Great Construction

Is the Japan Kannon Church Shinto or Buddhism?

     Often I am asked questions that reflect the doubts raised in the title, so let me explain. To begin, the original form of Kannon, the Boddhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the World, can not be announced at present as the time is premature, but the original form is certainly a deity of the highest level.
     Here, explanation about deities and buddhas is in order. There was a time several thousands of years ago when the world changed. All deities changed into the forms of buddhas. For example, Tsukiyomi no Mikoto became the Tathagata Amitabha; Ameratasu Ôkami became the Tathagata Mahavairocana; Wakahimegimi no Mikoto, Tathagata Shakya; and Izunome Kami, Boddhisattva Regarder of the Cries of the World. This period was the world of night, the world of tathata, or thusness, “like truth.” In Buddhism is often used the term “the reality of thusness.” “Thusness” is the “like truth” of the moon, in other words, the world of night. Because true reality is the world of daylight, “like truth” has until the present been put above and reality has been put below. As the Chinese ideograms chosen to represent the Sanskrit word tathata show, it was “like truth,” and not truth. When the historical Buddha described this world of endurance as “provisional,” this is what he meant. That it was said that the world of Buddhism would end also has this significance. Therefore, as the spiritual world now changes, the world will become daylight, that is, the world of reality.
     In relation to the above, it is necessary to explain about the significance of The Lotus Sutra. As the name of the sutra signifies, Buddhist teaching is likened to a flower, that the flower will bloom at one time, and that with such a blossoming, fruit will form. It is to this event that refers, of the twenty-eight chapters in The Lotus Sutra, chapter twenty-five, titled “Chapter of Regarder of Cries.”
     The reason for the appearance of the Japan Kannon Church also stems from this point. If the Japan Kannon Church is seen as the bearing of fruit after the end of the flowering of Buddhism, the hidden significance of the appearance of the Japan Kannon Church may be perceived. What was supposed to appear has indeed appeared. On this one point alone, it can be understood that the Kannon Church is not a religion fashioned by human beings, but the beginning of the cries of the pangs of the birth for humanity’s salvation from the sufferings at this period of world transition whose time has been divinely ordained. Great assistance could be expected in support of the Kannon Church if the existing Buddhist religions were to recognize from this one point the true aspects of the Japan Kannon Church. Of course, even the historical Buddha, from his position in the pure land of the ultimate paradise in the spiritual world, is most satisfied.
     I have digressed, so to return to the main topic, the principal deities changed form to buddhas as previously stated, so from ancient days have been the expressions “deities and buddhas have the same root” and “deities and buddhas are alike.” The present is an age of a great transition of transference as all the Buddhist spirits return to their original divine status. The Japan Kannon Church is, therefore, conducted with both deities and buddhas.

 Hikari, Issue 11, May 31, 1949
translated by cynndd