Faith in Buddhism Amitābha Buddha. He believed that morality should go hand-in-hand with faith, and was a way to express gratitude to Amitābha. Jōdo Shinshu is still the most popular and largest Buddhist sect in Japan today, surviving as the Nishi Hongwanji and the Higashi Hongwanji traditions. Just like in Jōdo Shinshu, some forms of Zen Buddhism arose as a reaction to Tendai Buddhism. Just like Pure Land Buddhism, faith also played a role here, that is, in Sōtō Zen. This form of Zen, also known as "farmer's Zen" because of its popularity in agrarian society, was developed by Dōgen (1200–53). Apart from
Buddhism in Japan of the sixth century. 816: Kūkai founds . One of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan today and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, it originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra. Known in Chinese as the Tangmi, these esoteric teachings would flourish in Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named , who traveled to Tang China in 804 as part of the same expedition as Saichō. In the capital he studied Tangmi and Sanskrit and received initiation from Huiguo. On returning to Japan, Kūkai eventually