88 Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1
nenbutsu, or the calling of the name, effective, as it accomplishes
birth in the Pure Land. Thus, Shinran deemphasizes any inherent
magical power in the name (Namu Amida Butsu, as pronounced
in Japanese) and focuses on the mind that leads one to recite the
name. This is a mind that understands the paradoxical nature of
the human condition (both steeped in defilement and assured of
enlightenment) and expresses itself by the verbal act of entrusting
in the Buddha. Most importantly, this is not a mind that could be
cultivated or brought about through a prescribed method, it is a
mind that comes about through tariki or jinen (naturalness, spon-
taneity).^33 In this way the practitioner is liberated from a strict
regime of practice, in which the only requirement is the sponta-
neous recitation of the name, understood not as the practitioner’s
but as the Buddha’s practice. This approach to practice reflects the
naturalness or spontaneity of the Pure Land, implicitly modelling
the lifestyle of the person of shinjin in the free and effortless life
of the Pure Land. When translated to the discourse of anarchism
this mirroring offers an example of prefiguration or harmonizing
means and ends. The duality running through Shinran’s thought
enables this awareness to be at once (self-)critical and (self-)confi-
dent, providing a valuable model for any utopian project.
Furthermore, the centrality of spontaneous tariki, and the absence
of anxiety about “performing good acts” or “despair[ing] of the evil
they commit” allows the practitioners to act with a large degree of
freedom.^34 The ethics emerging out of this logic can be neither le-
galistic nor finalist, since the violation of any given code represents
no hindrance and there is no goal that has not been accomplished
in the mind of entrusting.^35 Not surprisingly, the open-ended for-
mulation of ethical behavior became a highly controversial issue in
the early Jodo Shinshu communities, who often used this new dis-
covered freedom in ways that transgressed conventional moralities.
Although Shinran admonished his followers against “excusing acts
that should not be committed, words that should not be said and
thoughts that should not be harbored” he never mentions what those
acts might be.^36 Similarly, he does not regard any bad deed as pow-
erful enough to outdo the liberating effectiveness of the Buddha’s
vow and considers wrongdoing the norm among “foolish beings
possessed of blind passions”.^37 Paradoxically again, Shinran’s vision