Why Anarchists Like Zen? A Libertarian Reading of Shinran (1173–1263)^95
punished. As an exile stripped of his monastic status, Shinran found
himself in an in-between position which he playfully appropriated
through the term hiso hizoku (literally, neither monk nor layman).
This term has been read in myriad ways by both sectarian and
non-sectarian scholars; however, it seems unquestionable that the
phrase denotes a gesture of resistance towards the state who dis-
robed him. By being hiso hizouku Shinran can be seen as denying
both state and Buddhist authority. By claiming he is not a layman
he resists the state’s forceful disrobement, while by claiming he is
not a priest or monk he refuses to submit to the monastic commu-
nity and its hierarchy. Shinran’s self-proclaimed marginality thus
becomes an exilic space, a space of resistance to various entangled
and established orders.
The phrase hiso hizoku also appears in the postscript of the
Kyogyoshinsho, Shinran’s opus magna, in which he openly criticizes
the emperor and his ministers. In his (in)famous diatribe he accuses
them of “acting against the dharma and violating human rectitude”
when they become “enraged and embittered”.^58 This dystopian por-
trayal of the political authorities resonates with the rhetoric of map-
po, which, needless to say, also applies to the rulers of the latter age
(mappo). If the emperor and his ministers act against both Buddhist
and Confucian principles, which are meant to legitimize their rule
in the first place, how can they use those same principles to justify
their rule? Shinran does not ask such a question directly, but his
invective implicitly hints at the rulers’ hypocrisy. Even if Shinran
does not develop this criticism to encompass all forms of political
authority, his message seems to be that rulers can be challenged and
held to certain standards. Furthermore, as Shinran finds in his rul-
ers the same “blind passions” and duplicity he finds in himself and
others around him, the implicit legitimacy of the rulers as moral
examples or superior beings is seriously compromised.
Despite Shinran’s relatively few explicit pronouncements about
political issues, many scholars have explored the political implica-
tions of his message. Thus, the “shrewdly” and “rebellious” individ-
ual whom Amstutz sees using “the masks of technical interpretation
and his own self-deprecation” Christopher Goto-Jones construes
as “stretching way off the ‘permissive’ end of Shotoku’s political
constitution” into some “kind of anarchism”.^59 Shinran stretches