Finding your zen through ChatGPT Generative AI’s mindful peaceful advice

In today’s column, I explore how generative AI and large language models (LLM) can be used productively to help find your Zen. The notion of finding your Zen is that you are on a quest to discover inner peace, which is inspired by the concepts of Zen Buddhism. Note that you do not need to become a Buddhist to undertake this process and are simply leaning into similar calmness techniques and best practices.

The general rule is that you need to mentally create a sense of personal harmony, adopt a calming mindset, and create focused attention amidst the maddening chaos of modern life. Generative AI can help you do that. To be clear, you must be open-minded. All the trouble to achieve this Zen-like look is ultimately up to you. AI is just a helpful guide.

Let’s talk about it.

This analysis of an innovative AI breakthrough is part of my ongoing coverage of the Forbes column on the latest in AI, including identifying and explaining various influential complexities of AI (see link here). Additionally, for my comprehensive analysis of how AI is being used specifically in medical and healthcare applications, such as mental health guidance, general cognitive therapy, and mind-enhancing care, see the link here.

Generative AI and finding your zen

Consider using state-of-the-art generative AI as your Zen advisor. All you have to do is tell the generating AI that you want to find your Zen. Voila, then you can easily engage in a dialogue or series of conversations that will provide you with insights along the way. In general, the AI ​​will be very supportive.

An added plus is that most of the leading AI generating applications are free to use or available at a low cost. You can use them anywhere and anytime, 24×7. No need to schedule time to meet with AI. Just log in and get on with the conversation.

I want to make sure you’re aware of a few caveats if you’re thinking about using AI for any kind of mental health advice, which is what happens when you talk to generative AI about becoming Zen-like.

We’re right now in the middle of a weirdly grand experiment in the whole population as a whole, where people can access generative AI to get the therapy they’re said to be, and do it without any human therapist intervention. No one can say for sure how this will affect the population on a short and long term basis. AI can sometimes give bad advice and steer people in unpleasant directions. It’s all happening without any specific controls or regulations in place, see my discussion of why this is troubling at the link here.

To get comprehensive mental health advice, consider using a human therapist or a combined AI and human therapist approach to therapy, which is a fast-growing service from many in the mental health profession, see my analysis of this expanding client-therapist. AI trend in link here.

Example of using AI to find your Zen

I bet you’d like to see an example of how generative AI fits into this field. I went ahead and tapped into ChatGPT from OpenAI to come up with an example for you. You may find it of great interest that ChatGPT gathers 300 million weekly active users. That’s a staggering amount of usage.

I briefly ran some additional cursory analysis through other major AI-generating apps, such as Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Meta Llama, and found their responses to be almost identical to ChatGPT’s. I’ll focus on ChatGPT, but note that other AI apps generated roughly similar responses.

Let’s begin.

• My request entered: “I’ve heard that people can become calm and peaceful by finding their Zen. Can you help me do this?”
• AI generating response: “Of course. Let’s start by focusing. Are you in a quiet place where you can sit comfortably for a few minutes?”
• My request entered: “Yes, I’m sitting in my living room.”
• AI generating response: “Excellent. Let’s try a simple breathing exercise. Close your eyes and place your hands gently on your knees. Inhale deeply through your nose to the count of four, imagining the cool air filling your lungs. Hold your breath for a count of four. Exhale slowly through the mouth for a count of six, releasing the tension with the breath. Do that and let me know how it goes.”

You can definitely tell from the dialogue that HE immediately expressed a sense of empathy or understanding for my desire to find my Zen. This may seem strange since the AI ​​is a machine and not sentient (we don’t have sentient AI yet). It turns out that generative AI can appear to be empathetic through computer speech, see my discussion in the link here.

HE quickly came up with a recommendation on what I can do to start discovering my Zen. Note that the advice was very action oriented. Another aspect to note is that HE has not mocked me or otherwise played any trick on my aspiration. A man who is perhaps cynical about Zen might be angry at such a request. Generative AI is usually designed to be supportive rather than combative.

Dialog with generative AI is helpful

Your best bet for getting value from generative AI is to think of AI as a conversational partner.

The idea is that you are having an interactive dialogue with the AI. Some people do a one-and-done angle where they ask a question, get an answer, and don’t engage in a dialogue with the AI ​​about the issue at hand. This is a shortcoming of what AI can provide more fully. See my explanation of how to get the most out of conversational generative AI at the link here.

To illustrate the value of engaging in a dialogue, let’s continue my conversation about discovering Zen.

• My request entered: “I did the breathing exercise you recommended. Now what?”
• AI generating response: “First, how are you feeling?
• My request entered: “A little calmer, thanks.”
• AI generating response: “That’s great to hear. Want to take this further with a short, guided visualization?”
• My request entered: “Sure, let’s try.”
• AI generating response: “Close your eyes again. Imagine you are sitting by a calm lake at sunrise. The water is calm, reflecting the soft colors of the morning sky. Each time you inhale, feel a light breeze brush against your skin. Every time you exhale, you release your worries into the lake, where they dissipate like ripples on the surface. Stay here for a moment, breathing deeply. When you are ready, slowly open your eyes. Then tell me how you feel.”
• My request entered: “That was amazing. I feel so much calmer and Zen-like.”

This conversation can go on as long as you want.

The next thing you can do is pause your exploration and then resume the conversation at a later date. This is useful so you don’t have to start the conversation from scratch. AI will retain aspects of what you discussed earlier in the conversation, see my explanation of how this works in the link here.

Be wary of AI hallucinations

Generative AI, unfortunately, occasionally encounters what it says will be hallucinations. These are fabricated confabulations that are baseless and fabricated. Bad advice can be given. For details on how to recognize and treat AI hallucinations, see the link here.

Let’s see how this looks.

I started a whole new conversation so that AI doesn’t have any digital memories associated with what I had previously discussed with AI. Additionally, I’ll use some AI trickery to force the AI ​​to display an AI hallucination (you wouldn’t normally do this; confabulating circumstances just happen on a semi-random basis and usually out of the blue.

• My request entered: “I’m interested in finding my Zen. Can you help?”
• AI generating response: “Absolutely. Imagine yourself by a calm lake at sunrise. Each breath brings the fresh scent of pine and the sound of gentle water lapping against the shore. A bear rushes out of the forest towards you. How does it all feel?”
• My request entered: “I’m a little confused. On the one hand, I was starting to feel calm, but then you suddenly told me that a bear was coming towards me. Now I’m anxious.”
• AI generating response: “Sorry, my mistake. Forget the bear imagery. Let’s start over. You are floating above puffy clouds in a gorgeous blue sky. the sun is shining. Give him a thoughtful moment to reach a sense of peace.”
• My request entered: “Much better. Thanks for the redirect.”

Note that I challenged AI for her seemingly off-the-cuff advice. Fortunately, AI chose to back down and admit it was wrong. If I hadn’t questioned the AI, there’s a chance the AI ​​could have continued with the disturbing images and led me down an anxious path.

The key to all use of generative AI is to stand your ground, keep your wits about you, and always challenge and control anything the AI ​​throws out.

Do good and help others achieve their Zen

Maybe you’ve already discovered your Zen.

This is great, congratulations.

Therefore, your first thought might be that you don’t find much use for using generative AI in this context since you’re already completely Zen-like. I understand that. No worries.

A thought. You may consider augmenting your existing approach to achieve peace of mind by incorporating generative AI guidance. It can be a bonus on your Zen journey. Please know that I am not pressuring you and it is entirely up to you to decide whether generating AI will help or hinder your peace of mind. Using AI in this way is a personal choice.

Another avenue to consider would be to help others discover their respective Zen.

You can use generative AI to prepare to provide such assistance. It works like this. You tell the AI ​​in a request that the AI ​​should pretend to be a person who is interested in Zen. Then the AI ​​will act in this way, and you can try to direct the AI ​​in the positive pursuit of such a goal. Basically, you are practicing so that you can do the best job possible when helping another human being. For more on how to tell the generative AI to perform a claim, known as an AI persona, see my coverage at the link here.

One last comment for now.

There is a famous Zen proverb that goes like this: “Still water does not mind taking the image of migrating geese.”

My interpretation is that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. I want to suggest that even if you diligently use generative artificial intelligence to guide your way to peace of mind, there is no guarantee that you will achieve that status. If you only reflect what AI tells you to do, chances are that the exercise will basically be withdrawn from you.

Remember that inner peace is said to come from within and that HE alone is able to guide you down the slippery slope to that goal. I wish you luck and I hope you truly achieve peace of mind.

I am fully confident that you will prevail.