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.
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