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I'm not a New Age person, but I do believe in meditation, and for that reason I've always liked the Buddhist religion. When I've been to Japan, I've been to Buddhist temples and meditated, and I found that rewarding.

Buddhism has had a major effect on who I am and how I think about the world. What I have learned is that I like all religions, but only parts of them.

I never stopped studying Buddhism. In the past few years, in between movies, I do a retreat.

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.

I think my Buddhist practice has a profound influence on my life and encompasses my creative projects.

Many years before I had left a beautiful country and a rich nation and I returned to that country six years later to find it fundamentally changed and in a state of upheaval, and in great spiritual and material need.

When I first was exposed to Buddhism in the mid-1960s, I said it was so practical and utterly pragmatic. That's what attracted me to Buddhism.

I believe in Buddhism. Not every aspect, but most of it. So I take bits and pieces.

Unfortunately, however, I have too many desires to make a good Buddhist.