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 S[=a]gara, the
N[=a]ga-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-d[=o] or sub-sect of J[=o]-d[=o], which is the next largest; or, over
nineteen thousand in all.
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