In practice, the Shin sect even more than the Jō-dō, teaches that it is faith in Buddha, which accomplishes the salvation of the believer. Instead of waiting for death in order to come under the protection of Amida, the faithful soul is at once received into the care of the Boundlessly Compassionate. In a word, the Shin sect believes in instantaneous conversion and sanctification. Between the Roman and the Reformed soteriology of Christendom, was Melancthonism or the coōperate union of the divine and the human will. So, the old Buddhism prior to Shinran taught a phase of synergism, or the union of faith and works. Shinran, in his "Reformed" Buddhism, taught the simplicity of faith.
So also in regard to the sacred writings, Shinran opposed the San-ron school and the three-grade idea. The scriptures of other sects are in Sanskrit and Chinese, which only the learned are able to read. The special writings of Shinran are in the vernacular. Three of the sutras, also, have been translated into Japanese and expressed in the kana script. Singleness of purpose characterised this sect, which was often called Monto, or followers of the gate, in reference to its unity of organization, and the opening of the way to all by Shinran and the doctrine taught by him. Yet, lest the gate might seem too broad, the Shin teachers insist that morality is as important as faith, and indeed the proof of it. The high priests of Shin Shu have ever held a high position and wielded vast influence in the religious development of the people. While the temples of other sects are built in sequestered places among the hills, those of Shin Shu are erected in the heart of cities, on the main streets, and at the centres of population,—the priests using every means within their power to induce the people to come to them. The altars are on an imposing scale of magnificence and gorgeous detail. No Roman Catholic church or cathedral can outshine the splendor of these temples, in which the way to the Western Paradise is made so clear and plain. Another name for the sect is Ikko.
After the death of Shinran, his youngest daughter and one of his grandsons erected a monastery near his tomb in the eastern suburbs of Kiōto, to which the Mikado gave the title of Hon-guanji, or Monastery of the Original Vow. This was in allusion to the vow made by Amida, that he would not accept Buddhaship except under the condition that salvation be made attainable for all who should sincerely desire to be born into his kingdom, and signify their desire by invoking his name ten times.[11] It is upon the passage in the sutra where this vow is recorded, that the doctrine of the sect is based. Its central idea is that man is to be saved by faith in the mercy of the boundlessly compassionate Amida, and not by works or vain repetitions. Within our own time, on November 28, 1876, the present reigning Mikado bestowed upon Shinran the posthumous title Ken-shin Dai-shi, or Great Teacher of the Revelation of Truth.
The Protestants of Japanese Buddhism.
This is the sect which, being called "Reformed" Buddhism[12] and resembling Protestantism in so many points, both large and minute, foreigners think has been borrowed or imitated from European Protestantism.[13] As matter of fact, the foundation principles of Shin-Shu are at least six hundred years old. They are perfectly clear in the writings of the founder,[14] as well as in those of his successor Renniō,[15] who wrote the Ofumi or sacred writings, now daily read by the disciples of this denomination. With the characteristic object of reaching the masses, they are written, as we have shown, not in the mixed Chinese and Japanese characters, but in the common script, or kana, which all the people of both sexes can read. Within the last two decades the Shin educators have been the first to organize their schools of learning on the models of those in Christendom, so that their young men might be trained to resist Shintō or Christianity, or to measure the truth in either. Their new temples also show European influence in architecture and furniture. Liberty of thought and action, and incoercible desire to be free from governmental, traditional, ultra-ecclesiastical, or Shintō influence—in a word, protestantism in its pure sense, is characteristic of the great sect founded by Shinran.
Indeed the Shin sect, which sprang out of the Jō-dō, maintains that it alone professes the true teaching of Hō-nen, and that the Jō-dō sect has wandered from the original doctrines of its founder. Whereas the Jō-dō or Pure Land sect believes that Amida will come to meet the soul of the believer on its separation from the body, in order to conduct it to Paradise, the Shin or True Sect of the Pure Land believes in immediate salvation and sanctification. It preaches that as soon as a man believes in Amida he is taken by him under him merciful protection. Some might denominate these people the Methodists of Buddhism.
One good point in their Protestantism is their teaching that morality is of equal importance with faith. To them Buddha-hood means the perfection and unlimitedness of wisdom and compassion. "Therefore," writes one, "knowing the inability of our own power we should believe simply in the vicarious Power of the Original Prayer. If we do so, we are in correspondence with the wisdom of the Buddha and share his great compassion, just as the water of rivers becomes salt as soon as it enters the sea. For this reason this is called the faith in the Other Power."
To their everlasting honor, also, the Shin believers have probably led all other Japanese Buddhists in caring for the Eta, even as they probably excel in preaching the true spiritual democracy of all believers, yes, even of women.[16] "According to the earlier and general view of Buddhism, women are condemned, in virtue of the pollution of their nature, to look forward to rebirth in other forms. By no possibility can they, in their existence as women, reach the higher grades of holiness which lead to Nirvana. According to the Shin Shu system, on the other hand, a believing woman may hope to attain the goal of the Buddhist at the close of her present life."[17] This doctrine seems to be founded on that passage in the eleventh chapter of the Saddharma Pundarika, in which the daughter of Sāgara, the Nāga-king, loses her sex as female and reappears as a Bodhisattva of male sex.[18]
The Shin sect is the largest in Japan, having more than twice as many temples as any four of the great sects, and five thousand more than the So-dō or sub-sect of Jō-dō, which is the next largest; or, over nineteen thousand in all. It is also supposed to be one of the richest and most powerful of all the Japanese sects. In reality, however, it possesses no fixed property, and is dependent entirely upon the voluntary contributions of its adherents. To-day, it is probably the most active of them all in education, learning and missionary operations in Yezo, China and Korea.
Interesting as is the development of the Jō-dō and Shin sects, which became popular largely through their promulgation of dogmas founded on the Western Paradise, we must not forget that both of them preached a new Buddha—not the real figure in history, but an unhistoric and unreal phantom, the creation and dream of the speculator and visionary. Amida, the personification of boundless light, is one of the luxuriant growths of a sickly scholasticism—a hollow abstraction without life or reality. Amidaism is utterly repudiated by many Japanese Buddhists, who give no place to his idol on their altars, and reject utterly the teaching as to Paradise and salvation through the merits of another.