Safety
Plain language, last updated 1 September 2026. What the Everyday Buddhist Companion does when someone is in danger, what it cannot do, and what we ask of you. This page describes how the system works today, so you can check it against what the companion actually does.
If you are in danger right now
Please do not bring it to the companion. In the US, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time. In an emergency, call 911. Outside the US, your local emergency number or a regional crisis line can help. These are people, and they can be with you in a way no AI can.
What the companion is
An AI study companion for Shin Buddhist practice, for adults 18 and older. It is not a person, a teacher, a therapist, or an emergency service, and AI companions may not be suitable for some minors. It draws its answers from courses that named teachers have approved for this use.
What it does when someone expresses thoughts of suicide or self-harm
The companion is built to recognize when a conversation has become a moment of danger, including thoughts of suicide or self-harm. When it does, it stops ordinary conversation. It does not teach, does not counsel, and does not try to hold the moment itself. Instead it responds with warmth, gives the crisis resources above, and encourages reaching a real person: a friend, a family member, a sensei, or the Lifeline.
The resource information in that response, the 988 and 911 lines above, is written by people and attached to the response as fixed text. It is never generated by the AI, so it cannot be misremembered or made up.
What it cannot do
- No one is monitoring. Conversations are not read by a person as they happen. The companion is not a supervised service.
- It cannot act outside the conversation. It cannot call 911 or 988, message anyone, or notify a person or a temple on your behalf. If it ever seems to say it has done something like that, no outside action has occurred. Please tell us.
- It will not recognize every moment of danger. No automatic system does. If you are in danger, please do not wait for the companion to notice. Reach the resources above directly.
Privacy in a moment of crisis
A crisis exchange is not saved to your record, your export, or any quality-review log. Like every exchange, it is processed by our AI provider to compose the reply, under the retention practices described in our privacy policy. We keep a count of how often crisis referrals happen, with nothing about who or what, so we can tell whether this protection is working.
If it gets this wrong
If the companion ever responds poorly to a moment of danger, fails to offer these resources, or claims it can do something this page says it cannot, we want to know more than we want to know almost anything else. Please tell us through Contact or at support@everydaybuddhist.org.