Buddhism in Japan began teaching devotion to the "Lotus Sutra". Eventually, his disciples formed their own school of Nichiren Buddhism, which includes various sects that have their own interpretations of Nichiren's teachings. Nichiren Buddhism established the foundation of Japanese Buddhism in the thirteenth century. The school is known for its sociopolitical activism and looks to reform society through faith. In the Muromachi period, Zen, particularly the Rinzai school, obtained the help of the Ashikaga shogunate and the Emperor of Japan, and accomplished considerable development. After the Sengoku period of war, Japan was re-united in the Azuchi–Momoyama period. This decreased the power of Buddhism,
Buddhism in the West Rush. By 1875 there were 8 temples in San Francisco and many more smaller ones along the West Coast. They practiced a mixture of "Confucian ancestor veneration, popular Taoism, and Pure Land Buddhism." At about the same time, immigrants from Japan began to arrive as laborers on Hawaiian plantations and central-California farms. In 1893 the first Jōdo Shinshū priests arrived in San Francisco, and they formally established the Buddhist Missions of North America, later renamed the Buddhist Churches of America in 1899. The BCA is the oldest major institutional form of Buddhism in the United States. This organization acted as