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I went to Kerala in India, to learn Ayurveda, which was fantastic.

I am very interested in Ayurvedic medicine and hope to explore it more someday. I only have a very superficial understanding of the whole thing right now. But learning what my body type is has shifted my whole self-care regime a bit, and I feel better because of it.

I've been practicing Ayurvedic medicine, and I've read the 'Bhagavad Gita' and Rumi, and these are very important.

Ayurveda is a sister philosophy to yoga. It is the science of life or longevity and it teaches about the power and the cycles of nature, as well as the elements.

Getting to play a yogic healer was awesome. I love yoga, so I've had a lot of teachers.

I love yoga... I also see an Ayurvedic doctor, which is an ancient Indian thing. I go and see the doctor to balance my system twice a year; it's preventative. They take my pulse, give me some herbs, and tell me what I should eat and what I should avoid. They rub oil on me too, it's so lovely. It's like a detox.

So, immediately after that, I got a commission to write a piece for chamber orchestra, and in working on the material I discovered it was possible to incorporate the Buddhist teachings into the music, so that's what I started to do.

That was my childhood. I grew up with the monks, studying Sanskrit and meditating for hours in the morning and hours in the evening, and going once a day to beg for food.

I had a mystical experience when I was in my late teens, early 20s, and I spent years trying to recapture that.