You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.

I read Eve Ensler and thought it was fabulous. Not only that, but it was really the only thing I could relate to about cancer.

That daydreaming seemed important at the time, but when I asked my teacher Katagiri Roshi about it, he said, "Oh, it's just laziness. Get to work." But as for discipline, I don't even use that word. I think more about passion or love. What I've really learned is the way the mind moves, and how the mind works. Rather than discipline, I know how to seduce my mind.

The odd thing is, that I wrote The Great Spring while I had cancer and it's not about cancer. It was after I was done with cancer that I wrote a book about it.

That's very nice if they want to publish you, but don't pay too much attention to it. It will toss you away. Just continue to write.

When I wrote and got out of the way, writing did writing.” (p.90)

Can we walk that thin line between constant change and continuation? And in the middle of this flux, feel gratitude but not hold on? Gratitude greases the joints to let us let go, and at the same time to stop and realize we received something. Gratitude is the most developed and mature of human emotions.