Why Anarchists Like Zen? A Libertarian Reading of Shinran (1173–1263)^87
realm of egolessness, all beings share in the same qualities and
have only nominal status, their wishes are fulfilled and their needs
are met.^28 Also, the absence of greed, hatred and ignorance in-
volves the lack of property or possession, violence, war and, in-
deed, government.^29 Though the Buddha is often referred to as the
lord or king of the land, he does not seem to rule it in any way
and appears more as a primus inter pares in a society of Buddhas.
Neither the sutras nor Shinran elaborate on the Pure Land in the
explicitly political way described above, however, the latent anti-
authoritarian potential of the Pure Land narrative can contribute
a utopian referent to any Buddhist anarchist imagination.
Though never overtly political, Shinran’s reading of the Pure
Land is not devoid of social implications. Emphasizing compassion,
the Pure Land is not seen as the ultimate destiny of the practitioner,
but as a transformative stage leading to his or her return to the
realm of suffering to liberate all beings. Thus, the world ought to
be first escaped, but only for the purpose of being later revisited
and transformed. Shinran’s spacio-temporal conception of the Pure
Land is a complex and debated matter within Jodo Shinshu which
falls beyond the scope of this chapter. Suffice to say that interpreta-
tions of Shinran’s thought range from an otherworldly Pure Land
located in a mythical West and reached only after death to an im-
manent Pure Land that interpenetrates, irrupts and transforms our
world.^30 This diversity of readings is enabled by Shinran’s reluc-
tance to accept there were living Buddhas among his fellow humans
but also his certainty that “There is no need to wait in anticipation
for the moment of death, [since] at the time shinjin [entrusting] be-
comes settled, birth too becomes settled”.^31 This means, paradoxi-
cally, that the person who entrusts in the Buddha’s vow is “equal to
Tathagatas” and “is in the rank of succession to Buddhahood” and
yet they remain “foolish beings possessed of blind passions”.^32 This
double awareness (in Japanese: nishu jinshin, literally “two kinds of
deep confidence”), involving both assurance and self-criticism, con-
stitutes the structure of liberative entrusting, rendered in Shinran’s
writings as shinjin (true or trusting mind) or anjin (peaceful mind).
Shinjin plays a key role in Shinran’s thought, as the expression
of realization of the Buddha’s vow which assures the practitioner
unfailing enlightenment. It is the mind of shinjin what makes