Indeterminacy 83

During recent years Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki has done
a great deal of lecturing at Columbia University.
First he was in the Department of Religion, then
somewhere else. Finally he settled down on the
seventh floor of Philosophy Hall. The room had
windows on two sides, a large table in the middle
with ash trays. There were chairs around the table
and next to the walls. These were always filled with
people listening, and there were generally a few
people standing near the door. The two or three
people who took the class for credit sat in chairs
around the table. The time was four to seven. During
this period most people now and then took a little
nap. Suzuki never spoke loudly. When the weather was
good the windows were open, and the airplanes
leaving La Guardia flew directly overhead,
drowning out from time to time whatever he had to
say. He never repeated what had been said
during the passage of the airplane. Three lectures
I remember in particular. While he was giving
them I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what
he was saying. It was a week or so later,
while I was walking in the woods looking for
mushrooms, that it all dawned on me.

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 84

There was a lady
in
Suzuki’s class

who said
once,


“I have great
difficulty
reading the sermons
of
Meister Eckhart,


because

of all the Christian imagery.”


Dr. Suzuki said,


“That difficulty will disappear.”

- John Cage

Indeterminacy 116

There was an international
conference of philosophers in
Hawaii on the
subject of Reality.
For
three days Daisetz Teitaro
Suzuki said nothing.

Finally the chairman turned
to him and asked,
“Dr. Suzuki,
would
you say this table
around which we are sitting
is real?”
Suzuki raised his head
and said Yes.
The
chairman asked in what
sense Suzuki thought the
table was real.

Suzuki said,
“In every sense.”

- John Cage