On November 17, 2021, the 3rd Public Sentiment Forum on Internet and Religion was held online. The theme is “Construction of Digital Civilization and Research on Internet and Religion”. Attendees included officials and researchers from the United Front Work Department of CPC Central Committee, CASS Institute of World Religions, the CASS Institutes of Science and Development, Peking University and other institutions.
The Abbot of Lingyin Temple in Hangzhou， Venerable Master Guangquan delivered a keynote speech entitled “Upholding Buddhism with Chinese Characteristics” for the sub-group meeting. He spoke on the construction of an artificially intelligent digitalized Buddhist temple by way of adaptation and innovation.
Venerable Master Guangquan emphasized that it is increasingly difficult for a Buddhist temple to adapt to the rapid development of technologies in the modern world if we still stick to the traditional management style. New problems have already popped up – more demands for Buddhism propaganda but underdeveloped management, the detrimental effect of over-commercialization and pan-entertainment on Buddhist temples, negative news about Buddhist temples on the Internet, the lack of new technical support for the safety of Buddhist temples, the adverse impact of too many duties in temple affairs on Buddhist masters, etc. These problems have largely constraint the development of Buddhism. Under such a circumstance, the Hangzhou Buddhist community has started exploration into the digital empowerment for Buddhism.
According to Venerable Master Guangquan, both software and hardware are needed to build an artificially intelligent digitalized Buddhist temple so as to improve the management skills of the temple. On the one hand, the awareness of digital empowerment should be enhanced with the use of more innovative intelligent technologies. On the other hand, Buddhism with Chinese characteristics should be upheld so that technologies can be coherently integrated with the true power of Buddhism – to purity minds and to enlighten sentient beings.
