The Ministry, Technology and Truly Hearing the Dharma

Editor’s note: Rev. Jerry Kyosei Hirano, Director of the BCA’s Center for Buddhist Education (CBE) and Resident Minister of the Salt Lake Buddhist Temple and Supervising Minister of the Honeyville, Ogden and Idaho-Oregon Buddhist temples (IOBT), presented the following speech on May 7 at a Minister’s Continuing Education (MCE) seminar at the Jodo Shinshu Center in Berkeley, California. The Wheel of Dharma is reprinting the text with Rev. Hirano’s permission.

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“Rare is it to hear the teaching, but already I have been able to hear. Reverently entrusting myself to the teaching, practice and realization that are the true essence of the Pure Land way, I am especially aware of the profundity of the Tathagata’s benevolence.”

— Shinran Shinran, “Collected Works of Shinran,” Page 4

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When Shinran wrote those words, he was speaking about the wonder of hearing the Dharma in a world already filled with distraction, confusion, suffering and uncertainty. In many ways, our world today is not so different. The noise has simply changed costumes.

Instead of crowded marketplaces and political messengers on horseback, we now live in a world of smartphones, algorithms, artificial intelligence, social media and endless information flowing toward us every moment of the day. Sometimes it feels like trying to drink from a fire hose while someone is also yelling “breaking news” directly into your soul.

In these past few days, we have been discussing various topics regarding yoga, AI (artificial intelligence) and technology. As ministers, educators and Sangha members, we may wonder: What place does AI, technology and yoga have in ministry? Is it dangerous? Helpful? Distracting? Useful? 

The answer, I think, depends on the heart that uses it.

When I look back on my own life, I realize technology has been quietly transforming my world from the very beginning. I love technology!

I still remember the first time I saw a color television as a child. For younger people today, that sentence probably sounds like I’m describing the invention of fire. But I remember it vividly. On Thanksgiving 1968, my cousins and I gathered in front of our new Philco color television watching the “Wizard of Oz.” 

At first, we were disappointed, since the beginning of the movie was in black and white, so we assumed our color television wasn’t working. And then Dorothy arrived in Oz. A world that had once been black and white suddenly exploded into color. It was magical. Maybe that’s the reason it’s one of my favorite movies of all time!

Subsequently, during the preparation of my thesis at the Institute of Buddhist Studies (IBS), I utilized a Brother electronic typewriter equipped with correction technology. It cost me $900 from my cousin Mike’s wholesale office-supply store. It had a screen about 1 inch by 3 inches, smaller than our current smartphone screens. However, at the time, this machine was state of the art. No more entire pages retyped because of one mistake. No more Wite-Out covering the page like winter snowdrifts of academic despair. That little machine felt futuristic.

Technology also shaped my personal life in ways I never could have imagined. Over 20 years ago, I met my wife, Rev. Dr. Carmela Javellana-Hirano, through Yahoo Personals. Which today sounds less like modern technology and more like something discovered in an ancient digital ruin beside a MySpace account and a floppy disk.

And then there were a few serious moments in my life, when this technology allowed me to receive life itself. Once from cancer, another time in Reno, Nevada, at our minister's Fuken from an internal bleed out from diverticulitis.

Modern medicine, cancer treatment and medical technology helped keep me alive. And it continues to do so today. Machines monitored my body. Medications developed through scientific research sustained me. Doctors used technologies that previous generations could never have imagined. There are dangers to “Big Pharma,” but because of that “Big Pharma,” I’m still here. Just as with technology, some people may be happy with the outcome of my technological survival, while others may wish I didn’t have it. Nevertheless:

I am still here to listen to the Dharma. I am here to say the Nembutsu. I am here to listen to the teachings.

So, when we speak about AI and technology, perhaps the question is not simply whether technology is good or bad. Human beings have always created tools to extend life, memory, communication and understanding.

A hammer can build a temple or break a window.

AI is similar.

It can spread misinformation and it can lead to shallow thinking, anger and artificial connections. Some people use religion as a tool to cause dissent, rather than nurture and create harmony. We have ministers who sometimes do that.

But it can also help ministers prepare classes, preserve temple histories, translate difficult materials, reach isolated members and communicate the Dharma to people who may never physically walk through our temple doors.

For smaller temples like mine, technology is an important support. Not a replacement for ministers or sangha, but another tool to help carry the Dharma forward.

But we must also remember something important.

AI can imitate intelligence, but it cannot awaken and become enlightened.

It can generate words about compassion, but it cannot truly feel compassion.

It can explain the Nembutsu, but it cannot say “Namo Amida Butsu” with gratitude arising from human suffering, joy, loss and impermanence.

That remains the human encounter.

In Jodo Shinshu, we speak of ourselves as bombu, foolish beings filled with contradictions and limitations. Ironically, those very limitations may be what opens us most deeply to listen to the Dharma.

A machine does not fear death. A machine does not sit beside a dying loved one. A machine does not whisper the Nembutsu through tears at 2 a.m. 

Human beings do.

And so perhaps AI will not replace the ministry. Perhaps it will reveal more clearly what ministry truly is.

Not merely delivering information. Not simply producing sermons. But listening deeply. Walking with suffering people. Sharing laughter at temple potlucks. Holding silence after funerals. Being present.

The future temple may livestream services globally, use instant translation, preserve oral histories digitally and create educational tools Shinran himself could never have imagined.

Yet the center remains unchanged.

One person hearing the Dharma from another. One candle lights another candle. One bombu encouraging another bombu.

And perhaps that is why Shinran’s words still speak so powerfully.  

Even in an age overflowing with information, truly hearing remains rare.

Namo Amida Butsu.