Description
Kawakami turned to religion after being imprisoned for his involvement with the Japanese Communist Party, borrowing the Shinshu image of the two truths to assert that Buddhist law and Marxist social science should reinforce each other, like the two wings of a bird. Miki, a member of the Kyoto School who went from prison to the crown prince's think tank and back again, identified Shinran's religion as belonging to the proletariat: For him, following Shinran and working toward building a buddha land on earth were akin to realizing social revolution. And Ienaga's understanding of the Pure Land-as the crystallization of a logic of negation that undermined every real power structure-fueled his battle against the state censorship system, just as he believed it had enabled Shinran to confront the world's suffering head on.
Such readings of the Pure Land tradition are idiosyncratic-perhaps even heretical-but they hum with the same vibrancy that characterized medieval Pure Land belief. Innovative and refreshingly accessible, Pure Land, Real World shows that the Pure Land tradition informed twentieth-century Japanese thought in profound and surprising ways and suggests that it might do the same for twenty-first-century thinkers. The critical power of Pure Land utopianism has yet to be exhausted.
About the Author
Melissa Anne-Marie Curley is assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at the Ohio State University.
Richard K. Payne is Yehan Numata Professor of Japanese Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley.
Book Information
ISBN 9780824892449
Author Melissa Anne-Marie Curley
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint University of Hawai'i Press
Publisher University of Hawai'i Press
Weight(grams) 151g