David Guy teaches writing in the Hart Leadership Program and the Masters of Public Policy Program at Duke University. He is the author of numerous books, including The Autobiography of My Body and The Red Thread of Passion. His book reviews appear regularly in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and other papers, and he is a contributing editor to Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

[I sit] down to write every morning with no idea what [will] happen in the book that day. I’ve found it’s better to write that way, to let the book unfold like life. And somehow meditation, just sitting and trusting in mind, has helped me learn that…

…I actually think that writing was my first spiritual practice (though I would never have called it that when I was younger), and the only one I had for many years. It was through writing that I accessed the deep part of myself that we see in meditation. For that reason I was a compulsive writer; I felt I had to do it, and had to succeed at it, to justify all the time I was spending. Now that I have meditation as a practice, I no longer have the same desperation about writing. I like to do it, but don’t have to. It makes the whole activity much lighter, and more enjoyable….

Shambhala Sun Space » David Guy on the Zen of Writing