Nanquan's Flower
from Castlemaine Zen Podcast Hosted by Kynan Sutherland
In this talk, we explore the spectre of AI with the help of Nanquan Puyuan (748-835), who popularised the saying, “Ordinary mind is the Way.” There’s no question that AI is extraordinary. But can it be ordinary in the sense that Nanquan offers? What are we missing if we remain dazzled in the glare of screens and processed information? Might we be blind to what is right before our eyes? On one occasion, Nanquan bent over, pointed to a small flower plant, and said, “People of the present day see this flower as though living in a dream.” Zen practice has always committed itself to waking up from this small dream of separation into the great dream of shared presence. You might even say that it is forever breaking through artificial forms of intelligence to reveal genuinely embodied forms of intelligence. So let’s sit with Nanquan’s flower to see what it has to say. Have you ever seen Nanquan’s flower? What’s it like? Has it ever seen you? If so, you’ll know that there is nothing artificial about it, and that it holds more wisdom than any data centre could dream of.
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