I’m living and working in New York. Although I am surrounded by technology, I cannot use a computer. All over the world, people are celebrating these technological times as though they are possessed. I think they are poisoned: everyone is so busy, there is more pain than ever, there is little difference between man and machines. People make so much trouble for themselves, and continue making trouble for themselves. Maybe we are heading for disaster. I think we should separate some from contemporary civilization; we should return to slower times and live closer to nature.

My little boy is seven months old now. I feed him, bathe him, clean up for him, I feel so happy as a father. I feel beauty and happiness being alive. But it hurts me to think of him growing up in a murderous society, in a society that kills without spilling blood. Sometimes I dream that we are in my hometown, where he is a Buddhist monk in the He Nan Shao Lin Temple.

Will he appreciate me? I don’t know. These pressures stifle me. I just want to live lighter.