When we walk slowly, the world can fully appear. Not only are the creatures not frightened away by our haste or aggression, but the fine detail of fern and flower, or devastation and disruption, becomes visible. Many of us hurry along because we do not want to see what is really going on in and around us. We are afraid to let our senses touch the body of suffering or the body of beauty

Kaz's wilder work captures the great beauty of the human heart and the natural world.

Kaz came to Switzerland where I was teaching to share with me [Heart Sutra] wondrous insight. There he and I worked on this new translation - with my part being to help render it into a verse form that would be good to chant. Since I have worked with many dying people over the years and often share the Heart Sutra with them, I found this new version that we created together to be so much more accessible to those who were facing death.

Since we are already Buddhas, happy and suffering Buddhas, wise and confused Buddhas, we are already Buddha.

There is the in-breath and there is the out-breath, and too often we feel like we have to exhale all the time. The inhale is absolutely essential - and then you can exhale.

I met Kaz in the mid 1980s when we invited him and other artists to the Ojai Foundation with Thich Nhat Hanh. I felt an instant connection with him, and since that time we have collaborated on many projects and have become good friends and allies in the work of nonviolence.

I am always cautious about naming the known, as we often forget to hold in regard those whose names will never be known to anyone outside of their close circle.