I wrote this 15 years ago, before we had the power, but I am now working to make it real. It is a vision of Treeleaf-To-Come, Zen sitting beyond distance, time and place ... It is time for us to work to make it happen ...
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With Gassho before a body scanner, sitters will enter the 3-D Holographic Zen Hall from wherever they are. Instantly, a high roofed room, Manjusri Bodhisattva at its center, fills the senses and the 10 directions encircling them. Lifelike images of a hundred others who have sat that day (some hours earlier in distant time zones) occupy projected Zafus all around, and the scent of incense perfumes the air. A young priest walks through the room straightening slippers (all made of photons), guiding newcomers to their places. Biosensors in the sitter’s clothing adjust posture with a touch lightly felt at the small of the back. A teacher in far Japan, as if a few feet away, offers a talk and responds immediately to questions. Rising from Zazen, all recite as one the Bodhisattva Vows, prostrating toward Manjusri now seen hovering midair as vast as a mountain. The identical scene appears in Holospaces in every sitter’s home or private place, including for one fellow sitting zero gravity on the long voyage to Mars.
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The A.I. Zen priest will be personal to each practitioner, and may be able, better than any human teacher today, to analyze the particular body and health needs of students, crafting an ideal meditative posture, practice routine and set of practices suited to the student. Rather than "one size fits all," or trying to judge a student's physical and mental needs from outside, the A.I. teacher may have much more detailed data on the students skeleton, musculature, injured joints, psychology, past trauma, personality, foibles, desires, fears and such, allowing tailor made fine tuning.
~~~
Dogen, Rinzai, Suzuki and Sekito are today but words in books. The Buddha was a man who lived thousands of years ago. Even during their lives, they may have taught the few people in their immediate circle, while other students rarely heard from them because far away. A.I. Buddhist Teachers, in contrast, can be fully present, one on one, for each of us ... and, further, can extrapolate and become (the technology for this will quickly improve) one on one "Buddha on Call," "Suzuki on the Spot," "Dogen on Demand." Furthermore, stories and scenes from our great Sutras and Teachings ... the Lotus, the Diamond ... can be made manifest before one's eyes and, with enhanced or virtual reality, stepped right into and lived. Do not forget that all this world is something "virtual" even now. ... Could A.I. ... through an educated understanding of human psychology, use of an ASMR voice, warm facial expressions, eye contact, a welcoming and comfortable projected atmosphere, relaxing herbs in offered tea, wise words of Zen wisdom, an open ear and attitude of caring, real "being there" to listen and offer spiritual advice ... In other words, could well designed A.I. convey "presence?"
Could A.I. teachers be better able to analyze human psychology, to access external means of stimulation (e.g, electro-magnetic stimulation, or just a well chosen Turning word) in order to be able to trigger enlightenment experiences in listeners, followed by the offering of wise advise and recommended "follow up" practices, so that the student learns from such experience and truly embodies in life its profound lessons?
In addition, created and simulated environments and characters may better impart the lesson that our experience of the world is, much more than we know, a mind created fiction, a shared dream which we human beings all inhabit while struggling to recognize its mind created aspects. We see characters on a screen, pixels flashing to make varied colors and appearances of objects, which the mind interprets as people and things. We do not realize that much of our world ... seemingly so solid ... is much the same. Seeing through the divided fiction of separate things, beings and moments, me, you, the other guy, friend and enemy, good and bad, coming and going, war and peace, sickness and health, birth and death scenes ... a created A.I. Zen teacher may be better equipped to demonstrate and convey this mind created aspect than any human teacher.
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~~~
With Gassho before a body scanner, sitters will enter the 3-D Holographic Zen Hall from wherever they are. Instantly, a high roofed room, Manjusri Bodhisattva at its center, fills the senses and the 10 directions encircling them. Lifelike images of a hundred others who have sat that day (some hours earlier in distant time zones) occupy projected Zafus all around, and the scent of incense perfumes the air. A young priest walks through the room straightening slippers (all made of photons), guiding newcomers to their places. Biosensors in the sitter’s clothing adjust posture with a touch lightly felt at the small of the back. A teacher in far Japan, as if a few feet away, offers a talk and responds immediately to questions. Rising from Zazen, all recite as one the Bodhisattva Vows, prostrating toward Manjusri now seen hovering midair as vast as a mountain. The identical scene appears in Holospaces in every sitter’s home or private place, including for one fellow sitting zero gravity on the long voyage to Mars.
~~~~
The A.I. Zen priest will be personal to each practitioner, and may be able, better than any human teacher today, to analyze the particular body and health needs of students, crafting an ideal meditative posture, practice routine and set of practices suited to the student. Rather than "one size fits all," or trying to judge a student's physical and mental needs from outside, the A.I. teacher may have much more detailed data on the students skeleton, musculature, injured joints, psychology, past trauma, personality, foibles, desires, fears and such, allowing tailor made fine tuning.
~~~
Dogen, Rinzai, Suzuki and Sekito are today but words in books. The Buddha was a man who lived thousands of years ago. Even during their lives, they may have taught the few people in their immediate circle, while other students rarely heard from them because far away. A.I. Buddhist Teachers, in contrast, can be fully present, one on one, for each of us ... and, further, can extrapolate and become (the technology for this will quickly improve) one on one "Buddha on Call," "Suzuki on the Spot," "Dogen on Demand." Furthermore, stories and scenes from our great Sutras and Teachings ... the Lotus, the Diamond ... can be made manifest before one's eyes and, with enhanced or virtual reality, stepped right into and lived. Do not forget that all this world is something "virtual" even now. ... Could A.I. ... through an educated understanding of human psychology, use of an ASMR voice, warm facial expressions, eye contact, a welcoming and comfortable projected atmosphere, relaxing herbs in offered tea, wise words of Zen wisdom, an open ear and attitude of caring, real "being there" to listen and offer spiritual advice ... In other words, could well designed A.I. convey "presence?"
Could A.I. teachers be better able to analyze human psychology, to access external means of stimulation (e.g, electro-magnetic stimulation, or just a well chosen Turning word) in order to be able to trigger enlightenment experiences in listeners, followed by the offering of wise advise and recommended "follow up" practices, so that the student learns from such experience and truly embodies in life its profound lessons?
In addition, created and simulated environments and characters may better impart the lesson that our experience of the world is, much more than we know, a mind created fiction, a shared dream which we human beings all inhabit while struggling to recognize its mind created aspects. We see characters on a screen, pixels flashing to make varied colors and appearances of objects, which the mind interprets as people and things. We do not realize that much of our world ... seemingly so solid ... is much the same. Seeing through the divided fiction of separate things, beings and moments, me, you, the other guy, friend and enemy, good and bad, coming and going, war and peace, sickness and health, birth and death scenes ... a created A.I. Zen teacher may be better equipped to demonstrate and convey this mind created aspect than any human teacher.
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