[Feature: Considering the "Multiple Death Society"] Roundtable: How is the Perception of "Death" Changing Now?

Thank you all for gathering today despite your busy schedules. Today, I would like to talk with you all in this roundtable discussion for the special feature "Thinking about a Mass-Death Society."

First, I would like to consider what a "mass-death society" actually is. To begin, I will introduce some basic data regarding the mass-death society as a premise.

The term "mass-death society" has been heard frequently lately. According to the Vital Statistics of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the annual number of deaths in 2022 exceeded 1.5 million, reaching 1,569,050. Excluding the war years, this was the highest number of deaths on record since statistics began.

Until then, the highest number was during the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918, which was just over 1.49 million. I believe the term "mass-death society" began to be used around the time that number was exceeded and the death toll became the highest in history. Incidentally, the number of deaths in 2024 has exceeded 1.6 million. It is likely that a society with a very high number of deaths will continue for some time.

Furthermore, while the number of deaths is high, the number of births is decreasing, so the declining birthrate and aging population are progressing further, and the population has been steadily decreasing since 2009.

In this way, the reality is that the number of deaths is increasing. However, to what extent do people actually feel this? I think it might be better to think about this part separately. In that regard, I will introduce two pieces of data for reference.

One is that death has become heavily concentrated among the elderly. The other is the increase in hospital deaths. When the Spanish Flu was prevalent in the early 20th century, young people aged 19 and under accounted for about 30% to 40% of annual deaths. In particular, deaths among those aged 14 and under, especially infants, were high. Even in 1950, 30% of annual deaths were among those aged 19 and under, and specifically about 25% were infants aged 0 to 4. This was ultimately because the main cause of death was infectious diseases.

In 1950, it felt like 30% of those who died in a year were young people aged 19 and under, and 30% were the elderly. However, in 2020, those aged 19 and under accounted for only 0.2%, while over 90% were aged 65 and over, and 76.5% were aged 75 and over, showing a strong trend toward dying at an advanced age.

Therefore, "growing old and dying" is common sense now, but if we think over a slightly longer span, there was a long period when one didn't know when they might die, regardless of age. As the cause of death changed from infectious diseases to lifestyle-related diseases and old age, the pattern of "growing old and dying" became generalized, resulting in a society with a very high number of deaths among the elderly. Conversely, from the perspective of young people, there may be a sense that death is still not something that concerns them personally.

The other point is the increase in hospital deaths. For example, in 1951, 90% of people died at home, and about 10% died in hospitals, clinics, or other facilities. This reversed in the 1970s, and now more than 80% of people die in facilities such as hospitals, clinics, and elderly care facilities. However, in recent years, likely due to the spread of home medical care, the number of people dying at home has been increasing slightly.

Thinking about it that way, it might not necessarily be said that death has become more familiar just because the number of deaths has increased. If you are young, you think death is still far off, and spatially, the number of people dying at home has decreased, and it has come to occur in hospitals—in a sense, an extraordinary place. Death has been distanced from everyday life, and there is a possibility that the reality of mass death in demographic statistics is out of sync with people's actual perceptions.

With that as a preface, I would first like to hear your thoughts on the mass-death society.

To supplement the data a bit, if we compare the 2019 and 2024 surveys on views of life and death, the taboo surrounding death is generally strengthening. The percentage of people who said they "feel resistance to talking with family about my own death" increased from 38.9% in 2019 to 43.3% in 2024. Also, the view that "children should be prevented from seeing family members die" has increased from 39.4% to 43.8%.

Looking at this, as you mentioned, I think there is no doubt that death is becoming an increasingly distant event for young people.

I also strongly feel what you both have said. Nowadays, among the younger generation, especially students, death is rarely discussed, and interaction with the grandparent generation has decreased considerably.

Regarding the shift toward a mass-death society, when considering the background of grave issues and the flourishing of "shukatsu" (end-of-life planning) to choose them, in addition to the factor of the increasing number of deaths, I think the decrease in the child generation due to population decline and the falling birthrate is also a major factor. In other words, the fact that there are fewer people to whom one can entrust things after death is likely one of the reasons why the mass-death society is being problematized.

In addition, I think changes in human relationships are also involved. Families living in three-generation households are rare now, and to begin with, opportunities to interact with family members of the grandparent generation on a daily basis have decreased. Within local communities, especially since COVID-19, family-only funerals have increased rapidly, and people no longer talk about the deaths of neighbors. I think these changes in human relationships, family relationships, and local communities are also related to why the younger generation does not feel the mass-death society. This is especially true when considering the choice and succession of graves.

I think you are exactly right. But at the same time, in a mass-death society where the number of deaths is increasing, nursing care and medical services will naturally become strained. Mr. Iguchi, what are your thoughts?

Working in medicine, especially in home palliative care, I interact with such people every day, but as an individual experience, I am looking at the patient in front of me, so I don't feel like the number of patients has increased because it's a mass-death society. I am currently working in Tokyo, but I also worked in regional areas for a time, and I feel there are large regional differences in how death is perceived. I often feel a kind of difficulty that people in urban areas have in dealing with death.

Separately from that, I hear that "death-katsu" (death activities) has been popular among young people recently. They talk openly about death and do things like coffin-entry experiences. An event called "Death Fes" is also being held.

I feel that the seeds of a movement to handle death in a new way are beginning to appear, and that might be because the mass-death society makes death feel like a vaguely realistic problem.

As a monk, from my sense on the ground, death is an extension of everyday life and doesn't feel like something very special.

For example, regarding memorial services, whereas previously the whole family would come, now they say children won't come because they have club activities, or they won't participate in a funeral held on a weekday because they would have to take bereavement leave from school. That means there was no regular interaction to begin with.

The other day, there was a funeral in Odawara, and although it was a family funeral, they were going to read eulogies. Each of the grandchildren, crying, spoke of their feelings for their grandmother. That was because the parents both worked, and the grandmother had looked after the children on a daily basis, so the relationship with the children was close.

Funerals, and probably weddings too, are an extension of daily life in terms of connections with people. In short, rather than a change in consciousness, if you see someone's face regularly and receive their kindness, you naturally take time off from school, but if there was little regular relationship, you think, "I don't really need to go, right?" Daily relationships are reflected there.

It's not that feelings for that person disappear, but it exists as a consequence of social structure and rationality. As for whether that is religiously unacceptable, Buddhism was not originally intended for the purpose of mourning or memorial services.

There is a phrase in the sutras I read at funeral ceremonies: "Born alone, coming alone, departing alone, with no one to follow (Dokurai Dokkyo Muichizuisha)." It means you are alone when you are born, and you go alone when you die. People say it's sad to die a lonely death, but it doesn't matter if you die alone or die peacefully; there is no such thing as a "great passing" or anything else. Death is death. Whether you die in an unexpected accident or are said to have had a great passing by slipping away as if sleeping while watched over by those around you, from a Buddhist perspective, it doesn't matter. Death is death.

Furthermore, there is the issue of suicide. In Buddhism, suicide used to be considered a bad death, but now, in the Jodo Shu (Pure Land Sect), even if it is suicide, one can definitely go to the Pure Land. Buddhism interprets that nothing bad will happen after death or to the bereaved family. Society may have other thoughts, though.

In that way, the concept of death is a consequence that reflects everyday human relationships, changing with the times, and I don't think it's a fixed concept of "how it should be." Because some people suffer or feel a burden by thinking that way, I feel that things are fine just as they are.

Conversely, that means there is also a kind of pressure to "want to have a good death."

That's right. As you say, people certainly have many fixed images about death.

There is a phenomenon where after a famous person dies, their books start selling very well, or books keep coming out even though they are dead. Recently, that was the case with Kirin Kiki and Ryuichi Sakamoto. While death is becoming more distant on one hand, on the other hand, "mediated death" is expanding and circulating significantly.

That's true. For example, something that became a topic very recently is that a tweet saying "Guee, I died-ngo" by a student named Nakayama at Hokkaido University, who died of cancer at age 22, exceeded 300 million views. He wasn't particularly talking about his view of life and death; he just said "Guee, I died-ngo" in an internet-slang style.

Or last year, it became an NHK Special, but a person named Oyamada who died of leukemia at age 16 was posting on TikTok before passing away—not so much about the struggle against the disease, but more cheerful posts—and after he died, his family took over, and many young people gathered there, and the interaction continues.

Among today's digital native youth, death might be becoming something familiar within a certain kind of information space. Mr. Tsujii, as the youngest here, what do you think?

I think death on social media is certainly a topic now, but I wonder if it is being received as something happening far away from oneself. Rather than encountering death through one's own grandparents or funerals within the local community, the way of relating to death is now changing to a form where one encounters it on media.

That kind of approach to death might be the inclination to participate in things like the "death-katsu" that Mr. Iguchi mentioned earlier, and that might be becoming more familiar.

I think death on social media and commercially driven "death-katsu" appear as events to confirm one's own identity, but on the other hand, I do think traditional ways of facing death are fading.

There is a place called a "Shukatsu Bar" in Morishita on the Toei Shinjuku Line where you can experience entering a coffin.

But when I thought I might be able to talk to various people, I actually met quite a few people who said they were studying at the Grief Care Institute of Sophia University. There are many people who were originally interested, and they are mostly women; women from their 40s to a slightly younger age seem particularly interested.

In fact, in my research as well, there is a tendency for women to feel bereavement and grief more easily than men.

My actual feeling is the exact opposite. Probably in the data too, the survival rate after a spouse dies is much higher for women.

Specifically, for men older than my generation, the wife did all the cleaning, laundry, and meals in the household, and they didn't do it themselves. When the wife dies, even among my parishioners, they say, "Chief Priest, where and how should I eat?" Some even say, "I've never eaten alone." Then their lives fall apart and many of them die.

The ones who drag out the grief are the men. A woman who used to say, "I hope my time comes soon too," after one or two years pass, says things like, "This is the first time my life has been so fulfilling" (laughs). They become full of energy and look younger, have lots of friends, and are completely different.

It's true that suicidal ideation is higher in women, but actual suicides are overwhelmingly higher in men. I think there is a gap between consciousness and reality.

Previously, I asked students at the International University of Health and Welfare if they wanted to have a funeral. 90% said "I want to." But they said they don't want to do it in a form where a religious person comes because current funerals are "gloomy, expensive, and nonsensical." As an event, they want to plan and do something where the deceased's favorite music is played or friends gather to talk about memories.

Also, face-to-face human relationships are naturally not always good; they are bothersome because people intervene. But if it's online, you can just turn it off if you don't like it. Probably various everyday relationships are reflected there as well. In short, rather than feeling or cultivating something through face-to-face human relationships, even if you make friends online, they won't come if you turn it off, and you don't have to hear things you don't like.

Actually, according to my research, the percentage of people who "want many people to attend my funeral" was 14.8% in 2019, but it was 18% in 2024, which is a statistically significant increase.

It's an event.

The desire for "my funeral to be held as a religious ceremony" has not decreased, but it is not statistically significant.

Overall, both "wanting many people to attend" and "wanting it held as a religious ceremony" are at 20%, so it feels like there is a bit of a polarization now, and there might be a certain number of conservative people or people blessed with family. You mentioned there were families who wailed, and there are parts that are truly different depending on the family.

It is said that funerals are no longer the traditional kind where local people are invited and the neighborhood association cooperates, but family-only funerals now account for more than half, and direct cremations are also increasing considerably. However, at the same time, in Japan's case, it has been Buddhism that has officiated funerals since ancient times, hasn't it?

Even now, 90% are like that.

Even for family funerals, there seems to be a tendency to want sutras to be chanted. Even if they don't understand the meaning of the sutras, I wonder if there is some kind of effect that puts people at ease.

Originally, the Japanese danka (parishioner) system was not a community of faith. In short, people don't become parishioners of a temple because they have faith, but they remain parishioners of that temple because their ancestors' graves have been there for a long time. Therefore, as long as the temple performs memorial services for the ancestors and understands and values them, it doesn't matter if it's Namu Myoho Renge Kyo or Namu Amida Butsu, or for that matter, Amen or anything else.

For example, even at my temple, many young people come to visit graves. Those are people who have always come with their grandparents or parents since they were small. They say things like, "I used to get sweets here often." I think the reason they call a monk for a funeral even without faith is because they have experienced such things, and the idea that a monk reads sutras when someone dies remains as a shared experience.

On the other hand, funerals that do not call a religious person are increasing. This, too, is in a sense an inevitability of change. It means a farewell ceremony without a religious person and without religious meaning, sending someone off with just the family in a family funeral.

Even in the doctrine of the Jodo Shu, it's not that you won't attain rebirth in the Pure Land if you don't have a funeral; a monk isn't actually necessary. If relationships with temples continue to become thin as they are now, and if there is no face-to-face interaction or consulting on a daily basis, everyone will stop calling monks, and Buddhist funerals will continue to decrease.

However, although direct cremation is normally not supposed to involve calling a monk, it seems that sometimes a monk is called to the crematorium. Originally, it's called direct cremation, and in the English-speaking world, they really don't call a religious person. Since religious figures are in churches, they don't travel to the crematorium. However, Japanese people still want someone to read sutras.

It's irrational, but I think there's a sense of guilt if they don't have sutras chanted. We have cases like that too, but in front of the furnace, even a long sutra chanting only takes 5 minutes. I take a temporary mortuary tablet with a posthumous name, and that's the end of it.

The form of funerals is changing rapidly. For example, the first seven-day memorial service used to be held after the cremation was finished, but now it's held before the coffin is moved out. Even the monks who were strict about form and said "That's no good" have ultimately accepted it now. Therefore, the form of the ritual is decided by everyone involved and the values of society, rather than by things like Buddhist legitimacy. I believe Buddhism will adapt to that.

Until now, the talk has mainly been about how to see someone off after they have died, but are there any points of concern regarding changes in the nature of human relationships, such as family or friends, at the site of end-of-life care?

For example, regarding the young man who wrote "Guee, I died-ngo" earlier, it seems his family didn't know about it, but his relationships with friends were very deep, and the family found out later. Mr. Iguchi, what kind of impressions do you have while performing end-of-life care at home?

Because this person was young, he had various facets in places different from his parents and family, and one of those facets resonated with anonymous people and became a big reaction. They saw him off saying "Joubutsu shite kuremensu" (Please find peace/attain Buddhahood), which is a standard internet slang. I thought a kind of fleeting sense of connection had been formed there.

When going to the home of a patient receiving end-of-life care for medical purposes, one inevitably becomes deeply involved in relationships centered on the family, so these facets on the outside might not be visible. I feel we are always being questioned on how close we can get to the various "connections of this person" in places we cannot see.

As individuals become more active in various places, that kind of "invisibility" will increasingly emerge, and medical professionals will likely need to interact while taking that invisibility into account.

Even within a family, each person lives a diverse life and has various values. Therefore, I think there are many cases where things don't go as smoothly as everyone being on good terms and respecting the parents.

Rather, I feel that such cases are rare. Everyone lives in their own place, has their own thoughts, and it's a matter of how to settle those relationships. As the person's body weakens, it's absolutely never the case that everyone is 100 percent satisfied; it becomes a matter of adjusting while everyone compromises or finds satisfaction bit by bit.

The death of the person themselves is important, and the experience of those around them who lose a family member is also, after all, an important thing. I feel that is where the depth and the difficulty lie.

Mr. Iguchi, you used to do hospital medicine as well, didn't you? Considering the current situation of hospital medicine and such, how is it in terms of end-of-life care?

This, too, might be difficult to summarize by saying "hospitals are..." in one word. Before starting to receive home medical care, many people have a stage of treatment in the hospital for a long time. Consequently, it's almost never the case that they can accept it immediately the moment home medical care begins.

At that stage, what they truly trust is the doctor at the hospital, the hospital as a place, and the hospital's medical records where a lot of their data remains. In the midst of that, time is needed for the home doctor who comes regularly to gradually build a relationship, with the patient thinking "maybe this is okay because they listen to me," and then saying "well, then it's fine to have this doctor look after me."

In that hesitant phase, they might say "I want to go back to the hospital after all." Previously, there were quite a few hospitals that would complain, saying "Why are you sending them back? You already referred them to home care, so don't ever send them again." Now the atmosphere has changed a bit, and I think the number of places that respond by saying "Humans are prone to hesitation, aren't they?" has increased.

I also feel some changes in public opinion recently. That is, I think there was a period when deciding for oneself how to die was promoted quite a bit, but a kind of backlash against that has also emerged, and hesitation can be seen. There was a broadcast on NHK showing a person who was a monk and was seeing terminal patients appearing quite hesitant themselves.

In addition, there are examples of doctors who were promoting home medical care but, at the very end, wanted to have as much treatment as possible and became insistent on full-course medical care.

I think those instances of hesitation are also a facet that has emerged precisely because we have become a mass-death society.

Probably, there is no such thing as an "ideal death." Within that environment, with what can be done, both those left behind and those dying reach a point of saying "well, this is okay." Buddhism also says that everything changes, so even if you have fixed ideas, they change as you gain experience. Even for monks, there are examples where what they preach to others and their own thoughts are the opposite.

Doctors are also fluctuating. I think it is perfectly natural as a human being for someone who was saying "you don't need to do anything extra at the end" to then think "I want you to do everything possible."

Those around them shouldn't say "what this guy was saying was a lie," but rather, because people are always changing, I think accepting what that person said at that time is the best thing for the family and the person themselves. In Buddhist terms, it means not making value judgments.

At one time, "Good Death" was popular, but in response to that, the expression "Good Enough Death" has also emerged in the English-speaking world. "Good" can mean "excellent," but in this case, it's the original meaning of "sufficient." I think it's like the feeling of "knowing what is enough."

Exactly. It's about saying, "Well, that's fine." I've been telling everyone lately that the spirit of "Well, that's fine" is the best way to accept yourself.

In Japan, informed consent became widespread around the 1990s, making it more common to disclose cancer diagnoses. Attention also turned to death with dignity, and I think "self-determination of death" and "dying in one's own way" have been emphasized.

I believe the "shukatsu" (end-of-life planning) trend since the 2010s is an extension of that, but honestly, even when people talk about "one's own way," I don't really understand it. If it actually comes time to die, I'll probably be conflicted; I might have thought one way, but when the moment arrives, I'll likely feel, "No, this isn't it after all."

Regarding graves, since the 1990s, natural burials have gained social recognition. There are communal graves, park-like cemeteries, and perpetual care graves—some run by funeral operators and others by temples. Furthermore, various forms of graves are emerging, such as what you might call "digital graves" where people leave a trace of themselves in digital space, or memorial accounts.

Regarding choices for after death, since the 90s, things like scattering ashes, tree burials, collective graves, and perpetual care graves have appeared and gradually gained social recognition. Nowadays, I don't think many Buddhists would say something like, "How could you choose to scatter ashes?"

They can't say that. Though they might be thinking, "If you do that, you won't come to the temple and my income will decrease, so it's no good."

Funeral operators are including it in their menus as well.

But scattering ashes at sea is expensive.

That's true. Just like with scattering ashes, I think a "polarization" is happening here too. There are those who have money and family, and after consulting with their family about what kind of memorial service is best, they choose a grave. On the other hand, there's an increasing number of people who have no family, no leeway to think about such things, or who have bad relationships with their family and don't know if they can ask them.

Scattering ashes has also become high-end, with services appearing where you can charter a whole boat for several hundred thousand yen and hold it like a ceremony. Meanwhile, services have emerged where operators take remains that have no one to claim them, or remains held by lawyers acting as adult guardians, for 30,000 yen and say, "We'll scatter them in the sea for you." In those cases, they don't even call a monk; they just play a tape of sutras while scattering the ashes.

They play sutras? Is that a choice?

No, they feel that if they don't do that, it won't count as performing it with a sense of mourning. Scattering ashes itself is in a legal gray zone regarding crimes like abandonment of a corpse, but it's positioned as being formally acceptable if it's done with a sense of mourning.

Otherwise, it would be the same as throwing away trash.

Exactly. In that way, there are operators whom someone hires to process remains after death, while others hold a second funeral like a ceremony. Even within the single act of scattering ashes, a kind of polarization seems to be appearing.

When I did a statistical analysis before, for women, the desire to scatter ashes was present regardless of income differences. However, looking only at men, there is a tendency for those with lower incomes to have a higher desire to use ash scattering. I think more people feel that since they have no family and no money, and they don't want to burden their family, scattering ashes is fine.

In my research, what has become more common than before is the desire not to be placed in an individual grave, but to be stored in a collective ossuary facility. The number of people wanting to enter indoor columbariums is also increasing.

I think that in the future, the state will probably handle burials for free. Right now, graves with no living relatives are appearing all over the country, and local governments can't even process them. From the perspective of prefectures and municipalities, tax revenue is disappearing and processing graves costs money. Now is the last chance. The baby boomer generation understands the situation of their family graves. While such people are still around, before they become unable to visit distant graves, I want them to properly handle "closing the grave" (haka-jimai).

The reason this problem of graves with no relatives occurs is because the bones remain. One tentative plan is to not have people take the bones home after cremation if they so wish. Technically, everything can be incinerated. Also, some researchers propose a base model from Northern Europe. This means the state provides burial for free.

All the bones are put in one place, a sort of "discard grave," and a monument is built as a memorial park where family members can find the name of the deceased and remember them. In exchange, you can't offer incense, flowers, or food.

However, if that happens, all the temples will go bankrupt, so we have to oppose it.

There are so many cases. For example, a second wife who has a great relationship with her family, but since the first wife is already in the family grave, she says she wants to go into a columbarium. Or a couple where the husband dies and the wife says, "I actually want to go into my own family's grave, but I can't do that, yet I don't want to be in with my husband's parents," and with the children's consent, they apply for a perpetual care tower. It's truly diversifying, and this reflects how daily relationships carry over to graves after death.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications is investigating how local governments nationwide handle the remaining money and remains when they cremate people who were welfare recipients or died as unidentified travelers. According to that survey, local governments are very troubled because the handling of remains is not clearly defined. Can they dispose of them at their own discretion, or how long should they store them?

Municipalities that have public cemeteries seem to place them there temporarily. However, if they are buried in a collective grave, it causes trouble if a relative comes later and they can't return the remains, so they want the state to define how many years they should be kept.

Regarding graves with no relatives in public cemeteries, as Mr. Tomatsu said, it has become a problem, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications conducted a survey in the 2020s. It's a headache for local governments nationwide, and they seem to feel they must do something. Since the number of people who cannot maintain graves will continue to increase, the administration will have to cover it in the future. I think we are at a stage of seeking new movements, including the application of the law.

Also, since cemetery administration operates at the local government level, there seems to be a movement where each municipality tries to do what it can where it can. Especially in places with public cemeteries, I think there is a movement to build collective graves early on.

For the general public, the issue of cost is significant. As you said, those with money have various choices and can maintain a relationship with a temple. But for those without money, it's a distant world, so I think such things will inevitably happen.

Originally, we temples should be opening our doors to such people for free, and that is the reason why we temples are tax-exempt.

To defend them a little, reading administrative documents, it seems there are quite a few cases where temples offer to help.

I see, that's wonderful.

However, due to the principle of separation of church and state, even if the administration wants to entrust the remains, they cannot pay to ask for it. Also, a relative might come to claim them, so the administration must keep track of their location.

The person might be Christian, and people might ask why they are going to a temple.

Exactly. In that sense, there are circumstances where even if there are passionate temples, things aren't clicking into place.

Tony Walter says there are three actors in funeral rites—religion, the municipality, and the funeral industry—and the ratio varies by country. In Japan's case, it's possible that the involvement of municipalities and the administration was indeed weak.

In short, as inequality widens, the gap in relationships, such as family, also widens along with financial gaps. I think it will be difficult for the administration not to step in to create a system that includes people who might otherwise die without any connections.

Exactly.

I'm not quite sure what kind of moves funeral operators are making there. For example, in the UK, sponsors of academic societies related to thanatology are often funeral operators. Also, in South Korea, the number of students wanting to specialize in thanatology is increasing, and many of them find employment in the funeral industry.

In that regard, what kind of role do funeral operators play in Japan?

Funeral operators don't react much to things that aren't profitable. Especially regarding the response to deaths or remains with no relatives. Though some funeral assistance grants are provided.

Like ward funerals.

Yes. I think there are quite a few funeral homes that perform funerals as properly as possible within the scope of funeral assistance grants, so you could see them as responding in that way. Regarding graves, I think social welfare corporations have recently started moving toward building collective graves for units like nursing homes.

Beyond that, some passionate Buddhists are building collective graves on their own, disregarding profitability, and opening them to people other than their parishioners. In the worst-case scenario, even if they don't receive money, they move in a way that accepts people for free and mourns them, including those who died on the streets.

As you said, since the public sector is originally weak in Japan, I think this is an area that religious figures, social welfare corporations, and funeral operators working within subsidies have covered. However, the range they are forced to cover is expanding. In a multi-death society where the number of deceased is increasing, I think there are difficult parts to how far that can be done.

Regarding funerals, the Japan Buddhist Federation meets once a year with the All Japan Funeral Directors Co-operation to discuss mutual funeral-related issues. Actually, the funeral industry is not a licensing system, so anyone can do it. Most of the new entrants now just put out advertisements and use dispatched staff without having their own. In short, they just create a contact point and have local funeral homes with little work do the actual job.

If they take 180,000 yen, they only give 80,000 or 90,000 to the funeral home. Then, since the funeral home can't possibly do a funeral for 80,000 or 90,000, they use various tricks to charge the customer extra. This causes costs to balloon, leading to complaints at consumer centers.

The biggest problem is that it's not a licensing system, but it's hard to legislate. If quality drops and more people have bad experiences, they'll stop requesting funerals. This then affects traditional funeral forms and temples. This is a serious problem.

It has become a business where if you request a monk who has no connection to a temple, the intermediary takes a large cut. Only 25% of the offering you paid goes to the monk. People using monk dispatch services don't know that, so I'm telling the companies doing monk dispatch to disclose everything.

If it's in the form of an offering, the person giving it would think it all goes to the monk.

It's exploitation. One thing I can say is that as we become a multi-death society and the number of people dying increases, death becomes a business, and ventures and such enter the market. I think that's one negative aspect.

This might lead back to inequality, but solitary death or isolated death has become a problem recently. We are in an era where single-person households are increasing and reaching 40%. Those with a certain amount of money or human resources can be found quickly even if they die alone, or they can use things like life-long support to prepare by saying, "Please do this when I die alone." In contrast, those who cannot do such things—precisely those who are isolated—will likely increase in a multi-death society.

Regarding the issue of isolation, in the case of home medical care, I think there are cases where a person is alone at the moment of "witnessing the end," but are such cases becoming more common? Also, in such cases, what kind of things do you feel should be considered?

Witnessing the end of someone living alone is indeed a major theme in home medical care. About 10 years ago when I started doing home medical care in earnest, it was like, "Witnessing the end of someone living alone is a very difficult thing," and it was a rare case that everyone worked very hard on.

But now it's not particularly rare; it's more like, "Oh, they live alone." Since the number of people living alone has increased and everyone has gained experience and gotten used to it, I feel that the sense of it being special has decreased.

Also, the person's own wishes are actually easier to fulfill when they live alone. Since they have valued their own way of life alone, we can respect it by saying, "That's what the person wants." Conversely, when relatives with their own agendas say this and that, it sometimes becomes more than just about the person's feelings.

That said, those handling a solitary resident for the first time often have many troubles and need support. If someone wishes for a home death in Tokyo, the thing we want to avoid most is accidentally calling an ambulance. If an ambulance is called...

They'll be resuscitated.

Exactly. From there it becomes a police matter and is treated like a suspicious death. To prevent that, by consulting and coordinating with various parties, if we can keep that person at home until the doctor finally certifies the death, we can fulfill the wish of even a solitary person to spend their final moments in their own home.

However, on the other hand, it's also unavoidable that someone might get really startled and accidentally call an ambulance.

They might have convulsions or be in pain.

Exactly. Even if there is family, even if they say they'll go with a home death, at the very last moment they might lose their presence of mind and accidentally call an ambulance—even the primary care physician can't stop that. If the police say the primary care physician can write the death certificate, we can, but otherwise it goes to the Medical Examiner's Office. Once it's decided to be at home until the end, I want to avoid letting it fall into that flow.

Meanwhile, while I was studying in a joint research project on deaths with no relatives, I felt that the isolated deaths we see are still privileged. People who are truly isolated may refuse intervention from community comprehensive support centers or the administration, or they may go undiscovered and become "unclaimed souls" (muenbotoke), with their bones taken by the administration.

For the people we are involved with, no matter how isolated they seem, distant relatives often appear saying, "I'll at least put the bones in a grave," or someone often helps. Even with the same word "isolation," there are various phases, and I feel that what I see is only a small part.

Even among family members, some don't want to take the bones. It makes me wonder what family is. For example, for the homeless people in Sanya, Takehiko Yoshimizu of the "Hitosaji-no-kai" created a communal grave at a temple and accepts them into the grave for free. Then, all their homeless companions come to visit the grave.

For example, among Juku alumni, even if they lose their family, fellow classmates or Mita-kai members might say, "We'll enter the same grave at the end, so let's contact each other when the funeral comes." A person named Jokyo Masamoto, who was in a Buddhist youth group, had a will saying to sing "Wakaki-chi" at the final departure of the coffin, and we sang it. I thought, "That's nice too." After all, it's fine to be sent off by a new form of community, and you might not be lonely even without family.

The number of people saying, "I want to wait for my time to die alone and be without anyone's care," has risen from 36.3% five years ago to 42.1%, while "I want someone to be by my side when I die" is 64.8%. So it's in a state of competition at about 4 to 6.

I think that statistic probably includes both people who choose that themselves because they don't want to burden their family, and people who can't rely on family to begin with.

As a result, there are cases where someone is left alone and not discovered for many days.

However, 81.6% say, "I hate the idea of my body decomposing without being discovered by anyone."

That's a bit of a difficult point.

It is difficult. Chizuko Ueno recommends a type of solitary death where you have companions you keep in close contact with to confirm each other's survival, so that you can be discovered before you rot.

It seems that operators providing such life-long support, including monitoring, are increasing.

I would like to know how everyone views the impact of COVID-19. In particular, it is often said that the scale of funerals has shrunk considerably since the pandemic, but what are your actual impressions of what has changed?

I believe that COVID-19 served as a justification for things people had already been thinking. People could say to temples, relatives, and the local community, "Because of COVID-19, we will hold the funeral only with immediate family and close relatives to avoid the Three Cs (closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings)." This first of all saves money. If they really want to, they can hold something later, but even after the pandemic, things haven't returned to how they were at all.

The form of funerals changes because it reflects everyday life. I think COVID-19 was probably one of the catalysts.

Of course, depending on the region, some have returned to normal, but ultimately, one-day funerals have become established, wakes are not held, and there is no eating or drinking there. The reason it became like that is likely because many people already felt that way, and I don't think it's a matter of people moving away from religion.

I feel the same way looking at the materials and movements on the business side. Needs that existed before COVID-19 are surfacing because of the "due to COVID-19" excuse. People are trying not to spend money on both choosing graves and funerals. I think it has been used extensively as a rationale since the 2020s.

While saying they can no longer meet due to the pandemic, I think businesses are also exploring new ways of mourning that cost less, including digital contexts.

However, remote funerals and memorial services did not take root in Japan. Is that an expression of the fact that there wasn't actually enough enthusiasm to say, "I want to do it even if it's remote"?

Remote memorial services are no good at all. After all, it's not about logic. While saying it's a "hassle," people still ask a monk to set up a memorial service and perform rites for the deceased. In contrast, for graves now, businesses commonly visit on behalf of those who cannot go, take videos, and send them. I feel like there is probably no logical reason for that difference.

In my research, while religious figures are declining across the board, beliefs regarding souls after death and tendencies to believe in reincarnation or curses are increasing. It could be said that interest in a certain kind of spirituality is actually rising.

The desire to hear the voice of the dead used to be addressed by mediums in the past, but now there is room for digital elements to enter—specifically, AI and chatbots acting as substitutes for the dead, the so-called "AI Deceased," which is currently being discussed.

That's right. It depends on how technology advances in the future. For digital natives, the various data they have left on the internet since birth, including videos, is enormous. It is technically quite possible to feed all of that into an AI to create a single persona.

In Japan as well, venture companies and others are trying to do this as a business for the multi-death society, using the US and China as models.

China is already doing it, aren't they?

If the accuracy improves, even after I die, a "thing that responds like Sawai" will remain, but I wonder if that will change our views on life and death.

Even among my temple parishioners, when I ask, "Who thinks they can go to the Pure Land?" only about 10% raise their hands. But when I say, "Who thinks their ancestors are protecting them?" about 90% raise their hands. It's the same with students in the School of Medicine. Therefore, I think what we understand rationally is different from what we feel.

Humans are beings who say things like, "He's kind of a jerk, but I like him," or who fall in love at first sight. So, in the future, if monks only provide the kind of answers an AI would give when consulted about troubles, then monks won't be necessary. Even if it lacks rationality, the feeling of being relieved because someone listened to you, or the inexplicable sense of comfort when walking through the temple gates—that is where religion can compete from now on.

It might be fine to have an "AI Deceased" for the sake of grief for a certain period, but there is also something like the right to be forgotten. A form where things naturally fade away might also be necessary.

That's true. Otherwise, we will become a society where hundreds of millions of digitized personas of the dead remain and continue to increase.

I teach death and life studies in a first-year class at the School of Medicine, and I bring up the topic of the AI Deceased at the end. I thought that since they are the digital native generation, they might not have much resistance, but they have quite a strong resistance, calling it "creepy." I think they also feel somewhere in their senses that "it's not supposed to be like that."

Do you get the sense that it is fairly well accepted overseas?

My sense is that there is more resistance overseas. After all, necromancy is like summoning the dead and is biblically forbidden, so the Judeo-Christian world has resistance. Rather, Chinese people are quite positive about it.

The Vatican created the "Rome Call for AI Ethics," which has now become an EU standard and imposes various restrictions.

The Religions for Peace (WCRP/RfP) Japan held an international meeting in Hiroshima the year before last as a co-organizer. In Europe and Christianity, there is a strong desire to strictly protect the realm of God, so there is a belief that restrictions should be placed on matters after death and the use of assisted reproductive technology before birth. They wanted this to be done in Asia as well, and various Asian religious leaders and the president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) signed it.

I believe that from now on, the Buddhist community must also place restrictions somewhere on the use of AI in weaponry and in the realm of life and death.

I have heard very beneficial stories today, and I have learned a lot myself.

Thank you very much, everyone.