What Is Zen? [video]

An audio recording of D.T. Suzuki's "What is Zen?"

In the era of large language models and the ethical and existential questions they raise, it seems useful to explore a variety of philosophical stances on language. Zen (as well as many other eastern ways of thinking) has a rich and beautiful relationship to language yet which starkly contrasts with the way language is typically studied and integrated into western thinking, and which I think could provide useful perspective into how we relate to LLMs going forward.