Part of a special section on Buddhist Chaplaincy in the United States and Japan. Editors’ note: Rev. HIRANO Shunkō has served as a prison chaplain among death row inmates at Tokyo Detention House for more than forty years. He is a priest of the Jōdo Shinshū Honganji sect and the former abbot of Chūgenji temple in Ichikawa, Chiba. He is also the…