Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/170

 compare attractively with their own prospect of certain admission after death to the ranks of the deities. Even the plebeian wanted something more tangible than a heaven from which he was separated by an eternity of effort. Thus Buddhism received its first Japanese modification. A sect arose, preaching that beatitude meant knowledge of the "Lotus Law;" that the attainment of that knowledge ensured immediate entry into Buddhahood, and that the ancient deities whom Japan worshipped were but manifestations of the Buddha. Such adaptations quickly won for Buddhism a strong title to popular regard. It ceased to be an alien creed and became a liberal expansion of the indigenous faith. It secured to the patrician his old privileges while extending them to the plebeian.

But there remained in this new conception two deterrent elements. To reach the knowledge which opened the gate to salvation, it was essential that the disciple should free himself from worldly concerns and influences, should stand aloof from work-a-day existence, should banish all sense of the beautiful, and should become absorbed in meditating on absolute truth. Such a programme repelled the average Japanese. He found it admirable to worship the Buddha of "infinite light and life," and comfortable to think that the state of blessedness might be at-