Tominaga Nakamoto (1715-1746), one of the noted thinkers in the Edo period, analyzed the historical development of Buddhism and discussed Buddhist doctrines taught by various visionary explanations. In his opinion, all kinds of facts as they appear in the Buddhist mystic doctrines were essentially only illusions which the Buddha (Sakyamuni) and his disciplines saw in their meditations, and the Buddha's real intention was to propagate practical ethics in daily life. Tominaga Nakamoto wrote the Shutsujo gogo 出定後語, his most important work, and he intended to declare that the ability to use reason allows people to awaken from mystic meditation. That is to say, the title of his work conveys his idea that modern thinking is able to provide a release from religious spellbound conditions. In Buddhism, the wisdom of enlightenment is more important than real facts in this world, therefore people must admit that facts which seem to permanently exist are essentially only illusions. Especially until the medieval period, awakening from the dream that is nothing other than the Buddha's enlightenment, had meant to deny realities. But Nakamoto's opinion, to the contrary, indicated awakening from the Buddha's mystic meditations and realizing realities in the world. So far Japanese Buddhists have done their best to harmonize traditional thoughts that value the Buddha's enlightenment with reasonable idea such as those in the Shutsujo gogo.
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