Magic Robot

Hi friends.

It’s fun to act like a robot. I learned this in my twenties and thirties, while dressing up in a tin-foil wrapped cardboard box and having robot dance party fights with my friends. Then – coincidence? – I ended up with Shinzen Young as my main meditation teacher, who’d wear his “Magic Robot” T-Shirt in the meditation hall.

Shinzen on his 80th birthday, Photo: Har-Prakash Khalsa

“See,” “Hear,” “Feel,” he’d say, in his squeaky vipassana metronome. Sometimes he’d get us all to stand up and shuffle very quickly around the room, trying to notice the flavor of spontaneous doing, the “just happening-ness” of how our bodies walks all on their own, without us needing to strategize about it. (Here’s a hilarious video of Shinzen demoing his “Auto Walk” technique, and a Mind Bod Adventure Pod episode where he demos “Auto Think.”)

Could we let this natural bubbling “selfless” intelligence be our guide for more than just walking? We tried. We let our Magic Robots walk us, eyes down, arms rigid at our sides, speeding this way and that way like toy soldiers come suddenly to life. It was sublime.

A milder meditation version of acting like a robot is “noting,” where you describe each byte of sensory experience with a label, as above: “See,” “Hear,” “Feel.” It’s a fine technique for creating forensic clarity, or at least for steering attention – byte by byte – away from our worries and into the ever-changing present moment.

Har-Prakash, me, and Cho attaining Shinzen mind-meld circa 2017, photo by Janusz Welin

So, in this meditation, we ingratiate ourselves to our future AI overlords, and pretend to be robots.

Thank you, Shinzen, for creating this good rhythm in my life. I bow (stiffly) to you.

Jeff

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Being Human Takes Practice

July 2-6, 2025
Hollyhock Cortes Island, BC

My first West Coast offering will be at the Hollyhock retreat centre on beautiful Cortes Island in British Columbia, where getting there – plane, ferry, shuttle – is part of the adventure. The other adventure is internal. For four days, we’ll explore what meditation has to teach us about being human. Expect a mix of seated and moving meditation, nature practice, group sharing and discussion.