Editing Uchiyama Gudo (section)

=== Self-Awakening and Principled Action ===

Not all of Uchiyama's surviving writings fit neatly into a progression toward increasingly militant anarchism. The unfinished ''Heibon no jikaku'' 平凡の自覚 (The Self-Awakening of the Ordinary Person), whose date of composition remains uncertain, makes ''jikaku'' 自覚 (self-awakening or self-awareness) the basis of social transformation. Awareness expands from the individual through family, work and agriculture, locality, nation, and ultimately the world. The manuscript also invokes an “inconceivable holy spirit” (''fukashigi no seirei'' 不可思議の聖霊), illustrating the eclectic religious vocabulary that increasingly characterized Uchiyama's thought.<ref>Uchiyama Gudō, ''Heibon no jikaku'' 平凡の自覚, translated in Rambelli, ''Zen Anarchism'', 22–23 and translation; Shields, ''Against Harmony'', 160–63.</ref>

Its date remains unresolved. Morinaga Eizaburō places it before the Red Flag Incident of June 1908, whereas Yoshida Kyūichi regards it as the culminating expression of Uchiyama's thought; Rambelli likewise argues on internal grounds for a relatively late composition. Sanada Yoshiaki, however, traces its governing idea to Uchiyama's January 1904 writings and draws attention to the manuscript's absence of the explicitly anarchist terminology and advocacy of violence prominent in Uchiyama's writings of 1908.<ref>Rambelli, ''Zen Anarchism'', [pages for dating discussion]; Sanada Yoshiaki 眞田芳憲, 「大逆事件と禅僧内山愚童の「仏教社会主義」とその行動の軌跡――禅僧愚童の抵抗の宗教的倫理と責任」, ''Chūō Gakujutsu Kenkyūjo kiyō'' 中央学術研究所紀要 45 (2016): 2–61, [specific pages to verify].</ref> The surviving evidence therefore does not permit a secure date.

A securely dated prison manuscript, ''Gokuchū shuki'' 獄中手記 (Prison Notes), written on 26 October 1909, provides a clearer view of Uchiyama's later thought. Rather than concentrating on revolutionary violence, it returns to economic inequality, moral principle, self-sacrifice, and the conditions of a dignified life. Uchiyama calls for concrete improvements in workers' lives—including a ten-hour working day, a weekly day of rest, adequate clothing, medical care, leisure, and the opportunity to practice religion—and asks what it means to act according to one's principles even at the cost of imprisonment or death.<ref>Uchiyama Gudō, ''Gokuchū shuki'' 獄中手記, 26 October 1909, translated in Rambelli, ''Zen Anarchism''.</ref> His exemplars are strikingly heterogeneous: Śākyamuni, Diogenes, Jesus Christ, Sakura Sōgorō 佐倉惣五郎, and Ōshio Heihachirō 大塩平八郎. What joins them is neither a single religious tradition nor a common political doctrine, but principled action and willingness to sacrifice personal security for a larger good. Uchiyama describes the ability to live in accordance with such principles, even in the face of the scaffold, crucifixion, or imprisonment, as “happiness in life” (''jinsei no kōfuku'' 人生の幸福). The surviving manuscript ends just as he asks what “method” (''hōhō'' 方法) might make such a life possible.<ref>Uchiyama, ''Gokuchū shuki'', translated in Rambelli, ''Zen Anarchism''.</ref>

Taken together, Uchiyama's writings resist reduction to a single system of “Buddhist anarchism.” Buddhist equality provided an early foundation for his socialism; criticism of institutional Buddhism coexisted with a continuing Buddhist vocation; revolutionary anarchism led him to accept political violence; and his later surviving reflections returned to self-awakening, economic justice, religious practice, and principled self-sacrifice. His radicalism developed through the shifting relationship among these concerns rather than through the simple replacement of Buddhism by secular anarchism.