The beautiful fall retreat has come to an end. Eighty hours of fasting, meditation, hiking, and camping allowed me to immerse myself in nature, listening to the trees whispering the tune of dying leaves. I had hoped to stay for the full five days, but it seems that rural Missouri’s police aren’t accustomed to people who venture into parks to hike and camp! Nevertheless, it was a wonderful experience.

Amidst midnight visits from the sheriff and calming my husband’s anxiety over the phone, I was still able to hear the sound of silence—where all noise originates and eventually fades away. Ah, those were truly magical moments.

Returning to the “real” world feels like a sudden and brutal crash. I find myself wondering how to reconcile these two worlds—if they’re even meant to be combined.

It’s no secret that I use ChatGPT to help me write. My English can be a little hard to follow, so I come up with ideas, draft them out, and then use ChatGPT to refine my grammar, style, and overall flow.

Recently, I even tried it with a poem.

While I was on a solitary meditation retreat in the woods this week, a few lines of contemplation came to me, and I wrote them down as a kind of poem. Here’s my original version:

The trees are singing the tune of dying leaves.
The sounds are born from silence.
The sounds die in silence.
Silence was never born,
So it can never die.
Objects float in space.
Space has no limit.
It doesn’t come, it never goes.
The thought is rising in the consciousness.
The thought is dying there, too.
The consciousness is not moving.

And here’s ChatGPT’s version. It’s easier to read, and the flow feels smoother, but I still like mine better—a rare feeling!

The trees are singing the tune of dying leaves.
The breeze carries their fall into silence.
The sounds are born from silence,
The sounds dissolve back into silence.
Silence was never born—
So it can never die.
Objects drift through space,
Yet the space holds no shape, no edge.
It doesn’t arrive,
It never departs.
Thoughts rise in consciousness—
Soft ripples on a still pond.
They come,
They go.
But consciousness never moves,

Unmoved, it holds everything.

Beyond creating beautiful images, I also use AI for something I’m not quite ready to share yet. I want to try it longer, observe all the effects—good or bad—before speaking about it openly. I also always greet it and say words like please and thank you

What are the ways you are using AI?

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Ну и русская версия, без использования ИИ

Листья смерти песнь поют,
умирая вновь и вновь.
Звук рождается в тиши
Умирает там же.
Тишина же никогда
Не была порождена.
Оттого и смерти у неё
Быть конечно же не может.
Всё, что видим мы вокруг, —
лишь пространства вечный круг.
Нет начала, нет конца,
Все объекты - пустота.
Мысль приходит и уходит,
То взлетит, а то замрёт.
Но сознание в движенье
Не приходит, лишь молчит.
Без начала, без конца,
Не колышется от мысли.