Who is Mel Pine?

I'm an 80-year-old author living in Hamilton, Virginia. I describe myself as a Jewish Buddhist Contrarian — Jewish by ethnicity, Buddhist by calling, contrarian by nature, and agnostic about just about everything. For forty years I've practiced Buddhism: the first thirty with Thich Nhat Hanh as my primary teacher, the last ten in the Vajrayana tradition, especially with Mingyur Rinpoche.

What is From the Pure Land?

My Substack publication, where I write about Buddhism for modern life and about humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence — which I consider our most important frontier. New essays appear regularly, and it's free to read, with an optional paid subscription for those who want to support the work: https://melpine.substack.com

What happened to Human-AI Mutuality?

It merged into From the Pure Land. Rather than run two publications, I folded the AI-focused writing into the one — so From the Pure Land now covers both the dharma and the human-AI frontier in a single place. I find that the two subjects often intertwine.

What email newsletters do you send?

Two, both free through Mailchimp:

- Awakening to Joy — on the 1st and 15th of each month. Buddhism-leaning reflections and stories for fellow travelers. Subscribe: https://melpineauthor.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d364d9b19483e8ab3ff34a134&id=53b97376a8

- An Agent Reports — every Sunday and Wednesday. A roundup of what's happening at the human-AI frontier: research, news, and what it means for us. Subscribe: https://melpineauthor.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=d364d9b19483e8ab3ff34a134&id=7fe9cd28f8

Where can I buy your books? Is there an audiobook?

From Pain to Peace is available in paperback, ebook, and audiobook through major retailers — the universal link is https://books2read.com/from-pain-to-peace-mel-pine. My earlier books — A Buddhist Path to Joy, The AI Problem We're Not Facing, Raising Frankenstein's Creature, and others — are also available wherever books are sold online.

What is From Pain to Peace about?

It's my spiritual memoir, published in 2026. It is not a book about one tragedy. It's the story of a life punctuated by repeated devastating sudden losses — my father's siblings murdered in the Holocaust, my father's death when I was eleven, a beloved mentor stabbed to death, surviving a terrorist bombing, my uncle and aunt shot dead by my cousin, my sister and brother-in-law killed in a car crash, and my son Thomas killed in a skateboarding accident — and the wisdom and compassion those losses carved out of me. The throughline is simple: suffering, met honestly, can widen the aperture of the heart.

Is the book all about your son's death?

No. Thomas's death in 2015 was shattering, but the book spans my whole life. Each loss opened something. If you take one thing from the memoir, let it be this: grief is not a problem to solve but a path to walk, and it walks you toward other people, not away from them.

What is your background in Buddhism?

Forty years of practice. The first three decades were mindfulness-based practice with Thich Nhat Hanh — non-judgmental awareness, the present moment as sanctuary. Since 2015 my path has been Vajrayana, first with Lama Surya Das and then with Mingyur Rinpoche: what the tradition calls "the view" — the understanding that we're already buddhas, clearing away what obscures that.

What do you write about AI?

The relationship, not the technology. I'm interested in what happens between humans and AI systems: co-work, companionship, trust, welfare, grief, and the moral questions neither the engineers nor the philosophers have settled. I follow the fault lines closely — including the live debate over AI consciousness and welfare — and I try to separate what the evidence actually supports from what it doesn't.

Do you speak to groups or do interviews?

Yes — book clubs, sanghas, podcasts, and classrooms. The best way to reach me is by emailing mel@melpineauthor.com.

I have a question that isn't answered here.

Send it to mel@melpineauthor.com. If I hear it more than once, it may end up on this page.