I'm a lapsed Zen Buddhist. I've read hundreds of books on Zen, I meditated daily for about fifteen years, and once spent a month studying with Vietnamese Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh.

Too lazy to be ambitious,
I let the world take care of itself.
Ten days' worth of rice in my bag;
a bundle of twigs by the fireplace.
Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment?
Listening to the night rain on my roof,
I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

Fifteen hundred? ... I don't know how many fifteen hundreds I've given away. It would be much better just to be fined and not to get a suspension.

I certainly haven't lived the life of a Buddhist monk.

There's something Zen-like about the way I work - it's like raking gravel in a Zen Buddhist garden.

I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less.