Bob Schwartz

Training is a word with different meanings. Especially now, with its common use in discussing AI.

AI training is the opposite of Buddhist mind training.

Training is a key process in developing AI models. It is the foundation by which those models acquire the knowledge they use to cultivate their intelligence.

Buddhist mind training practice is different than AI training. It is not about acquiring knowledge, far from it. At the start, Buddha and his tradition established that mind is everything. If we, individually and universally, want to reduce our suffering and live a better life and have a better world, we have to investigate and transform our mind. We have to train it.

It is a semantic coincidence that training is a central word and process in both AI and Buddhist practice. An ironic one, since AI regularly tends to pulls us farther and farther out of our own minds, while mind training aims to take us farther and farther into our own minds. We can of course do both. But since it is already attractive to leave our mind behind sometimes, one more easy opportunity to go out rather than in is often welcome.

© 2026 Bob Schwartz