Note (return) — Chapter VIII · - NORTHERN BUDDHISM IN ITS DOCTRINAL EVOLUTIONS

The teachers of Ten-dai doctrine must fully estimate character and ability in their pupils, and so apportion instruction. In this respect and in not a few others, they are like the disciples of Loyola, and have properly been called the Jesuits of Buddhism. They are ascetics, and teach that spiritual insight is possible only through prolonged thought. Their purpose is to recognize the Buddha, in all the forms he has assumed in order to save mankind. Nevertheless, the highest truths are incomprehensible except to those who have already attained to Buddha-hood.19 In contrast to the Nichirenites, who give an emotional and ultra-concrete interpretation and expression to the great sutra, Hokké Kiō, the Ten-dai teachers are excessively philosophical and intellectual.