In the sermons and discourses of Shin-gon, the subtle points of an argument are seized and elaborated.  These are mystical on the one side, and pantheistic on the other.  It is easily seen how Buddha, being in Japanese gods as well as men, and no being without Buddha, the way is made clear for that kind of a marriage between Buddhism and Shint[=o], in which the two become one, and that one, as to revenue and advantage, Buddhism.

Truth Made Apparent by One’s Own Thought.

The Japanese of to-day often speak of these seven religious bodies which we have enumerated and described, as “the old sects,” because much of the philosophy, and many of the forms and prayers, are common to all, or, more accurately speaking, are popularly supposed to be; while the priests, being celibates, refrain from sake, flesh and fish, and from all intimate relations with women.  Yet, although these sects are considered to be more or less conformable to the canon of the Greater Vehicle, and while the last three certainly introduce many of its characteristic features—­one sect teaching that Buddha-hood could be obtained even in the present body of flesh and blood—­yet the idea of Paradise had not been exploited or emphasized.  This new gospel was to be introduced into Japan by the J[=o]-d[=o] Shu or Sect of the Pure Land.

Before detailing the features of J[=o]-d[=o], we call attention to the fact that in Japan the propagation of the old sects was accompanied by an excessive use of idols, images, pictures, sutras, shastras and all the furniture thought necessary in a Buddhist temple.  The course of thought and action in the Orient is in many respects similar to that in the Occident.  In western lands, with the ebb and flow of religious sentiment, the iconolater has been followed by the iconoclast, and the overcrowded cathedrals have been purged by the hammer and fire of the Protestant and Puritan.  So in Japan we find analogous, though not exactly similar, reactions.  The rise and prosperity of the believers in the Zen dogmas, which in their early history used sparingly the eikon, idol and sutra, give some indication of protest against too much use of externals in religion.  May we call them the Quakers of Japanese Buddhism?  Certainly, theirs was a movement in the direction of simplicity.

The introduction of the Zen, or contemplative sect, did, in a sense, both precede and follow that of Shingon.  The word Zen is a shortened form of the term Zenna, which is a transliteration into Chinese of the Sanskrit word Dhyana, or contemplation.  It teaches that the truth is not in tradition or in books, but in one’s self.  Emphasis is laid on introspection rather than on language.  “Look carefully within and there you will find the Buddha,” is its chief tenet.  In the Zen monasteries, the chair of contemplation is, or ought to be, always in use.

The Zen Shu movement may be said to have arisen out of a reaction against the multiplication of idols.  It indicated a return to simpler forms of worship and conduct.  Let us inquire how this was.