336 Part IV: East Asian Civilization
ing a form of universal salvation with the notion that Buddhahood is found in
all sentient beings. This is the teaching of the Lotus Sutra, which, as we have
seen, so captured the imagination of the court.
Shingon was founded by the brilliant monk, Kukai (775–835), whose mon-
astery on Mt. Koya may still be the most flourishing monastery in Japan. Shin-
gon means “True Word”; its focus is the Bodhisattva Vairocana, known in
Japan as Dainichi, the supreme Buddha from whom emanates all the others.
Shingon took the lead in assimilating the major Shinto deities by equating
Dainichi with Amaterasu. Shingon believers are helped toward enlightenment
with a rich array of talismans, mantras, rites, and symbolism.
Pure Land has a simple message that accounts in part for the spread of
Buddhism, which had been a faith of the elite, to the peasants and townspeople
of Japan. In the degenerate post-1052 age of mappo, only the saving grace of
Amida Buddha can bring salvation and rebirth in the Pure Land (jodo). Salva-
tion requires the simple initiative of calling on the name of Buddha by chanting
the nembutsu (literally, “recollection of the Buddha”).
Zen, however, was the Buddhism of the samurai. This presents something
of a puzzle, most famously posed by the great popularizer of Zen in the West,
D. T. Suzuki: Buddhism is a religion of compassion, of love and peace, which
has never been engaged in warlike activities. How is it that Zen came to acti-
vate the fighting spirit of the Japanese warrior (Suzuki 1959)?
It was pure historical coincidence that when the monk Eisai returned from
his studies with Chinese masters of Chan (Zen) Buddhism in 1191, a new polit-
ical order had emerged in Japan. The government was now divided between
Kyoto and Kamakura, and finding Kyoto uninterested in his new ideas, Eisai
pushed on to Kamakura. There Minamoto Yoritomo had just died, but his
widow took a deep interest in the new ideas. She built him a temple and
brought attention to his teachings, which became the Rinzai school of Zen.
The next important convert was the fourth Hojo regent, Hojo Tokiyori, who
was certified by a Chinese master as having attained enlightenment. Soon sam-
urai were going to Zen monasteries for training and discipline to make them
better warriors. Half a century after, another monk, Dogen (1200–1253), went
to China and came back to found a competing branch, Soto Zen. Soto and
Rinzai became and remain the two principal forms of Zen Buddhism.
Because of Zen’s stress on self-discipline and control, it appealed to the
warriors of the samurai class. It emphasized religious values that harmonized
with the spartan warrior values of simplicity, asceticism, discipline in the mar-
tial arts, single-minded devotion to one’s lord, and willingness to risk all and
even to die for him. Takeda Shingen (1521–1573), one of the great warlords,
admonished his followers to practice Zen by quoting an old saying: “The prac-
tice of Zen has no secret except standing on the verge of life and death.” There
was a kind of salvation in dying for one’s lord. “He who dies for the sake of his
lord does not live in vain, whether he goes to the sea and his corpse is left in a