What is Suffering Substitution?

Suffering Substitution
as a Mahāyāna Virtue
Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University)
@ Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya
University
2015.8.26
Backgrounds
• After 3.11 tsunami disaster, a Mahayana Buddhists’ idea ‘suffering
surrogate (代受苦; dai ju ku/dài shòu kŭ, Duhkha-udvahana)’ has
come into fashion in Japan.
• This revival was due to public sermons by Jakuchō Setouchi (1922-),
a Japanese famous Buddhist nun, where she sanctified victims of
the natural disaster as persons or agents who sustained sufferings in
behalf of survivors (Suffering Surrogate 代受苦者).
• While being interesting and appealing, the notion leads us to hosts
of questions such as ‘Is it possible to substitute sufferings in place of
others?’, ‘Is this different from self-sacrifice?’ & etc.
• Also, since its long history has accumulated thick layers of its
meanings, it has come to be too ambiguous to be used in exact
discussions.
• Actually no contemporary philosophical analyses have been applied
to this notion.
Aims
• So let me explicate this notion of suffering substitution,
or SS, in terms of contemporary philosophy such as
virtue ethics.
• In so doing, I will disambiguate its meanings, proposing
a characterization, if not a precise definition, of it.
• In other words, let me answer the question; what is
suffering substitution?, in a more or less definitive
manner, revealing its paradoxical nature.
• Based on this characterization, I will answer several
questions concerning SS such as those mentioned
above.
Variants of Suffering Substitution
• Naturally its long history has accumulate thick
layers of meaning of SS.
• So let me first sample several significant
meanings of the notion; its Mahāyāna
Buddhism resources, its contemporary loci
classici; a poetry of Kenji Miyazawa (1906-33),
a popular Japanese poet, and its recent
development by Jakuchō Setouchi.
Mahāyanā Sources 1
1)
In the context of enlisting activities or achievements of a
Mahāyāna superman; bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, it reads;
亦遊戲地獄, 大悲代受苦 [Avalokitesvara] also travels about inferno
and, [through exercising his] great mercy, substitutes sufferings [of the
dead].
請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼呪經 (ADS) T20, 36.
Mahāyanā Sources 2
入大悲心者。如先説。此中佛自説。本願大心爲衆生故。所
謂爲一一人故於無量劫代受地獄苦。乃至令是人集行功徳作佛
入無餘涅槃。
Entering [the stage of] great mercy means … ,for each person, to
substitute sufferings of inferno in an eternal period … [and finally] to
let that person enter total nirvāna.
問曰。無有代受罪者。何以作是願。答曰。是菩薩弘大之心
深愛衆生。若有代理必代不疑。 Question; there should exist no
person who substitutes guilt [of others]. On what reason did he make
such a wish? Answer; this bodhisattva with great broad mind deeply
loves sentient beings. If there is reason [or rationale] to substitute,
undoubtedly he should substitute. 大智度論 (MPS) vol.49, T25, 414
2)
Mahāyanā Sources 3
3) 爲除一切有情苦故。一切有情諸惡趣業。…
悉願自身代彼領受苦異熟果。
To remove sufferings of all sentient beings,
[bodhisattva] wishes to sustain sufferings that is
karma [result] of their evil actions, in behalf of
them, [by changing a normal causal chain to
obtain] a fruit [or result] that ripens at a
different tree.
瑜伽師地論 (YBS) vol. 49,T30, 565
Kenji Miyazawa’s
Substitution Suffering
• In one of the last poems of Kenji Miyazawa that were composed in
his own illness; ‘October 20’, he described how an innocent little girl
was severely suffered from her illness, and prayed for a Buddhist
deity to let him sustain her pain of sickness.
• あゝ大梵天王こよひはしたなくも/こゝろみだれてあなたに訴へ奉り
ます/あの子は三つではございますが/直立して合掌し/法華の首
題も唱へました/如何なる前世の非にもあれ/たゞかの病かの痛苦
をば/私にうつし賜はらんことを
• Oh, great deity of heaven, tonight let me appeal shamelessly to you
with upset mind. Though being still three years old, she stood still,
worshipped with folded hands, and chanted the title of lotus sutra.
Due to whatever guilty she committed in her previous life, please
just transfer her illness and pains to me.
• Kenji Miyazawa, October 20, in Notebook of Strong in Rain (1931)
Jakuchō Setouchi on Victims as
Substitute Suffering Agents 1
In an ex post facto manner, Jakuchō ascribed SS to victims of 3.11 natural disaster in the
context of her spiritual care for their families, relatives and friends who suffered distress
from feelings of loss and guilty.
•
•
•
仏教の言葉に「代受苦」というのがあります。
…ほかの人に代わってその苦しみを全部自
分が引き受ける、という意味です。菩薩様や
お地蔵様の慈悲を指しますけれども、人間
にもそういう貴い人がいるんですよ。キリスト
が十字架に架けられたのも、言ってみれば
代受苦でしょう？それは、やっぱり選ばれた
人なんですね。
今度の震災で亡くなった人たちだって、何
も悪いことをしていません。それこそ、赤ちゃ
んの犠牲者なんか、生まれたばかりでまだ
何もしていないのに亡くなったわけでしょ
う？そういう犠牲者たちは、ほかの人に代
わって死んでくれた、私たちの苦しみを引き
受けて死んでくれたんですよ。だから、ほん
とうに貴い人たちなんです。
ですから生き残った私たちは、亡くなった
方たちへの感謝を絶対に忘れちゃいけない。
私たちに代わって、苦しみを引き受けて亡く
なったんですから。
•
•
•
•
There is a Buddhist’s word, ‘suffering
substitution’. … It means to sustain all the
sufferings in behalf of others. It refers to
mercy of bodhisattvas and ksiti-gharbha. But
even among humans, there are such noble
persons. Is crucifixion of Christ also
substitute suffering, isn’t it? They are chosen
persons.
Victims of this natural disaster didn’t do
nothing wrong. For instance, new born
babies were killed before doing anything.
Those victims died in place of others,
sustaining others’ sufferings. That’s why they
are so noble persons.
Therefore we survivors must not forget our
gratitude to those victims because they died
to sustain suffering in behalf of us.
Jakuchō Setouchi (2014/2011) in Setouchi &
Inamori, Altruism, 49-50.
What is Virtue?
• (Moral) virtue is discussed in various ways and given
various meanings.
• Roughly, it is excellence (ἀρετή）of character or personality
that is, in ethics, in contrast with rules for or duties of
actions (deontology) and consequences of actions
(consequentialism; e.g., utilitarianism).
• Aristotelian virtues are usually connected with practical
reason/wisdom (φρονησιζ) and the aim of life; i.e.,
happiness or flourishing (εὐδαιμονία).
• A contemporary scholar pointed out three ‘perspectives’ or
aspects of virtue; virtue as an attribute; virtue as individual
actions reflective of the agent's nature; and virtue as
meeting the obligations of role’. (Brody 1988)
Suffering Substitution as a Virtue
• Great Mercy is a moral virtue; it is a character or personality that
is ascribed to bodhisattva, in contrast to Buddhist rules for
action; śīla or vinaya such as ‘Don’t kill.’ ‘Don’t steal’, or
consequences of actions; e.g., removal of suffering or nirvāna.
• SS can be interpreted to have Brody’s three aspects.
1) An action reflective of agent’s virtue; i.e., Great Mercy
2) An aspect of the generic virtue; Great Mercy
( ‘wishes to do so’ was also taken as SS in MPS & YBS. The ‘wishes’
can be taken to be a mental propensity to do SS; that is, a virtue or
a moral character.)
3) Meeting of the obligations of role: SS is also mentioned as an
achievement.
So SS can be taken as a virtue. But it will turn out that the third
aspect of SS needs a qualification and SS is a strange version of
virtue.
Impossibility of Suffering Substitution 1
• Originally SS was a virtue of a Mahāyāna superman; bodhisattva
Avalokitesvara.
• Doubts had been casted even over the possibility of the bodhisattva to do
SS. A focus of discussions was if he could change a normal causal chain to
do SS. (台宗二百題第六)
• We can also find reservations for the possibility of SS for the bodhisattva
in MPS ; ‘If there is reason [or rationale] to substitute, undoubtedly he
should substitute’. So SS mentioned here is conditional or hypothetical
rather than categorical.
• More obviously, it is practically impossible, not merely difficult, for
ordinary people to do SS, at least in its paradigm cases.
• Take Kenji’s SS; to substitute patients’ sufferings from a disease.
• It is occasionally possible for us to reduce or remove patients sufferings by
medication, for instance.
• But it is practically impossible to ‘transfer’ them from patients to others.
• For ordinary people, paradigm cases of SS is simply missions impossible.
Impossibility of Suffering Substitution 2
• In contrast, paradigm cases of self-sacrifice are practically possible
to do; to give up a seat of rescue boat to the vulnerable on the deck
of sinking Titanic, crucifixion of Christ to atone sins of all human
beings (that is practically possible according to Christian worldview).
• Here is a crucial difference between SS and self-sacrifice; practical
(im)possibility of their paradigm cases.
• Confucianism has its own paradigm case of SS that is practically
possible; a son is willing to take his father’s guilty and to be
imprisoned in place of him.
• But the paradigm case for Mahayana Buddhism is practically
impossible.
• Opposing to Jakuchō’s remark, I claim that SS and self-sacrifice are
different with each other.
Wish in Despair
• I also claim that SS is not merely practically impossible, but also SS agent
knows that it is practically impossible.
• In Kenji’s case, he should know that it is impossible for him to do SS, and
that is why he prays for a deity to let him to do SS.
• (There is no clear evidence that he literally believes in the supernatural
power that can let him to do SS, so I take him to know that SS is practically
impossible.)
• Given this observation, let me distinguish two sorts of wish;
1) Wish in hope: S wishes to do X while knowing that it is practically
possible for him/her to do X.
2) Wish in despair: S wishes to do X while knowing that it is practically
impossible for him/her to do X.
• Like Kenji, SS agent wishes in despair, or desperately wishes, that (s)he
could do SS.
• SS is something to be desperately wished.
Strong Wish in despair
• We can also distinguish two different modes of wish in despair;
1) Wish in despair in weak sense: S wishes to do X even though S
knows that it is impossible to do X.
2) Wish in despair in strong sense: S wishes to do X on the very
reason that S knows that it is impossible to do X.
• The difference in strong and weak wishes in despair is due to that,
only in the former, S is conscious that to wish to do is the last resort
for him/her, or that for him/her it is the only available thing to do.
• I claim that SS agent has the strong wish in despair rather than the
weak one.
• But the distinction between the strong & the weak doesn’t matter
for the following discussion.
Keen Attentiveness to Sufferers
• Let me ask two questions; why does SS agent has such a
(strong) desperate wish?, and how does it make sense to
have a desperate wish?
• First let me answer the why-question.
• SS agent is so keenly or excessively attentive to sufferers
that (s)he cannot help having a (strong) desperate wish.
• So keenness or excessiveness of his/her attentiveness to
sufferers, that is, a moral emotion, is the reason why (s)he
has a desperate wish.
• In other words, it is a manifestation of keen attentiveness
to sufferers that can be articulated as that I am always
prepared to sustain your sufferings in behalf of you.
Primacy of Moral Emotion
over Moral Reason
• But to have a desperate wish and to make one’s efforts to fulfill the wish is
useless or ineffective.
• Then is it meaningful to have a desperate wish?
• Yes, it is meaningful. To see why, let us introduce a maxim of practical
reason or phronēsis;
To plan and endeavor to do X iff one is competent to do so.
Or more simply; don’t make any useless efforts.
• To have a desperate wish clearly violates this maxim.
• In the light of practical reason, it is useless, unreasonable or even
meaningless to have a desperate wish and to make any efforts to fulfill the
wish.
• So to have a desperate wish, one should make a deliberate choice to
motivate oneself on the basis of practical emotion; i.e., excessive
attentiveness to sufferers rather than practical reason.
• Here the moral emotion is given the primacy over moral reason as
motivation for one’s moral conducts.
A fundamental Virtue:
Abundance of Moral Emotion
• But why does it makes sense to give priority to moral emotion
rather than moral reason w.r.t. motivation for moral conducts?
• Here we can uncover a fundamental moral virtue that underlies the
virtue of SS; abundance of moral emotion.
• It is an excellence of character or personality to have a moral
emotion; attentiveness to sufferers, fully, richly or abundantly
enough not to be afraid of making useless efforts.
• S is to be morally praised if S is determined to be motivated so
abundantly by a moral emotion; attentiveness to sufferers, that S is
not afraid to make useless efforts at all.
• I claim that since this is a moral virtue, it becomes meaningful to try
to do what is beyond one’s competence, to make useless efforts,
and to motivate oneself on the basis of moral emotion rather than
moral reason, and finally to wish disparately to do SS.
Effectiveness for Meta-suffering
• This fundamental virtue is ineffective or useless to remove or
modify the sufferings that are at issue; e.g., pains from a disease.
• But it can be occasionally effective to reduce ‘meta-suffering’ (S.
Freedman), suffering that is caused by one or another perception
concerning one’s own suffering; e.g., the fear that the suffering
might persist endlessly, the feeling of worthlessness of one’s own
anguished life, the isolated feeling from the rest of the world that
looks painless & etc.
• The abundance of moral emotion of SS agent, especially the
keenness of his/her attentiveness to sufferers, can manifest his/her
unreserved devotion to them so that they can have feelings of
security and relief even in the middle of their unbearable sufferings.
Those feeling of security or relief can contribute the modification of
their meta-sufferings.
Serious Intention
to Substitute Suffering
• Thought it may be effective for meta-suffering, the effectiveness
should remain a side-effect for SS.
• In other words, SS agent must not give up his/her original intention
to substitute (not meta-) suffering.
• This implies that (s)he should intend seriously and wholeheartedly
to do SS in his/her despair wish even though (s)he knows that it is
practically impossible.
• Thus, Jacuchō’s idea to take natural disaster’s victims as SS agents
might not satisfy this serious intention condition of SS, because it is
not sure if many of the victims really intended to do SS when they
were victimized by the disaster.
• So her usage of SS is not a genuine but rather extended one.
• We can call the victims as SS agents in its extended rather than
genuine sense.
Comparisons 1: Aristotelian Virtue 1
• SS has the three moments of Aristotelian virtue. But it has
turned out that it is a special or even strange variant of
Aristotelian virtue.
• Excellence of character or personality: the fundamental
virtue that underlies SS is the abundance of moral emotion;
attentiveness to sufferers. This virtue results in the primacy
of practical emotion over practical reason; an expression of
a variant of emotivism.
• The aim of life: The prime aim of our life is not simply to
remove or reduce all sufferings. There is priority among
removals of sufferings. The removal of others’ suffering is
given the priority to that of one’s own suffering. So SS is
obviously an altruistic virtue.
Comparisons 1: Aristotelian Virtue 2
• Practical reason/wisdom: As mentioned, practical reason is
overshadowed by practical emotion. Likewise the
competence is overshadowed by the incompetence. SS
agents are praised to be incompetent in their achievements
of SS. Their incompetence are given a positive meaning;
that is, a consequence of the abundance of practical
emotion or the keenness of their attentiveness.
• So, strangely or even paradoxically, SS is an incompetent
virtue.
• The Brody’s third condition; meeting of the obligations are
satisfied only by its side effect; reduction of meta-suffering,
rather than by its mainly intended effect; SS.
Comparisons 2: Self-sacrifice
• In paradigm examples of self-sacrifice, it is
practically possible to sacrifice oneself to help
others.
• In contrast, paradigm examples of SS, it
practically impossible to substitute others’
sufferings.
• SS is an incompetent virtue whereas selfsacrifice an competent one.
Comparisons 3: Compassion
• SS is a sort of compassion, but it has many
aspects that cannot be simply reduced to
compassion.
• Obviously SS involves or presupposes
emotion, feeling or ability of compassion.
• But it has also other aspects such as desperate
wish, abundance of practical emotion.
Comparisons 4: Care
• For care as a virtue, especially care as a
professional virtue for nursing, for instance, the
idea of competence plays a central role.
• Carers such as nurses have to be competent.
• So care is a competent virtue while SS is not.
• Some claim that care is a relational virtue that is
excised essentially in personal relationship such
as ‘attunement’ (Benner 1997).
• SS is also a relational virtue; attentiveness to
other’s suffering.
Comparisons 5: Non-doing (無為）
• A Daoist virtue; non-doing (無為), is not simply to do
nothing. It can be interpreted as flexible and
spontaneous actions that are in harmony with one’s
social and natural environments.
• While being flexible and spontaneous, non-doing can
be also skillful and therefore effective and useful as the
episode of master cook Ding in Zhuang-zi shows.
• But an essential character of SS is its uselessness or
inefficacy in achievement of its prim aim.
• Here is a clear difference; non-doing is a competent
virtue while SS is an incompetent one.
Summary: What is SS?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
SS is a moral virtue that can be articulated as the motto that I am
always prepared to substitute sufferings in behalf of you.
In its paradigm cases, it is practically impossible for ordinary
people to do SS.
SS agent should know this impracticality of SS.
On the very reason of this impracticality, SS agent should seriously
or wholeheartedly wish in despair to do SS.
Thought being ineffective to achieve its main goal, it can
occasionally have a positive side effect; to reduce meta-suffering.
SS is based on a fundamental virtue; the abundance of a moral
emotion; attentiveness to sufferers, that is an incompetent,
altruistic, emotive and relational virtue.
In the light of this fundamental virtue, it becomes meaningful to
give the priority to practical emotion over practical reason, to
make useless efforts, and to desperately wish to do SS.
References
• Brody, J., 1988, Virtue Ethics, Caring, and Nursing,
Scholarly Inquiry for Nursing Practice, vol.2, n.2, 87-96.
• 大智度論, Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, vol.25.
• 請觀世音菩薩消伏毒害陀羅尼呪經, Taishō Shinshū
Daizōkyō, vol.20.
• Miyazawa, K., 1931, October 20th, in 校本宮沢賢治全
集, vol.12 n.1, 35, 1975.
• Setouchi, J. & Inamori, K., 2014, Altruism (利他）,
Shōgakukan (originally published in 2011).
• 瑜伽師地論, Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō, vol.30.
Thank You!
PS 1
• Incompetent and directedness are different.
• SS and the fundamental virtue are directed to the aim: to save
others, even though it is incompetent to do so.
• 代人受苦(a Confucian idea); to be imprisoned in behalf of one’s
father.
• Ambiguities of removal (or reduce) of suffering; 1) it deprives
sufferer to have a meaningful experience of suffering ; suffering
from the fear for death, 2) one’s suffering is not privately accessible.
This privacy of suffering constitutes irreducibility of an individual to
others. So compassion to or intention to remove other’s suffering
violates the dignity of individuality, 3) The removal of other’s
suffering can be easily to be an imposition or interference of carer’s
idea upon the other.
PS 2
• This ambiguities can be incorporated, in one or another manner,
into the idea of suffering substitution; its paradoxical nature of
being an incompetent virtue.
• Why is a SS agent incompetent to do SS? Ultimately because a SS
agent and a sufferer are distinct with each other. They are distinct
nods in a causal network. So knowledge of impossibility of SS also
the knowledge of this distinctness and its various consequences;
the impossibility of direct experience of other’s sufferings, of exact
empathy that is based on direct experience of others’ sufferings,
and difficulty of other’s real intention and needs.
• Even though being aware of those impossibility and difficulties,
nevertheless, a SS agent wishes in despair to substitute other’s
suffering due to her excessive or keen attendance to the other.
PS 3
•
•
•
•
•
•
As for ‘meaningful experience of suffering’, let us first introduce three distinctions
among sufferings.
1) Moderate and excessive sufferings; this is a distinction in degree. The moderate
suffering is moderate or miner enough to be bearable. whereas the excessive one
is acute enough to be unbearable.
2) Avoidable and unavoidable sufferings; this is a non-sharp distinction in kind. The
former is avoidable in the course of human life; e.g., pains from one or another
cancer. The latter is unavoidable in the course of human life; e.g. fear for one’s
own death.
3) Meaningful and meaningless sufferings; this is another non-sharp distinction in
kind. The former is sufferings whose experience can lead us to understand
negative but real aspects of human life; e.g. the unavoidability of death and aging.
The latter is ones whose experience cannot lead us to such a understanding;
sufferings of persons who cannot understand any aspects of human life; e.g.
infants or the mentally handicapped.
Given those distinctions, it is not a moral mandatory to remove or reduce other’s
sufferings that is moderate, unavoidable and meaningful.
This means, for instance, that it is mandatory to remove or reduce other’s
suffering it it is excessive even though it is meaningful.
PS 4
• An alternative approach to SS and self-sacrifice.
• SS and self-sacrifice are just nominally different and substantially
same.
• There are practically possible and impossible SS/Self-sacrifice.
• As for the impossible cases, there are two sorts of SS/Self-suffering.
1. It is meaningful or useful to do or wish to do if it is practically
impossible or ineffective to do so.
2. It is meaningless or useless to do or wish to do if it is practically
impossible or ineffective to do so.
• SS highlighted the case 1. So we can call only it as SS. Effectively SS
is a special case of self-sacrifice that is meaningful even it is
practically impossible.
PS 5
• Kenji Miyazawa in Strong in Rain Notebook, 1931.
• たとえ三世の怨敵なりとも、亦斯の如き病苦
あらんをねがはじ。 (38-39)
• I don’ wish that even a sworn enemy throughout
the three different words would have pain of
sickness like this [that I have].
• This is a special sort of SS in which a SS agent has
sufferings, and doesn’t want anyone else to suffer
the same suffering. She wants to sustain suffering
in place of others, letting them free from it.

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