One day, [Soen Nakagawa] and his classmates at Hiroshima Junior High School pooled their pocket money to purchase a recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, which had just been made available in Japan. Overwhelmed by the experience of listening to it, he shivered for three days afterward; throughout his life, he was passionately fond of this and other masterpieces by Beethoven.
–Eido T. Shimano, Endless Vow: The Zen Path of Soen Nakagawa, 10
