Japanese authors usually classify the first six denominations at which we have glanced, some of which are phases of thought rather than organizations, as “the ancient sects.”  Ten-dai and Shin-gon are “the medieval sects.”  The remaining four, of which we shall now treat, and which are more particularly Japanese in spirit and development, are “the modern sects.”

CHAPTER IX — THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

    “A drop of spray cast by the infinite
    I hung an instant there, and threw my ray
    To make the rainbow.  A microcosm I
    Reflecting all.  Then back I fell again,
    And though I perished not, I was no more.”—­
    The Pantheist’s Epitaph.

    “Buddhism is essentially a religion of compromise.”

    “Where Christianity has One Lord, Buddhism has a dozen.”

“I think I may safely challenge the Buddhist priesthood to give a plain historical account of the Life of Amida, Kwannon, Dainichi, or any other Mah[=a]y[=a]na Buddha, without being in serious danger of forfeiting my stakes.”

“Christianity openly puts this Absolute Unconditioned Essence in the forefront of its teaching.  In Buddhism this absolute existence is only put forward, when the logic of circumstances compels its teachers to have recourse to it.”—­A.  Lloyd, in The Higher Buddhism in the Light of the Nicene creed.

“Now these six characters, ‘Na-mu-A-mi-da-Butsu,’ Zend-[=o] has explained as follows:  ‘Namn’ means [our] following His behest—­and also [His] uttering the Prayer and bestowing [merit] upon us.  ‘Amida Butsu’ is the practice of this, consequently by this means a certainty of salvation is attained.”

“By reason of the conferring on us sentient creators of this great goodness and great merit through the utterance of the Prayer, and the bestowal [by Amida] the evil Karma and [effect of the] passions accumulated through the long Kalpas, since when there was no beginning, are in a moment annihilated, and in consequence, those passions and evil Karma of ours all disappearing, we live already in the condition of the steadfast, who do not return [to revolve in the cycle of Birth and Death].”—­Renny[=o] of the Shin sect, 1473.

    “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and
    the Word was God.”—­John.

    “The Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness,
    neither shadow of turning.”—­James.

CHAPTER IX — THE BUDDHISM OF THE JAPANESE

The Western Paradise.