As the Heian period came to a close, there was great social upheaval and strong symptoms of the evil and pollution of the end days. By the seventh year of Eisho (1052), even some ordinary people were announcing the coming of the final, degenerate period of the Dharma. The age and the society proved to be finite and relative, and people were forced to realize that human beings have an evil nature and are death-bound. Faced with this kind of reality, people could not remain steeped in the world of absolutistic monism. This is why Honen (1133-1212) who kept his eyes on the real world and sought its salvation, adopted the Pure Land theory of relativistic dualism and relied upon it rather than upon the absolutistic monism of the Tendai doctrine of original enlightenment. For him there was a polarization between Buddha and ordinary human beings and between the pure land and the sahā world. He encouraged people to reject life in the sahā world, in favor of being reborn in the pure land of the next life.

Shinran (1173—1262), Dogen (1200—1253), and Nichiren (1222-1282) also came into reality out of Mt. Hiei’s hall of truth. Yet their attitudes toward the actual world were quite different from Honen’s. While Honen was mostly devoted to giving up on this life and longed for the pure land of the next life, Shinran, Dogen, and Nichiren struggled positively within the actual world. Their activities and writings came right after the Jokyu turbulence of 1221 and were related to it.

The Jokyu turbulence was the last attempt by the former dynasty to regain political power, which ended in total failure. This was the decisive event that transferred political power from the former dynasty to the newly emerging samurai warrior class. It was a kind of preparation for a period wherein the samurai would build a new order. Shinran, Dogen, and Nichiren were active in the midst of this trend. This was especially true of Nichiren, who had his home base in Kamakura, the center for the newly emerging samurai regime, and felt the new winds directly.