[About the Book]
This book bridges the Buddhist view of life and death with contemporary bioethics, written by a former head priest of Kōsaiji Temple of the Jōdo Shinshū Hongwanji-ha tradition and a scholar of bioethics.
Part I is based on public lectures and offers a Buddhist reading of “birth, aging, illness, and death in modern society,” addressing issues such as the super-aging population, lifestyle-related diseases, life-prolonging medical treatment, and reproductive technologies.
Part II presents academic essays that examine bereavement, euthanasia, and death with dignity from multiple perspectives, including medicine, law, religion, and family relationships. The author argues that true human dignity lies in bonds between people and in shared suffering.

In an age of advanced science and medicine, new forms of anguish have emerged-such as the feeling that “one should never have been born” or the pain of “wanting to die but being unable to do so.”
While confronting these realities head-on, this book offers Buddhist wisdom that approaches death in a comprehensive and solemn manner.
For readers interested in Japanese thought and views on life and death, this work provides valuable insight into how Japanese Buddhism engages with suffering in contemporary society.

[Author Biography]
Junsei Judai

Born in 1957 at Shōunji Temple (Shinshū Ōtani-ha) in Nakagawa Ward, Nagoya City. After graduating from the Department of German Literature, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Waseda University in March 1981, he began working as a monk at Shōunji Temple. In April 1982, he transferred to the Department of Buddhist Studies at Dōhō University to study Buddhism (Jōdo Shinshū). After graduating from Dōhō University in March 1984, he worked at several temples in the Kansai region, while engaging in socially engaged Buddhist activities concerning issues such as Yasukuni Shrine and discrimination against Buraku communities. From 1990 to 1993, he served as the first official secretary to Masatoshi Itō, then a member of the House of Councillors, where he was involved in various peace and human rights issues, including PKO (peacekeeping operations) and postwar compensation.
After resigning as secretary, in April 1994 he entered the Master’s Program in International Relations Law at the Graduate School of Yokohama National University, completing the program in March 1997. From April 1998, he pursued doctoral studies in constitutional law at the Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University (withdrew from the program in March 2007). During this period, in 1999 he joined Kōsaiji Temple (Jōdo Shinshū Honganji-ha), transferring from the Shinshū Ōtani-ha, and in 2001 became the head priest of the temple. Since then, he has sought to create a temple as a “place of learning.” In December 2021, he handed over the position of head priest to his successor and is now the former head priest. He now intends to pursue further inquiry into matters of thought and faith as a private individual.
More recently, from April 2011, he studied bioethics in the Master’s Program at the Graduate School of Human Sciences, Waseda University (completed in March 2014), and from April 2016 he pursued a Ph.D. at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Waseda University (completed in March 2024, PhD. In Social Science).His doctoral dissertation is “An Attempt of Buddhist Bioethics : Cause and Effect of Birth , Aging, Illness and Death Seen in Literary Works in Modern Japan”.