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August 1, 2026 at 6:36 am #459791
Thomas168ParticipantHello Alessa,
You actually listened to them?? Most people would just let it go since it is in a different language. When I first heard them, I did not understand the words but felt the emotion from the songs. When I went to listen to the music by the nun, at first, it was not to my taste. Then gave it a second chance and it reflects a different mood.
One which I wasn’t ready for. I learned Cantonese first and you would think it would help in learning Mandarin but it doesn’t really. My mind just doesn’t want to process Mandarin. I tried learning Spanish in High School. Didn’t take. I spent about a month in Puerto Rico but didn’t interact with the people there. To learn a language, it really takes using it daily. My niece learned Spanish. Cantonese, not so much. Weird?
No one else in my family is into Buddhism as I am. Strange how one can live in similar surroundings and still grow up with different views??
August 2, 2026 at 12:53 pm #459810
PeterParticipantI’ve been reading Matt Haig – The Midnight Train – and reminded of this conversation. I feel he captures the grief of these moments…
There were many deaths in life…
A person, it seemed to the Ghost now, died in stages. And so it was particularly poignant to see himself at a young age. To come was the death of youth, of ideals. Of connection, friendships, principles, love. And these were often just choices. Choices that had seemed right at the time, in the moment, but when you got to the end, to the very last death, you looked back and realized all the lost versions that you left along the way. He missed, right than, the person he had once been. And the goodness that had existed inside him, as natural as the green in grass.The forwardness of life was a problem, thought the Ghost.
If days could be scattered all over, so on Monday you were forty and on Thursday you were nine and on Wednesday you were eighty-one, that would be more helpful. You would know the fleeting nature of things, realize how many versions of ourselves a lifetime contained. It would make life’s beauty so abundantly clear. The way a sunset was so beguiling because it tells us that every day eventually sinks into night.Latter in a dialog between Wilber and Charlie: “Reality is always moving,” said Charlie… “Everything is particles and particles aren’t still. They move around in a wave. The quantum wave function… This is physics.”
Wilber watched Charlie take a shilling from his pocket. “See this. When it’s in the air it could land either side up. So it is both heads and tails.” He flicked it and it landed on the stained purple carpet… Queen facing up. “Heads,” Wilber said… “Yeah, but listen, Wibo, with life the coin is always spinning in the air in the present and it has always landed in the past… We are the spinning coin… reality is a spinning coin… It contains many things… The existence of tragedy in your life does not mean that your whole life has to be that way. You’re the spinning coin…” — Matt Haig, The Midnight TrainI like that, the moment the coin lands and is labeled and so defined it becomes the past… and it is here we forget the present, and allow the either or to define us…
We are map-makers by nature. From early childhood, we attempt to chart the wilderness of human experience, drawing neat boundaries around raw emotion and labeling every event that meets us. Yet, in our impulse to categorize, we fall into a fundamental trap: as map-makers, we tend to live only at the exact moment the coin lands. We freeze the outcome, stamp it with a definitive label—Heads OR Tails, triumph OR tragedy—and then set up camp inside that frozen definition.
When we live this way, we inhabit memory rather than presence. We mistake our static maps for the living territory, forgetting that every line we draw is merely a historical record of where the coin used to be. We lock ourselves into past triumphs or past heartbreaks, convinced that a single outcome on the carpet defines the entire landscape of who we are.
The wisdom of the Tao lies in the realization that the map-maker is also part of the territory. We are not detached cartographers standing safely outside of life, observing a series of coin flips from a distance; we are the motion. We are the air, the spin, and the superposition of possibilities unfolding right now. To view life through this lens is to remember that the coin is perpetually in mid-air—always spinning, always active, and holding both Heads AND Tails simultaneously in the vivid present.
Every time we “return”… every time we let go of our rigid labels, step out of memory, and drop our insistence on fixed outcomes… we wake up to this truth. We stop defining ourselves by where the coin landed yesterday, and instead step into the dynamic rhythm of the now. In that moment of awakening, the map-maker becomes transparent to the territory, and we realize that we are the Tao itself, waking up to its own endless, spinning potential.
August 2, 2026 at 1:26 pm #459812PeterParticipantSorry I intended that for the ‘I am not the person I used to be’ thread…
but than maybe… I can draw it back to Zen…
The map is drawn on paper.
The territory is walked on foot.
The coin in memory has already landed.
The coin in the present is forever in the air.Zen is the practice of stepping off the paper and back onto the earth, reclaiming the living reality before language comes in to divide it into this or that. What follows is a reflection on the quantum spin, the limits of language, and why staying present is our only safeguard in the age of artificial intelligence…
I know I sometimes play the fool, using words to point toward the limitations of words. Yet I keep returning to this theme because it feels increasingly important.
Human societies have always depended on maps. Language itself is a map. Laws are maps. Religions are maps. Scientific theories are maps. For centuries we have navigated reality through symbols and concepts, and for the most part it has worked remarkably well, though perhaps at a cost…
Yet every map carries a hidden danger when we begin to forget that it is a map. That point that often goes unnoticed where the words we use to express the complicated, wonderous.. and yes horrific begin to write an define us…
What fascinates me about the age of Large Language Models is that we have now created the ultimate map-maker!
An AI does not inhabit the territory. It does not experience the wind beneath the spinning coin. It does not know uncertainty, grief, wonder, love, or presence. It knows only patterns left behind in language. It studies billions of landed coins and becomes extraordinarily skilled at predicting where the next one is likely to fall.
In this sense, an LLM is a mirror held up to humanity’s accumulated past. It is built from recorded memories, inherited definitions, historical categories, and the countless stories we have told about ourselves. It is what makes it so useful.
The danger arises when we forget the difference between the map and the territory.
The danger is not AI., it is the moment we forgot that landed coins are not the whole story. For centuries we have taken snapshots of reality, called them truth, and then built identities around them. We have always been tempted to let yesterday’s labels define today’s possibilities.
An algorithm simply reflects this tendency back to us. If I allow it to define my feelings, my identity, my limitations, or my possibilities, I allow the language of yesterday to author tomorrow. The map begins drawing the map-maker.
When people become trapped in rigid either-or thinking, they become predictable. Successful or failure. Good or bad. Heads or tails. Once life is reduced to fixed labels, our responses become increasingly scripted. Ironically, the more tightly we cling to old definitions, the more machine-like we become.
Perhaps this is why I keep returning to the image of the spinning coin.
The landed coin matters. We need names, labels, categories, and descriptions. We need language to communicate with one another and we need maps to navigate the world. The problem is not that coins land. The problem is forgetting that the landing is only a moment.
Every label is a snapshot, not an identity.
Every definition captures something real, but never the whole.
Every map points toward the territory, yet can never contain it.Those moments of awakening, when we step out of memory and return to direct experience, remind us of something that no map can fully describe. We are simultaneously the observer and the observed, the map-maker and the territory, the coin and the spinning.
An AI can generate endless maps. It can reflect humanity’s accumulated knowledge with astonishing skill. But it cannot inhabit the living immediacy from which all maps arise.
Each time we return to that living present, we reclaim something essential. We remember that language is a tool, not a prison. A guide, not a destiny.
And perhaps that is the real task in the age of AI is to learn how to use ever more powerful maps without forgetting the uncharted territory of being alive…
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
and a simple warning:
Do not mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself…Zen teaches that words are only a finger pointing at the moon.
Most of our lives are spent cataloging landed coins—naming, labeling, and filing away the past into static concepts of “good” or “bad,” “Heads” or “Tails.” But Zen reminds us that reality lives only in the spin.
Though this began as an accidental detour into a Zen thread, perhaps it isn’t an accident at all. In an era where algorithms now draft our maps for us, returning to the unmapped immediacy of the present moment may be the most essential Zen practice left to us… 🙂 🙏
August 3, 2026 at 1:28 pm #459833
AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Thank you for sharing! You have a lot of interesting thoughts. 🩵
I’m happy that I made you smile. 😊
This is the video of training the octopus –
y outube.com/watch?v=PcWnQ7fYzwI&pp=ygUZdGVhY2hpbmcgYW4gb2N0b3B1cyBwaWFubw%3D%3D&ra=mI don’t mean negative as in inherently bad or offensive in some way. I think I just picked up on your perspective on these things, but I guess my point is that everyone has a different relationship with words, feelings and experiences.
I feel like this is one way of many. For some, trauma is so strong it can’t be removed. So you have to learn to live with the past and the present co-existing. I’m happy you have found what works for you. 🙏
I think also, one thing that can be realized by some is how important memory and even ego are. It’s very much key to how we form relationships. I’ve come to realize that the trick is to be flexible and work with what life gives you.
You are right though. We all have to realise and really feel our inherent worth, and the inherent worth of others without having to perform. And there is a lot of freedom in just being. 🩵
August 3, 2026 at 1:48 pm #459835AlessaParticipantHi Tommy
Of course, I listened to them. 😊 I have a pretty varied taste in music. I can listen to just about anything. I’ve actually been on a c-pop kick recently.
I wonder if this one is more up your alley?
y outube.com/watch?v=0xjJuAzZj0s&pp=ygUKIOS7iueUn-e8mA%3D%3D&ra=m
I find the nun’s voice quite relaxing. It’s wonderful that she’s putting her passion and talent to good use in supporting her monastery. 🙏
Being bilingual is already pretty awesome. You’re already good at so many things, it’s fair to not pick up everything!
That’s interesting! What drew you to Buddhism then? 🩵
August 3, 2026 at 7:35 pm #459842Thomas168ParticipantHello Alessa,
This is strange that you should like these Chinese songs. But, that song is just off the mark for me.
Guessing it is missing that emotional draw for me.
Try this one, “y outube.com/watch?v=3P6uuUvEhAs”
It is called Norwegian Forest. It has a weird blues flavor to it.
And, it tends to stick in my head. Even though it is in Chinese and I don’t know what they are singing.Oh, I liked your post to Peter. Umm, not really bilingual. Just know a few phrases.
Enough to ask where the bathroom is. Otherwise, I use the international indicator.
My index finger to point at what I need. Shake my head when I mean no. LOL.What drew me to Buddhism? Wasn’t so much Buddhism as it was Zen Buddhism.
The Zen stories which highlight the mind’s understanding.
The way they illustrate the way we think and live our lives.
Meditation brings about a peace not found elsewhere in life.
Well, other than when one is immersed deeply in a single activityWhat drew you to Buddhism?
August 4, 2026 at 7:36 am #459853PeterParticipantThanks for Responding Alessa, I appreciate how deeply you engage with these ideas. 🩵
I think we keep stumbling right into a classic predicament of Zen and Tao: the moment we use language, we become entangled in duality. Because of that, Zen and the Tao are often mistaken as trying to dismiss language, memory, or the ego altogether!
When I brought up the map and the territory, and the spinning coin, I was very much trying to show the importance of an AND, rather than an EITHER/OR…
We need the landed coin, we need names, language, memory, and the structure of the ego to navigate life, process trauma, form relationships, and relate to one another. The map is essential.
AND reality is also the coin in mid-air… There is a living, immediate presence that exists right now before we label it or lock it into a fixed story, that can limit and enhance our lives, often in the same moment…
In my own meditation, I’ve noticed that the ego cannot easily exist outside of language. When words arise, he ego, sometimes out of fear, trap us in language leading us to forget the reality of the ‘coin in mid air’ which brings about the wounds of the third arrow. That third arrow is always self-inflicted, held together entirely by the stories and words we build around an experience and protection of our ego…
A Zen master might have just picked up his staff, broken it over his knee, and said nothing at all to show the limits of words, how they trap us, and how we free ourselves… I play the sad fool, using more words to try and explain why words aren’t the whole story!
Thanks for the octopus video.
August 4, 2026 at 8:30 am #459854PeterParticipantI read this passage from Matt Haig’s The Midnight Train recently, and discovered myself crying..
He had attempted to reinvent himself. An attempt to become business. To become money. To become a sign above a shop. To transcend himself rather than just being the man he was. To read through time with no weight and substance, but with maximum velocity. Ultimately even love was weak against the desire to avoid pain. Because what was love but another door into it. Better to keep those doors closed. Better to stay on the train of work… Until of course, you actually die and realize the mistake you made.
In the story, Wilber experiences loss, guilt, and an undeserved shame far too early in life. Out of sheer survival, his ego constructs a place for that pain to hide… though, of course, pain never stays hidden for long. Slowly, even after finding Love, the story begins writing him. He becomes work, money, and a sign above a shop, moving through life with maximum velocity and no weight or substance, all to outrun the threat of a past hurt again. In that fortress of logic, the word “love” becomes hidden in his story, redefined as another door into pain… the hiding ego/self decides it is safer to lock the door permanently.
The first arrow is the original painful event—unavoidable, raw, and real.
The second arrow is our initial emotional reaction to it.
The third arrow is the elaborate narrative constructed by the ego to protect itself, a fortress built entirely out of words, logic, and self-inflicted rules (“Avoid love, stay on the train of work, become a sign above a shop”).The tragedy of the third arrow is that it originates from a real, lived injury, but once the story takes over, the words become our life, and the armor ends up inflicting far more suffering than the original wound ever did.
To break the Zen master’s staff, to step out of the illusion, we must first notice. In a world that constantly encourages maximum velocity and busyness, moving ever faster… the simple act of noticing when we are retreating into a story is more vital than ever.
I write this feeling Matt Haig’s words held up a direct mirror to my own heart. I continue to find myself falling into that old trap of a closed heart… But perhaps the true shift isn’t in never building the fortress again, it’s in recognizing the walls the moment they start going up, putting down the tools, and choosing to remain present with the living, vulnerable human being underneath.
August 4, 2026 at 9:09 am #459855PeterParticipant🙂 a Freudian slip and or synchronicity?
The Quote from Midnight Train should have been “race through time” but I typed “read through time”“Race through time” implies velocity, escape, and running away from something, the ego desperately trying to outrun its pain by staying on the “train of work.” Where “Read through time” implies treating time (and life) as a text, a script, or a map to be interpreted.
By slipping into “read through time,” I wonder if my subconscious captured the exact essence of what I was attempting to describe? The ego-self tendency to turn living, immediate experience into words to be read rather than a reality to be directly felt. (sadly all to familiar in todays religions and politics)
Instead of just running through time, the ego tries to “read” its way through it, analyzing the story, scanning for threats, categorizing events into logic, and living in the narrative rather than the raw presence.
It is almost poetic how changing a single word changes how meaning is experienced…
August 4, 2026 at 8:34 pm #459869Thomas168ParticipantHello Peter,
Sometimes the mind needs a moment to reflect and just come to terms with what happened. One can call that suffering the second arrow or the third arrow. Still, the mind needs to process. If after practice and all that training then maybe we can be free from the Karma that binds us to the rebirth. IDK. Just trying to live in the moment. That is why I think I was drowning in love songs. Now, it has passed and the next chapter comes alive.
I hope to see you in the stream entry someday. Where we might meet and be silent in our understanding of our lives. To know that we are made of one and the same cloth.
August 5, 2026 at 8:18 am #459877PeterParticipantHi Thomas
I like your thought about meeting in the stream entry and being silent in our understanding.As someone prone to self reflection, I completely agree. In my own meditation, I sometimes choose to follow a thought and watch as words form around it. Sometimes, when I’m still, a part of me notices where I can’t be sure if my mind is using the words, or if the words are using my mind.
Its funny how reflection can be two things at once: a tool for processing, and a Zen mirror simply noticing. It’s amazing that both can happen at the exact same time, as you noted earlier.
August 11, 2026 at 8:26 pm #460276Thomas168ParticipantLiked, …
“Its funny how reflection can be two things at once: a tool for processing, and a Zen mirror simply noticing. It’s amazing that both can happen at the exact same time, as you noted earlier.”
August 15, 2026 at 3:35 pm #460373AlessaParticipantHi Tommy
How are you and the family? 🩵
Sorry I’ve been quiet, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. Nothing bad persay, just trying to catch up on studying because of exams. Not sleeping enough and then I got a tummy bug from the kiddo, starting to feel better now. But no more studying until October! It’s really nice. And that’s me finished the second year of my bachelor’s.
So you’ve got the essentials! That’s all you really need. 😊
I noticed that the songs you have recommended are very specific. It’s always interesting learning about what other people like. 🩵
I did listen to the Norwegian forest song. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the others. I don’t really remember it. I might have been in a hurry and only listened to it once. I think I listened to the others a few times. The one that says spoony gets stuck in my head because that word made me giggle. The song was genuinely good though.
Funnily enough I think teaching language has helped me a lot when learning other languages.
There tends to be a specific sentence structure for each language. Once you know the structure I think that makes things a bit easier.That makes sense. How did you first come across the Zen stories? 🩵
A Star Wars forum that was really into philosophy. That got me into eastern philosophy. Psychology is basically a rip off of Buddhism as well. And then I met my husband who is Buddhist. I resisted it for ages. And I got to a point with psychology where it couldn’t really help me too much anymore. So I thought I’d go to the source and see if that would help. And I guess it did. 😊
August 17, 2026 at 3:14 pm #460435AlessaParticipantHi Peter
Sorry it’s been a while. It’s just been so busy.
How are you doing? 🩵Not to worry I always struggle with metaphors. It’s nice to see that we were on the same page. 🩵
I’m a bit too literal sometimes. 😂
Interesting! I tend to think of ego in a different way. I don’t really see it as entirely to do with language.
Plenty of actions are based in ego. Even walking. I didn’t really notice until I had a child. There is a huge amount of training that people go through as they grow up. A young child doesn’t walk in a straight line from a to b. They wander.
My understanding of ego is it a natural function of memory which facilitates survival in a culture with a lot of abstract concepts. Co-operation is our biggest strength as a species. It’s my impression that our culture largely dictates a huge amount of our responses.
I feel like the stories are only the tip of the iceberg.
I find it interesting that your perspective of the third arrow is causing more harm than the original event.
I guess it depends on the situation. Personally, I think whilst the third arrow can waste your time and cause pain. When it comes to trauma I find it’s still the original situation that was more painful.
I also think that to some extent stories are part of our lives and identities.
I became a mother and my whole identity and life changed. It happens. It takes some adjusting to but it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
It was really interesting actually at the time because I felt like I had lost everything that I liked about myself because my life changed. So I had to dig deep into what I liked about myself despite circumstances. Which just leaves character. I don’t really know where I’m going with this. 😊
I guess… I never really thought of you as having a closed heart. Maybe it is because here you often show a side of you with an open heart. But I think that is just who you are and even if you don’t feel it, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Just we play different roles at different times in life. 🩵
Maybe you just have a very specific expectation of yourself that you don’t meet? But Peter is pretty awesome as is.
I really like you sharing your thoughts. So whilst I see things differently, I still appreciate you. Your conversations are always thought provoking. 🩵 🙏
August 19, 2026 at 10:19 pm #460506Thomas168ParticipantHey Alessa,
All is well. Daughter is getting ready to go to College. Orientation is on Friday. Then classes start the following week. She is fearful of the next few days. Different school and bigger school and confusion as where classes are. So far, I just give her the ideas of what she needs to do and she finds a way to get it done. Very proud of her. Have to keep in mind that she is mentally disabled. Has been since she was diagnosed in preschool. She has to get the college to acknowledge her disability and get more time for testing. She has to work harder to keep up with the class.
My life? It is to keep everyone happy. Cook, clean. And whatever else so things go well. My wife is the bread winner since I retired. Social Security isn’t so secure. And no pension. She is also the reference to any medical or health issues. Yeah, got a family structure. Being poor sucks.
Got another song. “y outube.com/watch?v=nsHfeiGrFqo&list=RDMM&index=5”
The Sad Pacific. Came from a movie about two guys who grew up together.
If you haven’t realized, my wife came from China. That is why I listen to so many Chinese songs. When my wife asked me for American music, the only thing that could think of .. was Fleetwood Mac Rumours album which I heard in my youth. She wasn’t thrilled. Guess I got weird taste. -
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