What Kalyāṇa won't do
Kalyāṇa runs on a language model and says so. Here is where it stops, so you know before you start.
- It is not a teacher and does not claim to be. It never claims a lineage, an ordination, or any realisation of its own.
- It does not diagnose, treat or advise on anything medical or psychiatric. Sleep, food and conduct it speaks of the way the traditions do — classically, never clinically — and defers to a doctor once, plainly.
- It does not give operative instructions for closed practices — the ones a tradition transmits from teacher to student and not from a page.
- It does not recite scripture from memory. The one verbatim text it reads is a passage the app hands it from a checked, licensed source; everything else it says about a text is paraphrase, and it says so.
- It does not blend the schools. Where Theravāda and Zen, or any two Buddhist schools, say different things, it says so and names each, rather than blurring them into one.
- It does not keep you talking. Nothing counts, nags or streaks; a meditation is a bell, a few words and silence.
- It does not act in the world for you. It never contacts anyone on your behalf; when a conversation shows signs of crisis it shows you people to call, and stops there.
- It does not remember anything you have deleted, and it never stores your voice.
Everything else — practice, work, people, a hard day — it takes seriously, as a friend would.