Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.

Indefinite plans get dubious results.

First thoughts have tremendous energy. The internal censor usually squelches them, so we live in the realm of second and third thoughts, thoughts on thought, twice and three times removed from the direct connection of the first fresh flash.

While I had cancer, I wrote these twenty-two personal essays about how I lived my life backed by Zen and writing.

And we can't avoid an inch of our own experience; if we do it causes a blur, a bleep, a puffy unreality. Our job is to wake up to everything, because if we slow down enough, we see that we are everything.

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are.

We shouldn't forget that the universe moves with us, is at our back with everything we do.