(I.) The Sho-mon or lowest of the disciples of Shaka, or hearers who meditate on the cause and effect of everything.  If acute in understanding, they become free from confusion after three births; but if they are dull, they pass sixty kalpas[8] or aeons before they attain to the state of enlightenment.

(II.) The Engaku or Pratyeka Buddhas, that is, “singly enlightened,” or beings in the middle state, who must extract the seeds or causes of actions, and must meditate on the twelve chains of causation, or understand the non-eternity of the world, while gazing upon the falling flowers or leaves.  They attain enlightenment after four births or a hundred kalpas, according to their ability.

(III.) The Bodhisattvas or Buddhas-elect, who practise the six perfections (perfect practice of alms-giving, morality, patience, energy, meditation and wisdom) as preliminaries to Nirvana, which they reach only after countless kalpas.

These three grades of pupils in the mysteries of Buddha doctrine, are said to have been ordered by Shaka himself, because understanding human beings so thoroughly, he knew that one person could not comprehend two ways or vehicles (Yana) at once.  People were taught therefore to practise anyone of the three vehicles at pleasure.

We shall see how the later radical and democratic Japanese Buddhism swept away this gradation, and declaring but the one vehicle (eka), opened the kingdom to all believers.

The second of the early Japanese schools of thought, is the J[=o]-jitsu,[9] or the sect founded chiefly upon the shastra which means The Book of the Perfection of the Truth, containing selections from and explanations of the true meaning of the Tripitaka.  This shastra was the work of a Hindu whose name means Lion-armor, and who lived about nine centuries after Gautama.  Not satisfied with the narrow views of his teacher, who may have been of the Dharmagupta school (of the four Disciplines), he made selections of the best and broadest interpretations then current in the several different schools of the Smaller Vehicle.  The book is eclectic, and attempts to unite all that was best in each of the Hinayana schools; but certain Chinese teachers consider that its explanations are applicable to the Great Vehicle also.  Translated into Chinese in 406 A.D., the commentaries upon it soon numbered hundreds, and it was widely expounded and lectured upon.  Commentaries upon this shastra were also written in Korean by D[=o]-z[=o].  From the peninsula it was introduced into Japan.  This J[=o]-jitsu doctrine was studied by prince Sh[=o]toku, and promulgated as a division of the school called San-Ron.  The students of the J[=o]-jitsu school never formed in Japan a distinct organization.

The burden of the teachings of this school is pure nihilism, or the non-existence of both self and of matter.  There is an utter absence of substantiality in all things.  Life itself is a prolonged dream.  The objects about us are mere delusive shadows or mirage, the product of the imagination alone.  The past and the future are without reality, but the present state of things only stands as if it were real.  That is to say:  the true state of things is constantly changing, yet it seems as if the state of things were existing, even as does a circle of fire seen when a rope watch is turned round very quickly.