The ancient practices and philosophy of Buddhist monastics may seem to have little relation to the current headlines about the promises and perils of artificial intelligence. However, ego-less compassion, non-discursive intelligence, and other such key Buddhist concepts hold—when rigorously unpacked, translated and made applicable to real world AI concerns—the promise of addressing key AI issues, such as moral decisions, unexpected consequences, human flourishing and exploring the similarities and differences between human and machine intelligences.