Monastic Academy
The Monastic Academy is a community of practitioners exploring the intersection of AI and wisdom. As the world becomes increasingly dominated by algorithms and data processing, we bring our practice into the heart of this critical planetary moment.
Vision
Rooted in wisdom and love, they are striving to build trustworthy systems for human and artificial intelligence.
Core values
The Monastic Academy, for the most part, uses the DaĆabhĆ«mika SĆ«tra, or the âten stage modelâ from the Mahayana Buddhist tradition which is, in many ways, much more rigorous than other developmental approaches we have come across. Development here (even though the word 'development' can be deemed to be problematic) is not only about cultivating being as an individual, but further directing one's effort towards the liberation of all beings.
Program
One can train, co work, or be a part of a residency. The residency that we have highlighted here is the AI residency, which allows for coaching and mentorship as it relates to deeply understanding the relationship between careful development of AI that will benefit all life on earth.
Practices
They describe some of their practices on their website:
Each day is a mixture of dedicated contemplative practice, non-profit work, buildings and grounds maintenance, and community involvement. We start early, end late, and train six days a week, year-round.
We begin with chanting and meditation at 4:40am each morning, followed by an hour of exercise and silent breakfast. From there, we move into either non-profit work or intensive practice until lunch.
We do chores together after lunch, and then have a few hours of free time to practice on our own, spend time together, and stay abreast of the world.
In the evening we have another period of either non-profit work or intensive practice, and we come back together for meditation at 7pm each evening, followed by chanting, which ends around 9pm.