Buddhism in Japan movement to eradicate Buddhism and bring Shinto to ascendancy arose throughout the country due to the strong connections of Buddhism to the Shōguns. During the Meiji period (1868–1912), after a coup in 1868, Japan abandoned its feudal system and opened up to Western modernism. Shinto became the state religion. Within the Buddhist establishment the Western world was seen as a threat as well as a challenge to stand up to. Buddhist institutions had a simple choice: adapt or perish. Rinzai and Soto Zen chose to adapt, trying to modernize Zen in accord with Western insights, while simultaneously maintaining a Japanese
Nichiren Buddhism Japan while Tadao Yanaihara described Nichiren as one of the four historical figures he most admired. While various sects and organizations have had a presence in nations outside Japan for over a century, the ongoing expansion of Nichiren Buddhism overseas started in 1960 when Soka Gakkai president Daisaku Ikeda initiated his group's worldwide propagation efforts growing from a few hundred transplanted Japanese to over 3500 families just by 1962. Nichiren Buddhism is now practiced in many countries outside of Japan. In the United States Prebish coined the typology of "two Buddhisms" to delineate the divide between forms of Buddhism that