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
Zen aware of Zen as a distinct form of Buddhism, the visit of Soyen Shaku, a Japanese Zen monk, to Chicago during the World Parliament of Religions in 1893 is often pointed to as an event that enhanced the profile of Zen in the Western world. It was during the late 1950s and the early 1960s that the number of Westerners other than the descendants of Asian immigrants who were pursuing a serious interest in Zen began to reach a significant level. Japanese Zen has gained the greatest popularity in the West. The various books on Zen by Reginald Horace Blyth,