Kay Larson > Quotes

“Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate life’s secrets. It’s the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather our identification with our own ego: our divided, dualistic, cramped view of things. ‘We are too ego-centered,’ Suzuki tells Cage.’ The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up to the time we finally pass away.”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“Good music can act as a guide to good living.”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“So it is with the places preparing to teach us. It's only when the heart begins to beat wildly and without pattern—when it begins to realize its boundlessness—that its newly adamant pulse bangs on the walls of its cage and is bruised by its enclosure... To feel the heart pound is only the beginning. Next is to feel the hurt—the tearing of the psyche—the prelude of entry into the place one has always feared. One fears that place because of being drawn to it, loving it, and wanting to be taught by it. Without the need to be taught, who would feel the psyche rip? Without the bruise, who would know where the walls are?”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“Suffering builds character and impels you to penetrate life’s secrets. It’s the path of great artists, great religious leaders, great social reformers. The problem is not suffering per se, but rather our identification with our own ego: our divided, dualistic, cramped view of things. “We are too ego-centered,” Suzuki tells Cage. “The ego-shell in which we live is the hardest thing to outgrow. We seem to carry it all the time from childhood up to the time we finally pass away.”
Adolescent love gives us the first chance to break the shell. Sexual love makes the ego lose itself in the object it loves. “When the ego-shell is broken and the ‘other’ is taken into its own body, we can say that the ego has denied itself or that the ego has taken its first steps towards the infinite.…The religious consciousness is now fully awakened, and all the possible ways of escaping from the struggle or bringing it to an end are most earnestly sought in every direction. Books are read, lectures are attended, sermons are greedily taken in, and various religious exercises or disciplines are tried.”

Suzuki says that sexual love is a vehicle of liberation? A crack in the ego shell? A path to the infinite?
At this point, if I were Cage, I would buy the book and take it home.”
― Kay Larson

“In this way, Cage linked his life and his music. Life is filled with uncertainty. Chance events happen to us all. Each of us must take responsibility and make decisions. None of us should be imposing our ego image on others. Most music tries to control its circumstances, just as most of us do. But there’s another way to live. Accept indeterminacy as a principle, and you see your life in a new light, as a series of seemingly unrelated jewel-like stories within a dazzling setting of change and transformation. Recognize that you don’t know where you stand, and you will begin to watch where you put your feet. That’s when a path appears.”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“My intention has been, often, to say what I had to say in a way that would exemplify it; that would, conceivably, permit the listener to experience what I had to say rather than just hear about it. —John Cage”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“... tastes, memory, and emotions have to be weakened;”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists

“Recognize that you don't know where you stand, and you will begin to watch where you put your feet. That's when a path appears.”
― Kay Larson

“I determined to consider a piece of music only half done when I completed a manuscript. It was my responsibility to finish it by getting it played.…”
― Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists