-04T16:00:00+00:00

This shimmering image of interpenetration emerges from the “miraculous power” of the Buddha’s samadhi, Suzuki tells us—which naturally makes us want to know what the Buddha’s samadhi actually consisted of. What did the Buddha experience when he sat down during his long night and took apart all the walls in his mind? This miracle, Suzuki says, “was effected by the strength of a great compassionate heart,” which “constitutes the very essence of the [Buddha’s] Samadhi; for compassion is its body…its source…its leader…and the means of expanding itself all over the universe.”

When you walk the Way—when you let go of self-obsession—your mind turns outward toward the other nodes, the other diamonds in the array. The ground of your own mind comes into view—as well as the nature of the human project and its identity with the dust.

His words—including some of his syntax—entered John Cage’s vocabulary and never left.

We have in the West this business of trying to find out, among a plurality of events in time and space, which one is the best. And then thinking of ourselves as separate from that and as desirably moving toward it. But in the Kegan [sic] philosophy which Suzuki taught, each being, whether sentient as we are, or nonsentient as sounds and rocks are, is the Buddha: and that doesn’t mean anything spooky. It simply means that it is at the center of the universe. So that what you have in Kegan [sic] philosophy is an endless plurality of centers, each one world-honored.

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