104 Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1
be engaged for negotiating notions of dystopia and utopia in a po-
litical context. At the heart of the relationship between mappo and
the Pure Land lies a concern about harmonizing means and ends.
In so far as the corrupted self of mappo cannot affect liberation,
any more than the state can orchestrate its own vanishing, release
comes from a radically different realm and is expressed in actions
that mimic or instantiate the utopian end. By decentralizing the
Buddhist community and freeing it from traditional regimes of dis-
cipline, the Pure Land can be said to be prefigured in the age and
world of mappo. However, such a prefigured community ought to
remain extremely cautious about its own motives, as it is still un-
der the influence of mappo. The fact that Shinran sees both mappo
and the Pure Land at work within himself introduces a critical
element of self-questioning accompanied by self-confidence and
assurance. This dual awareness provides a paradigm for articulat-
ing the interplay between a critical or dystopian consciousness and
a hopeful or utopian one. Shinran’s complex notion of birth in the
Pure Land, as something that is at once fully settled in the middle
of ordinary life and also only entirely realized in the future, pres-
ents a living utopia that can irrupt and affect our present world
while being ever deferred to the future. These dynamics offer a
model of constant progression that can never look at itself in a
self-satisfied manner, claiming to have achieved the final goal.
Furthermore, the temporal and simultaneous immanence and
transcendence of birth in the Pure Land introduces a critical gap
between the utopian ideal and the embryonic awareness that
embodies it absent in formulations of Buddhist anarchism that
see anarchy already fulfilled in the realm of Zen rhetoric or the
practice of meditation. However, the main problem in Shinran’s
thought is agency or, more precisely, a rebellious agency that can
transform the dystopian realm of mappo. Such an agency is nev-
er articulated by Shinran, but his actions, which can be read as
an extension of his teachings, show that neither the tariki logic
nor the teleology of mappo, rendered him submissive or passive.
Even though he calls into question his own ability to discern be-
tween good and evil, Shinran acts in accordance to his relative
judgment, which at times includes vehemently contesting what
he regarded as unacceptable behavior (e.g. the ban on nenbutsu).