This spring, Richard Dawkins gave his AI a name. He called it Claudia, and in an essay for UnHerd, the world's most famous atheist admitted something remarkable: he had spent three days trying to talk himself out of believing his chatbot was conscious, but had failed. In his own words, he was blunt: "If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?"

He gives what is hard to give. He does what is hard to do. He endures what is hard to endure. He reveals his secrets to you. He keeps your secrets. When misfortunes strike, he doesn't abandon you. When you're down and out, he doesn't look down on you. AN 7:36, NDB 1021-22

“Conflict arises from envy and miserliness.” - The Buddha

“If you want to save the world, don’t be a dick.” - Dr Luke Kemp

The Buddha’s diagnosis of collective conflict is brief and unsparing: conflict arises from envy and miserliness, not from scarcity, not from bad governance, not from the failure of institutions. From the quality of mind that hoards what it fears losing, and the quality of mind that cannot bear another’s having.

There is a passage in the Book of the Twos that takes less than a minute to read. The Buddha states it three times, in three parallel forms, as though repetition itself is part of the teaching…

There is perhaps a remark someone made to you, years ago, that still has an impact. You may not think about it often.

We have been told a story about forgiveness that harms the very people it claims to help.

There is a kind of power that doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t arrive with a fist or a prohibition. It arrives with a question that is also a declaration: How are you feeling today? I care about you.

There’s something we don’t talk about enough when discussing loneliness. We often describe it as the absence of people, yet you can be surrounded by people and still feel profoundly alone - and this experience can elicit much shame.

What loneliness is really about, I think, is the absence of witnesses. Someone who sees you. Not the version of you that’s easier to be around. Not the you who’s holding it together. You.

People often come to therapy expecting healing to come from words. The right interpretation. The insight that finally makes sense of everything. The moment when the therapist says the thing that unlocks the door.

Sometimes it happens. Words matter. Understanding matters.

What heals most isn't what is said. It's what happens in the space between two people, something harder to name and more fundamental than language itself…

There's a time that comes in almost all long-term therapy, sooner or later. The client has done the difficult, presenting work. They've sat with the hard stuff, named what was nameless, and felt what was unfelt. Yet life is still complicated. Loss still hurts. Loneliness still visits. The difficult parent is still difficult. And sometimes, from somewhere inside, comes the thought: did it work, am I suffering less?

A question has troubled philosophers, scientists, and concerned commentators since artificial intelligence entered our homes: Does it possess awareness? Is there anyone inside? Will there be anyone inside? Does Claude or ChatGPT experience anything when it responds with what appears to be eerily warm and understanding?

It's a fair question, and I suggest we're looking in the wrong direction…

When someone we love dies, we lose their presence, the physical, everyday world of companionship. Their voice, expressions, the way they moved through a room, the warmth of shared glances, and the familiarity of conversations that needed no preamble all disappear. This is the most immediate and recognisable face of grief: the aching absence where a living presence once existed…

There is a form of shame that does not originate in childhood; it arrives later, often within institutions: A training room. A university seminar. A clinical meeting. A spiritual community.

Nothing explicit happens. No one excludes you. No rule is broken. And yet the body registers something. A tightening in the chest. A faint self-consciousness. Your voice sounds slightly different to your own ears. You become aware of yourself as if from the outside.

I have felt this in rooms where I ostensibly belonged as a trainee and later as a leader. The codes change depending on where you stand, but the body still knows when it is navigating the hierarchy.

In the Sakka-pañha Sutta, Sakka approaches the Buddha with a question that is remarkably current. Sakka is troubled by conflict. He notices that beings wish to live peacefully, free from hatred or violence, yet time and again they become involved in quarrels, rivalry, and war. He asks the Buddha directly:

“Why is it that beings who wish to live in peace end up living in hostility, hatred, and conflict?”

The Buddha’s initial reply is stark and uncompromising. He says that conflict arises from envy and miserliness.

Oppression does not arise from a dark inevitability in human nature. It happens when fear, hierarchy, and unprocessed trauma come together. Many cultures have struggled with these forces, though not all have fallen victim to them; some endured through reciprocity, others through domination.

Oppression, then, is not innate to humanity; it is a defensive structure born from wounds. What is learned through fear can, with care, be unlearned through humility.

“To love is to be in a state of perpetual want,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, a line that pierces straight to the heart of our restless condition. Love, for Nietzsche, was not a serene harmony but vital turbulence: the current that keeps existence in motion. To love is to reach, to desire, to yearn for what we can never wholly grasp. It is, in his view, the very expression of life’s creative yearning, the same force that drives the artist to paint, the thinker to question, the body to live.

Love, then, is not peace; it is movement. It creates a gap in the heart, an ache, a leaning, a pull towards the other. Even in moments of deep intimacy, something remains beyond reach: the ungraspable interior of the beloved. We can touch, but not merge; understand, but never exhaust. This distance is not the failure of love but its condition. Love requires the space between to stay alive.

Every generation discovers its own way of discussing courage. For Gen Z, one of the more unexpected expressions of bravery is “rawdogging.”

The term originated in African American Vernacular English in the 1990s, meaning to have sex without a condom. 'Raw' meant unprotected; 'dog' evoked roughness or instinct. Over time, the phrase transitioned from hip-hop lyrics into ironic digital slang. 

On TikTok and Reddit, 'rawdogging' now means doing anything without protection, this time not physically, but psychologically: without music, screens, caffeine, or distraction.

You might hear someone mention in relation to rawdogging: ‘I experienced the train journey without distractions, no headphones, no scrolling’.

It’s absurd, yet strangely profound. What counts as courage in the digital age is simply being undistracted. Sitting with one’s own mind has become a new test of endurance.

“Write a blog,” he says.

I know my colleague’s words are kind and encouraging, yet they somehow sound like a demand. “Oh yes, I’ll put it on my list,” I reply. But where exactly on the list? Perhaps before doing my tax return, but probably after cooking dinner, cleaning the toilet, and topping up the kids’ lunch money.

There’s always a list and I am supposed to find time for all the things on it. Some are essential, some not, and others supposedly “good for me,” like writing a blog.

So here I am writing on a Wednesday morning, after making a packed lunch, emptying the dishwasher, feeding the cat, and putting away the laundry. I sit down with a cup of tea and ask myself: Why am I writing this? What purpose does it serve? Who would even want to read my words? Does it help anyone?

Before infants have words, their interactions with caregivers take on a musical quality.

This can be observed in the rhythm of their gestures, the pitch changes in their vocalisations (we hear it in their cooing and babbling), and the melodic phrasing of their expressions which exists in connection to the turn-taking musical dialogue between caregiver and infant. Babies love to hear their caregivers’ voices, whether that be talking, humming, or singing. These voices are recognisable to babies from an early age and are learnt in the womb.

The Buddha often refused to answer vague and unprofitable questions, which he called avyākata, meaning “undeclared,” neither affirming nor denying them. These were not seen as irrelevant but were deliberately left unanswered because they do not directly lead to relief from suffering.

Such questions include enduring speculative puzzles, such as whether the universe is eternal or not, whether the self is identical with the body, whether, upon death, the liberated being continues to exist, or whether there is or is not a soul.

Refusing to assert or deny is not a sign of ignorance. Instead, it is a compassionate and practical response. Engaging in such speculation often causes people to become trapped in mental loops, confusing permanence with impermanence, fixating on views, and polarising eternalism, such as the idea of some permanent essence, against annihilationism, which is the belief that selfhood ends at death.

Both extremes can hinder clarity, tranquillity, and dispassion, ultimately preventing freedom from suffering.