In the statue, Guru Rinpoche and Yeshe Tsogyal are in a union, a sexual union. When you see it as three-dimensional, it becomes more explicit than when you see it abstracted, flat on wood, in a painting. But it’s symbolic — the male being the realization of emptiness and the female being wisdom, and it’s the union of that. In this specific form, the piece represents the true nature of the mind.

I had been living in a loft upstairs from William Burroughs before he moved to Kansas in ’82. I was well into being a Buddhist, so when he left, I invited lamas to give teachings in his space, and it became a shrine room. I would do my meditation upstairs, but the bunker below became a more formal space for teaching, and it’s where the shrine has always been. William would come to New York twice a year for readings or events and stay in his space. He loved to be surrounded by this even though he was not a Buddhist in any sense other than his profound understanding of the empty nature of the mind.

When my mother died, about 15 years ago, I inherited two two-carat diamonds — one was from her engagement ring and the other had been my grandmother’s. What do I do with them? I’m a gay man. And I’m Italian-American. Unconsciously, I thought of the tradition in Naples of putting jewels in the crown of Madonna. So I put them in Guru Rinpoche’s crown. I thought, “What a good resting place.”

This interview has been edited and condensed.

An exhibition of John Giorno’s work, “Do the Undone,” is on view until Oct. 26 at Sperone Westwater gallery in New York City.