A Robot’s Dream: the Zen Teacher Goes Ego Surfing

A Robot’s Dream: The Zen Teacher Goes Ego Surfing

The latest in ego surfing is asking Chat AI for a bio sketch. A colleague just did it. Found out he was an Anglican priest, although he was pretty sure he’d spent the past thirty years as an English Unitarian minister. And it had him as the author of a book he’d never heard of. Otherwise it was mostly right. So, I did it, too. Used ChatGPT, which you can sign on to for free. I like mine, although it’s only about seventy-five percent accurate:

James Ishmael Ford is an American Zen teacher, Unitarian Universalist minister, and author. He was born on June 17, 1948, in Oakland, California. He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and attended San Francisco State University, where he studied philosophy and religion.

(I was born in July. My father led us around the country, usually ahead of some problem or other. I was born in Oakland, and my High School years were in the Bay Area. In my thirties I attended Sonoma State University, where I earned a degree in psychology)

Ford first encountered Zen Buddhism in the late 1960s while attending a lecture by Shunryu Suzuki, the founder of the San Francisco Zen Center. He began sitting zazen, or Zen meditation, and later became a student of Taizan Maezumi, the founder of the White Plum Asanga.

(I’m a great admirer of Maezumi Roshi, but I became a student of Houn Jiyu Kennett, later founder of Shasta Abbey.)

In 1980, Ford was ordained as a Zen priest by Maezumi and received dharma transmission from John Tarrant. He went on to serve as a co-abbot of the Boundless Way Zen sangha in Worcester, Massachusetts, and later as the senior minister at the First Unitarian Society in Newton, Massachusetts.

(I was ordained a Zen priest by Kennett Roshi in 1969. I later received Inka shomei from John Tarrant. Newton is one of the churches I served. There are others. Most notably the First Unitarian Church of Providence, where I received the honor of being designated minister emeritus.)

Ford has written several books on Zen Buddhism, including “Zen Master Who? A Guide to the People and Stories of Zen,” “If You’re Lucky, Your Heart Will Break: Field Notes from a Zen Life,” and “Introduction to Zen Koans: Learning the Language of Dragons.” He is also the editor of “The Book of Mu: Essential Writings on Zen’s Most Important Koan.”

(True facts. Wanna buy one?)

In addition to his work as a Zen teacher, Ford is also a Unitarian Universalist minister and has served as a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve. He currently lives in Long Beach, California, with his wife, Jan Seymour-Ford, who is also a Zen teacher.

(I’ve not had the honor of serving as a military chaplain. Today we split our time between Long Beach and Jan’s mother’s home in Tujunga.)

All fun. And I suppose there are some serious questions in there, should one be interested in digging into them. The whole thing with artificial intelligence, not least of them. But, also, it invites a reflection on our ideas of self. Who are we? What are we? Our memories? Other people’s memories of us?

A robot’s dream?