If I didn't have that, fear and projections over what was coming next could have taken over. But it was tough. Don't think I was an angel. It was hell.

Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat.

Oh, my passion! That is what finally carried me through. Let passion burn all the way, heating up every layer of the psyche.

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.

Writers end up writing about their obsessions. Things that haunt them; things they can’t forget; stories they carry in their bodies waiting to be released.

Be awake to the details around you, but don't be self-conscious.

It is very important to go home if you want your work to be whole. You don't have to move in with your parents again and collect a weekly allowance, but you must claim where you come from and look deep into it. Come to honor and embrace it, or at the least, accept it.