Each week that I teach I place on the altar a photo of Shiki, the great Haiku writer, an invalid, who dragged himself to the edge of the tatami mat, overlooking his garden, where he sat all day waiting to receive a haiku. For Shiki the act of creating entailed alert stillness. His awareness gave birth to haiku, to the alive moment when the earth falls into place. Often so subtle you don’t know what hit you.

— Natalie Goldberg, The True Secret of Writing