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
Buddhism in Bhutan to benefit the spirits of the dead. To help propagate the faith, itinerant monks travel from village to village carrying portable shrines with many small doors, which open to reveal statues and images of the Buddha, bodhisattavas, and notable lamas. Before the introduction of Buddhism, Bön religion was prevalent in Bhutan. Imported from Tibet and India, perhaps in the eighth century, Bön doctrine became so strongly reinvigorated by Buddhism that by the eleventh and twelfth century it reasserted itself as an independent school apart from Buddhism. Bön continues to be practiced in modern Bhutan. Buddhism in Bhutan Buddhism is the