At the moment our rational mind stops, hits against a wall ... something else happens. And a bigger mind, like a pearl, rolls in a silver bowl.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

Writing is the act of discovery.

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.

I am free to write the worst junk in the world.