Suffering Substitution as a Mahāyāna Virtue

Yasuo DEGUCHI (Kyoto University)@ Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya

University2015.8.26

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

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

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

• 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.

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.

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 Mercy2) 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 self-sacrifice 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. SS is a moral virtue that can be articulated as the motto that I am always

prepared to substitute sufferings in behalf of you.2. In its paradigm cases, it is practically impossible for ordinary people to do SS.3. SS agent should know this impracticality of SS.4. On the very reason of this impracticality, SS agent should seriously or

wholeheartedly wish in despair to do SS.5. Thought being ineffective to achieve its main goal, it can occasionally have a

positive side effect; to reduce meta-suffering.6. 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.

7. 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.