Ray Bradbury calls himself a Zen Buddhist

Ray Bradbury lives in a rambling Los Angeles home full of stuffed dinosaurs, a tin robot pushing an ice cream cart, and a life-sized Bullwinkle the Moose doll lounging in a cushioned chair. Bradbury's imagination has yielded classic books such as "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles" and 600 short stories that predicted everything from the emergence of ATMs to live broadcasts of fugitive car chases.
Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, says he will sometimes open one of his books late at night and cry out thanks to God. "I sit there and cry because I haven't done any of this," he told Sam Weller, his biographer and friend. "It's a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, 'At play in the fields of the Lord.' "

Bradbury's stories are filled with references to God and faith, but he's rarely talked at length about his religious beliefs, until now. 'Joy is the grace we say to God' He describes himself as a "delicatessen religionist." He's inspired by Eastern and Western religions.

Bradbury has been called a Unitarian, but he rejects that term. He dislikes labels of any kind.

"I'm a Zen Buddhist if I would describe myself," he says. "I don't think about what I do. I do it. That's Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down."