Salvation Through the Merits of Another.
In this absolute trust in the all-saving power of Amida as compared with the ways promulgated before, we see the emergence of the Buddhist doctrine of justification by faith, the simplification of theology, and a revolt against Buddhist scholasticism. The Japanese technical term, "tariki," or relying upon the strength of another, renouncing all idea of ji-riki or self-power,[8] is the substance of the Jō-dō doctrine; but the expanded term ta-riki chin no ji-riki, or "self-effort depending on another," while expressing the whole dogma, is rather scornfully applied to the Jō-dōists by the men of the Shin sect. The invocation of Amida is a meritorious act of the believer, much repetition being the substance of this combination of personal and vicarious work.
Hō-nen, after making his discovery, believing it possible for all mankind eventually to attain to perfect Buddhaship, left, as we have seen, the Ten-dai sect, which represented particularism and laid emphasis on the idea of the elect. Hō-nen taught Buddhist universalism. Belief and repetition of prayer secure birth into the Pure Land after the death of the body, and then the soul moves onward toward the perfection of Buddha-hood.
The Japanese were delighted to have among them a genius who could thus Japanize Buddhism, and Jō-dō doctrine went forth conquering and to conquer. From the twelfth century, the tendency of Japanese Buddhism is in the direction of universalism and democracy. In later developments of Jō-dō, the pantheistic tendencies are emphasized and the syncretistic powers are enlarged. While mysticism is a striking feature of the sect and the attainment of truth is by the grace of Amida, yet the native Kami of Japan are logically accepted as avatars of Buddha. History had little or no rights in the case; philosophy was dictator, and that philosophy was Hō-nen's. Those later Chinese deities made by personifying attributes or abstract ideas, which sprang up after the introduction of Buddhism into China, are also welcomed into the temples of this sect. That the common people really believe that they themselves may attain Buddha-hood at death, and enter the Pure Land, is shown in the fact that their ordinary expression for the dead saint is Hotoké—a general term for all the gods that were once human. Some popular proverbs indicate this in a form that easily lends itself to irreverence and merriment.
The whole tendency of Japanese Buddhism and its full momentum were now toward the development of doctrine even to startling proportions. Instead of the ancient path of asceticism and virtue with agnosticism and atheism, we see the means of salvation put now, and perhaps too easily, within the control of all. The pathway to Paradise was made not only exceedingly plain, but also extremely easy, perhaps even ridiculously so; while the door was open for an outburst of new and local doctrines unknown to India, or even to China. The rampant vigor with which Japanese Buddhism began to absorb everything in heaven, earth and sea, which it could make a worshipable object or cause to stand as a Kami or deity to the mind, will be seen as we proceed. The native proverb, instead of being an irreverent joke, stands for an actual truth—"Even a sardine's head may become an object of worship."