{"id":16545,"date":"2019-09-01T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2019\/09\/01\/the-android-priest-that-s-revolutionizing-buddhism\/"},"modified":"2019-09-01T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T12:00:00","slug":"the-android-priest-that-s-revolutionizing-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2019\/09\/01\/the-android-priest-that-s-revolutionizing-buddhism\/","title":{"rendered":"The Android Priest That&#8217;s Revolutionizing Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/travel\/article\/mindar-android-buddhist-priest-japan\/index.html\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dynaimage.cdn.cnn.com\/cnn\/q_auto,w_634,c_fill,g_auto,h_357,ar_16:9\/http:\/\/cdn.cnn.com\/cnnnext\/dam\/assets\/190814141838-robot-priest---kodaiji-temple---getty-images.jpg\" style=\"max-width:100%;object-fit:scale-down;\" \/><br \/>JAPAN, August 28, 2019 (CNN): It may seem like an out there move, but a 400-year-old Japanese temple has brought in a robot named Mindar to preach sermons. The adult-sized android, modeled after Kannon Bodhisattva, the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy, was introduced to the Kodaiji temple in Kyoto earlier this year. Although some critics have compared it to &#8220;Frankenstein&#8217;s monster,&#8221; Mindar has gone down well with colleagues, who say it&#8217;s doing wonders for the spiritual tradition founded by Siddhartha Gautama over 2,500 years ago. &#8220;The big difference between a monk and a robot is that we are going to die,&#8221; says Buddhist monk Tensho Goto, emphasizing the android&#8217;s &#8220;immortality.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The temple has been accused of sacrilege by some critics, but Goto rejects these claims. &#8220;Buddhism isn&#8217;t a belief in a God, it&#8217;s pursuing Buddha&#8217;s path,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;It doesn&#8217;t matter whether it&#8217;s represented by a machine, a piece of scrap metal or a tree.&#8221; Standing at over 6 ft. tall, Mindar is mainly made from aluminum, although its hands, face and shoulders are covered in silicone to appear similar to human skin. The android is programmed to deliver a 25-minute sermon on the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist scripture, while moving its torso, arms and head.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source JAPAN, August 28, 2019 (CNN): It may seem like an out there move, but a 400-year-old Japanese temple has,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}