Many people [still] believe that at the time of your death, 1,000 Buddhas show up and welcome you into the paradise state.

I don't know how many serious Christians exist here in America, but the Japanese, the younger generation is leaving the Buddhist religion mentality behind.

Life is one passage and then you keep moving into another state. It's like you might be reborn, but the process of being born you won't remember - the same way that the dying process is a slow movement from consciousness to unconsciousness.

It's pre-photography, a fossilization of time, Americans have done the Zen garden to death. I wanted to do something different.

I don't love the postmodern statement: "You shouldn't be spiritual if you are the artist."

Many people [still] believe that at the time of your death, 1,000 Buddhas show up and welcome you into the paradise state.

One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious.