photo by Lisa Law Brief Memories
Jack Van Allen - excerpt from his interview When I first started doing serious casting about 1969, I went to Suzuki Roshi and said I'd like to make a bronze bell for Tassajara and he looked at me kinda funny and he said, "What does the bell sound like?" and I thought about it for a minute and I said, "Gee, I don't really know." It felt like a koan, though I had no knowledge of koans. I had just started sitting very intermittently around '67 at Sokoji. Then I said, "What should it sound like?" and he said, "What will it sound like?" And I said, "high or low?" and he said, "deep," with a deep voice. I carried that around for the longest time and I could never get him to talk about it. I'd ask him about it and he wouldn't say anything. There was no response - well, he did laugh at one point. But he'd gotten me engaged with... with... something. |