Consulting AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Deepseek is fast becoming as ubiquitous as using search engines like Google. In fact, if you go to search a question on Google right now, the first thing you will likely be offered is a reply from Google’s own AI chatbot. Indeed, in keeping with the accelerating speed of change in today’s world, anxiety over AI is already becoming a cliché. By contrast with this digital hurly-burly stands Buddhism. It is in the Buddha Dharma that we find a fixed point, an eye to in the storm of Samsara. In light of this contrast, should propagators of the Dharma embrace these new technologies, or are they something that should be held at arm’s length?
There are, undoubtedly, multiple valid perspectives on this issue. One voice that sounds loudly and passionately in favor of seeing generative AI as a positive opportunity is Reverend Hondaku.
Buddhistdoor Global sat down with the Reverend to discuss his various projects, both actualized and envisioned, for using AI to further the reach of the Dharma. Rev. Hondaku is an ordained minister in the Higashi Honganji, the second largest denomination of Jodo Shinshu. Jodo Shinshu is a sect of Pure Land Buddhism that teaches that Nirvana can most easily be attained through entrusting in Amitabha (or in Japanese, Amida) Buddha’s Vow to deliver to Buddhahood in their next lives all who leave their karmic destiny in His hands. Jodo Shinshu is the largest school of Buddhism in both Japan and the United States.
Rev. Hondaku, now based in Spain, was born in Brazil to Italian parents. From a young age he discovered he had an intimate karmic connection with both Asian culture and spiritual concerns. In his early teens he joined a Catholic youth association (from which he was soon ejected). About a year later, he stumbled across D.T. Suzuki’s book Introduction To Zen Buddhism (1934). He begged his mother to buy it for him, and the consequences were life changing. By his own admission, Hondaku understood almost nothing of Suzuki’s text. Perhaps this was due to the quality of the translation which, according to Hondaku, was very poor. Or maybe it was down to the limits of his intellectual development at that time. The books of Suzuki can be very challenging for anyone, let alone a young teenager.
Either way, Hondaku grasped only a single concept from this book: the law of karma. This seed eventually blossomed into a full-blown faith. In his approximately 40 years as a Buddhist, Hondaku spent time as a member of Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism, Taiwan’s Foguangshan, and the Nishi Hongangji branch of Jodo Shinshu, before settling in the Higashi Honganji.
Reverend Hondaku doesn’t just advocate for Buddhists embracing AI, he is actively engaged in developing multiple generative AI projects intended to help make the teachings of the Buddha more accessible. With his broad smile and flashing eyes, his enthusiasm for these undertakings is palpable.
The accessibility of the Dharma and computer technology have been themes in Rev. Hondaku’s life since his early adulthood. Growing up in Portuguese speaking Brazil and working as a Buddhist minister with mainly Portuguese and Spanish speaking followers, Hondaku has acutely felt the lack of Dharma resources available in these languages. To illustrate, the Larger Amida Sutra (the most important in Jodo Shinshu) is only available in a single unpublished and unedited Portuguese translation written in somewhat archaic language. Meanwhile the Lotus Sutra, the central text of the Nichiren and Tendai schools, has also only been translated into Portuguese once, although this translation has at least been published. With a professional background in computer programming, in the late 1990s Hondaku launched a nonsectarian internet portal named DharmaNet (which is sadly no longer online).
It is this familiarity with technology, and concern for making the Dharma more accessible which led to Hondaku launching his several generative AI projects. Although he has a background in programming, these are not one-man undertakings. Hondaku is supported by a small team of two of his students who are well trained in artificial intelligence. The first of his projects is a digital “clone” of himself: HondakuAI. This clone, equipped with all of Hondaku’s writings, YouTube videos and books that he has read, is able to offer teachings and engage in dialogue twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. HondakuAI can communicate in over 20 different languages in writing or speech (in a perfect reproduction of the real Hondaku’s voice!).
Hondaku, beaming with pride, states that several of his students have checked the answers HondakuAI gives them to questions with those from the flesh and blood AI, and the two answers have always lined up. In line with his commitment to orthodoxy and what he calls the “safety” of those seeking the Dharma, his AI clone has been trained not to answer questions about matters irrelevant to the Dharma, like his private life or political opinions. Hondaku views his clone as an ongoing experiment: can generative AI allow Buddhist clerics to extend their reach? That said, speaking with him one strongly gets the sense he believes the answer is affirmative.
In line with his thematic concerns with spiritual safety and bridging linguistic barriers to the Dharma, his second project is KumaraSynth (named after the famed fourth-century Central Asian translator of Buddhist texts, Kumarajiva). KumaraSynth, originally developed for Spanish and Portuguese speakers but able to function in a number of languages, is intended to broaden access to the Buddhist cannon. It allows users to access summaries of sutras and their essential doctrinal points in plain, easily intelligible language.
ChatGPT can do something similar, but what is special about KumaraSynth is that it has been programmed to only draw information from the Buddhist canon. A commercial AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Google Gemini may draw from all manner of sources. What is worse, these other chatbots will do this while claiming that they are only reporting what is in the sutras and commentaries. In Hondaku’s distinctive turn of phrase, KumaraSynth is special because it is “safe.”
Hondaku’s third project is Shinran.ai. This is a “digital reconstruction” of the founder of Jodo Shinshu, Shinran Shonin. This reconstruction is capable of teaching, based on Shinran’s collected works, through text, voice and a digital avatar.
But these projects do not exhaust Hondaku’s ambitions for AI as a means for propagating Buddhism. He argues passionately that building physical temples is not a viable way forward for Buddhism in the West. He makes a compelling argument. Purpose built temples are a rarity in the West, particularly in Europe. Rather, the rule is that pre-existing buildings, often private homes, are repurposed. But even this can prove prohibitively expensive. Also, in Europe, Buddhism is mostly a religion of converts. This means that practitioners are often very geographically dispersed, making regularly meeting in a single location difficult if not altogether unfeasible.
Instead, Hondaku has a radical proposal: a photo-realistic, interactive virtual reality temple generated by AI accessible via computer screen or virtual reality headset anytime, anywhere. This virtual temple would allow different people to hold Buddhist services together remotely, or even for individuals to have solo services officiated by an AI generated cleric. As Hondaku envisages it, this AI temple would be customizable, so that depending on the individual’s preferences, it could appear in Japanese or Chinese style. Or it could assume some futuristic style that no temple has ever been built in; for example, a cyberpunk or brutalist aesthetic, as Hondaku suggests.
This last suggestion may strike many Buddhists, quite understandably, as anathema. Hondaku’s defense is that when Maitreya Buddha arrives it is not going to be in a world resembling that replete with virgin nature that Shakyamuni was born into. Rather, it will be something closer to a Blade Runner-esque “dystopia.”
How close is Hondaku’s ambitious project to becoming a reality? Funding is still lacking, but not nearly as much as one might think. 2,000 Euros is what it would take, estimates Hondaku. Not a lot, he acknowledges, but also more than he has to spare. But then, who knows what benefactor the future may bring.
For more information or if you would like to offer support, you can reach Rev. Hondaku by e-mail ([email protected]), Telegram (@hondakubot), or WhatsApp (+1-866-797-3202).
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