How can you just so fully commit to the violent, dark nature of life—mostly in Twin Peaks, I think, and all of them—how can you be so committed to that darkness without being harmed by it? And how does meditation help you with that? 

In a way—this is a strange thing, but it’s a true thing in my experience–bliss is like a flack jacket. Bliss is like a protecting thing. If you have so much bliss, they say it’s invincible. Bliss is invincible; consciousness is invincible. And what happens is, you start expanding the container of consciousness, the whole thing is there, more and more and more. And stories—most films and books and paintings—we reflect our world. And stories have contrasts, and they’re supposed to have contrast. But this business of suffering: you don’t want to be suffering. But you can still show suffering, show the human condition, show these different conflicts, show these different contrasts—but you don’t have to go through that. 

So I used to say I liked to think in a diner, because there’s a safety in thinking in a diner. You can have coffee, and I used to have these milkshakes there, and you can go off into strange dark areas, and always come back to the safety of the diner. And it’s like that.

But the bliss is your safety net. And if you were suffering—if you were depressed, for instance—you can’t create so well. Sometimes, depression—you can’t even get out of bed. When those negative things start lifting, you can catch those ideas—see them with more understanding. You get fired up with those; you’ve got more energy, more clarity, more understanding; and you can really go to work and translate those ideas, that give you everything, into one medium or another. And so the artist doesn’t have to suffer, but can show these different things. 

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