[…] I had thought that finding out what was really going on would require a lot of self-denial. Instead, it was more a matter of noticing what I really, really wanted. It was simply more interesting to me than the other options.
~ John Tarrant
slip:4a1576.
[…] I just stumbled across [koans] in a book. They looked to be a kind of Chinese poetry. It was at a time when managing my mind had come to seem like a really good idea. And I needed a method. I knew immediately that koans might help. It was as if I held out my hand to see if it was raining and a yellow ball fell into my palm.
~ John Tarrant
slip:4a1571.
I took [Judith Wright’s] reply to mean that for certain kinds of knowledge you have to undertake a journey. It isn’t like pouring water into a bucket—a process by which neither water nor bucket is much changed—It seemed that if I took this journey I would be utterly changed. And before setting out, I couldn’t predict what that change would be.
~ John Tarrant, from Bring Me the Rhinoceros
slip:4a1566.