I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.

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.

Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.

You don't know what you're doing. You're just hoping that people won't make fun of you. I had no idea how it would turn out.

Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.

Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.