From an email to a friend:

I think I could stop playing guitar, but why would I want to.
To me it would be like having a great realization and no longer sitting zazen…
We don’t sit to become enlightened, but because it refreshes us. Just as I tune the strings of the guitar I feel that I am tuned in turn by sitting zazen.

Yesterday I tried to think of every quality I associate with myself… and realized I am not holding on to them anymore. They are not important, in fact they are quite meaningless. Just as a signpost that points to Rome is not the city of Rome, anything associated with me (either by myself or by family, friends or fans or the press) is not me.