page_title: Shingon Buddhism
section_title: Doctrines
hierarchical_section_title: Shingon Buddhism / Doctrines
caption_attribution_description: English: Womb Realm (garbhakosa-dhatu or taizōkai) mandala. Shingon tantric buddhist school, Heian period (794-1185), Tō-ji, Kyōto, Japan. National Treasure.
context_page_description: Shingon Buddhism is one of the major schools of Buddhism in Japan and one of the few surviving Vajrayana lineages in East Asia, originally spread from India to China through traveling monks such as Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra.
  Known in Chinese as the Tangmi, these esoteric teachings would later flourish in Japan under the auspices of a Buddhist monk named Kūkai, who traveled to Tang China to acquire and request transmission of the esoteric teachings. For that reason, it is often called Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, or Orthodox Esoteric Buddhism.
  The word shingon is the Japanese reading of the Chinese word 真言, which is the Chinese transcription of the Sanskrit word "mantra".
context_section_description: The teachings of Shingon are based on early Buddhist tantras, the Mahāvairocana Sūtra (大日経, Dainichi-kyō), the Vajraśekhara Sūtra (金剛頂経, Kongōchō-kyō), the Prajñāpāramitā Naya Sūtra (般若理趣経, Hannya Rishu-kyō), and the Susiddhikara Sūtra (蘇悉地経, Soshitsuji-kyō). These are the four principal texts of Esoteric Buddhism and are all tantras, not sutras, despite their names.
  The mystical Vairocana and Vajraśekhara Tantras are expressed in the two main mandalas of Shingon, the Mandala of the Two Realms – The Womb Realm (Skt. Garbhadhātu, Japanese 胎蔵界曼荼羅 Taizōkai) mandala and the Diamond Realm (Skt. Vajradhātu, Japanese 金剛界曼荼羅 Kongōkai) mandala. These two mandalas are considered to be a compact expression of the entirety of the Dharma, and form the root of Buddhism. In Shingon temples, these two mandalas are always mounted one on each side of the central altar.
  The Susiddhikara Sūtra is largely a compendium of rituals. Tantric Buddhism is concerned with the rituals and meditative practices that lead to enlightenment. According to Shingon doctrine, enlightenment is not a distant, foreign reality that can take aeons to approach but a real possibility within this very life, based on the spiritual potential of every living being, known generally as Buddha-nature. If cultivated, this luminous nature manifests as innate wisdom. With the help of a genuine teacher and through proper training of the body, speech, and mind, i.e. "The Three Mysteries" (三密, Sanmitsu), we can reclaim and liberate this enlightened capacity for the benefit of ourselves and others.
  Kūkai also systematized and categorized the teachings he inherited from Huiguo into ten bhūmis or "stages of spiritual realization". He wrote at length on the difference between exoteric, mainstream Mahayana Buddhism and esoteric Tantric Buddhism. The differences between exoteric and esoteric can be summarised:
  Esoteric teachings are preached by the Dharmakaya (法身, Hosshin) Buddha, who Kūkai identifies as Vairocana (大日如來, Dainichi Nyorai). Exoteric teachings are preached by the Nirmanakaya (応身, Ōjin) Buddha, which in our world and aeon, is the historical Gautama Buddha (釈迦牟尼, Shakamuni) or one of the Sambhoghakaya (報身, Hōjin) Buddhas.
  Exoteric Buddhism holds that the ultimate state of Buddhahood is ineffable, and that nothing can be said of it. Esoteric Buddhism holds that while nothing can be said of it verbally, it is readily communicated via esoteric rituals which involve the use of mantras, mudras, and mandalas.
  Kūkai held that exoteric doctrines were merely upāya "skillful means" teachings on the part of the Buddhas to help beings according to their capacity to understand the Truth. The esoteric doctrines, in comparison, are the Truth itself and are a direct communication of the inner experience of the Dharmakaya's enlightenment. When Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment in his earthly Nirmanakaya, he realized that the Dharmakaya is actually reality in its totality and that totality is Vairocana.
  Some exoteric schools in the late Nara and early Heian period Japan held (or were portrayed by Shingon adherents as holding) that attaining Buddhahood is possible but requires a huge amount of time (three incalculable aeons) of practice to achieve, whereas esoteric Buddhism teaches that Buddhahood can be attained in this lifetime by anyone.
  Kūkai held, along with the Chinese Huayan school (華嚴, Kegon) and the Tendai schools, that all phenomena could be expressed as 'letters' in a 'World-Text'. Mantra, mudra, and mandala are special because they constitute the 'language' through which the Dharmakāya (i.e. Reality itself) communicates. Although portrayed through the use of anthropomorphic metaphors, Shingon does not see the Dharmakaya Buddha as a separate entity standing apart from the universe. Instead, the deity is the universe properly understood: the union of emptiness, Buddha nature, and all phenomena. Kūkai wrote that "the great Self embraces in itself each and all existences".
caption: Garbhadhātu maṇḍala. Vairocana is located at the center
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