Re: Re: OT Now We Will Hear Freedom

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

On 7/22/64 11:59 AM, Jeff Duke wrote:
> From a book "Silence: Lectures and Writings" by John Cage
> page 87: http://tinyurl.com/283p4vq
> 
>http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0819560286
> 
> 
><http://www.amazon.com/gp/search?index=books&linkCode=qs&keywords=0819560286>

I have to chime in proudly and say that I have a first edition copy of 
that amazing book,
signed by Cage himself for me when I got a chance to meet and talk to him
briefly in the early 70's at UCSC when he came to lecture.

His zen stories about mushroom hunting are worth the price of admission.

They led me to the amazing book of Zen stories called Zen Bones, Zen Flesh.
The 100 Zen Stories in that three in one book are amongst the best 
things I ever
read.     They all, to me,  relate directly to music.

While we are at it,  when I have a student who is really special and 
finally gets to that
point where they fall in love with (or first learn to wrestle with) the 
notion of practicing
a simple thing over and over again,  I always buy them a copy of
Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginners Mind.   This is not D.T. Suzuki, the 
popularizer of Zen in the
witness, but the Suzuki who ran the Zen Center in San Francisco for many 
years.

He refused to write a book so his students finally transcribed a talk he 
once gave on
how to meditate.

If you take the word 'zazen' (the meditative practise of following one's 
breath in and out used in
Zen meditation) and substitute the word  'practise' (as in musical 
practise) it is the best book
ever written, imho, on how to successfully practise, especially vis a 
viz the minds tendency
to wander.

Absolutely a desert island book for musicians,  I think.

rick walker