Secrecy
Today, there are very few books on Shingon in the West and until the 1940s, not a single book on Shingon had ever been published anywhere in the world, not even in Japan. Since this lineage was brought over to Japan from Tang Dynasty China over 1,100 years ago, its doctrines have always been closely guarded secrets, passed down orally through an initiatic chain and never written down. Throughout the centuries, except for the initiated, most of the Japanese common folk knew little about its secretive doctrines and the monks of this "Mantra School" except that besides performing the usual priestly duties of prayers, blessings and funeral rites for the public, they practiced only Mikkyō (密教）, literally "secret ways" in stark contrast to all other Buddhist schools and were called upon to perform mystical rituals that could summon rain, improve harvests, exorcise demons, avert natural disasters, heal the sick and protect the state. The most powerful ones could even render entire armies useless.
Even though the Tendai School also contains esoteric teachings in its doctrines, it is still essentially an exoteric Mahayana school at its core. Shingon teachings contain Esoteric teachings (such as the Rishukyo) as well as Exoteric teachings (such as the Diamond Sutra), and are in all likelihood also the most secretive Buddhist teachings in the world. As such, in-depth academic study will continue to prove difficult as it had been in the past and it will probably always be the least understood Buddhist tradition in the West.
Read more about this topic: Shingon Buddhism
Famous quotes containing the word secrecy:
“Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And secrecy the Human Dress.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“Nowadays the host does not admit you to his hearth, but has got the mason to build one for yourself somewhere in his alley, and hospitality is the art of keeping you at the greatest distance. There is as much secrecy about the cooking as if he had a design to poison you.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)