In a Dharma talk during the February 2026 Awakening Week, our teacher, Soryu Forall, told us a story about how deeply we believe that data and algorithms/patterns are the basis of reality, and how dangerous that is.
In the early years, this community participated in a university brain study about what happens when we meditate. The study involved different types of brain scanning, but the main kind was EEG. Taishin, one of the earliest trainees, got his brain scanned after completing a 3-month meditation retreat. That was how long a retreat used to be for everyone in this training. Forall said this story reveals why we stopped doing that.
“He had done that retreat like you. I said, ‘you have to keep the practice going without any gaps, your whole body all the time.’ And he, like you, said, ‘Soryu is just says these things for shock value. He doesn't actually mean that you would really keep it going all the time. That's ridiculous. So I'll keep it going some of the time, unless I'm not.’ And three months just passed, like that.
“But then he went down to the citadel of computation, and put on the EEG paraphernalia. He thought, ‘It's very important you stay relaxed because muscles mess it up. If there's a lot of noise in your brain, it hurts the signal, so you have to just totally practice.' And so for 20 minutes he just practiced.
“He knew, ‘This thing will pick up my thinking even before the thought is fully formed, so I can't have a single thought for 20 minutes. This is real, not like when we do those retreats. This is serious now. This is EEG. We're not joking around anymore. Now I cannot think, because if I think for a millisecond, I’ll mess up the signal. And we need to give the computer a clear signal. It needs to know what is it like in my “computer” [his brain] when I'm meditating. So I'm going to keep this going with absolute clarity for 20 minutes. All kinds of issues and old patterns will arise. I can't buy into any of it. Not like in that retreat where you have to buy into it sometimes because you have to purify your emotions or something. This is real now.’
“So he focused completely with no tension in his body without missing a millisecond for 20 minutes. I tell you that if you do that, it is very likely that you will have a major insight. If you can go one period [as we do it, that’s generally 25 minutes] in this way of practicing that Taishin did when the EEG was on him, then after one period, you will come into the interview room fresh and clear, shining, amazed, seeing the world in a completely new way, and you can share your precious insight.
“If you don't, then I know what your day has been like. I know that you've been practicing in this halfhearted way where you say, ‘I'll keep the technique going unless a really important thought comes up, unless a deep emotion comes up, unless I'm tired or anxious, unless I have to force or become lax. Unless those things happen, I'll practice.’
”If you're practicing that way, then you can go three months or three years or your whole life without a major insight. It's up to you. Would you like a major insight in 25 minutes, or would you like to die without one? Well, Taishin was deciding to die without one, but then computationalism told him to practice, and he realized, ‘I have to practice because if I miss this for one millisecond, I'll mess up the signal. So I'm going to do it for the data! We need good data because data is real, data is truth. The raw data has to be good data. Garbage in, garbage out. I'm not going to give them any garbage. The computer needs the real thing, the truth.’
“So he really practiced, and he came out of it in a strange state that he couldn't understand. We went back to where we were staying. He took one car and I took another. He got there first, but waited for me. As soon as I walked in, I knew he'd had a major breakthrough, just by the way he was standing, the way his eyes were shining.
“I asked him, ‘Want to go for a walk?’
“He just said, ‘Yes.” We went outside and he told me, ‘It just totally opened up. Everything opened up completely. I've never seen anything like this before. It's just like all of you say.’
”This is one of the deepest, not the deepest, but one of the deepest insights anyone has had in our system of training.”
Forall told us this story for two reasons. The first one is to show how deep our belief in computationalism is, and how much it motivates us. It sounds like this: “Computationalism will save the world or maybe destroy it, but either way it's the important thing because it's the real thing. Sitting in a zendo—that's not going to make any difference. I'll try, but if I get distracted for a couple of milliseconds, it's fine. No one will even know.”
To this Forall said, “This is totally backward. Who won't know? What are you talking about? It impacts the entire universe, not just some computer.”
The second thing he wanted to point out is that this was a clue as to why after leaving the training, Taishin spent years systematically trying to destroy the three spiritual communities that had cared for him the most, including ours.
Not long before this dharma talk, he told the story to Maitrī, a villager here, and said to her he still didn’t understand what happened. She said simply, “Well, he's still serving the data.”
On this, Forall remarked, “This is a brilliant thing to say. He's still serving the mind of computationalism that does not want anything to exist that could free anyone from it. I’d never thought of it, but as soon as she said it, everything became clear. These studies help the church of computation to keep us imprisoned in data.
“This is the great danger of buying in to this insanity. This is what we are seeing in the world. This is what's happening to Buddhism. Buddhism is being extracted. This is the word used by Jhourney, this organization in San Francisco. This is the word they use—’extract’. ‘You should extract the jhānas from Buddhism to use them for other ends.’
“But data is empty. Computation is empty. They are empty of any kind of self-existence. That means that patterns are empty of patterns. When you see a pattern, it is delusion. If you think that patterns don't exist in any way, that is also delusion. There's no compassion there. There's no understanding of the beauty of this world.
“Both the claim that there are only patterns, real patterns, and the claim there are none at all—both are the claim of nihilism, that all of this is meaningless. But release from all patterns is meaningful. And using patterns to free all beings from patterns is meaningful. That is our purpose—the actual realization of the end of all patterns, all data, all computation, all constructions, the realization of emptiness. This is seeing through delusion and becoming free of it.”
Upon hearing this story, it was as if a fire lit under me. I started practicing with more diligence than ever, with this inquiry in my mind, can compassion be a stronger motivation than the belief that data is reality?