The four books discussed here deal with various aspects of Buddhism, primarily the offshoots of Mahayana Buddhism. The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti is a Mahayana sutra in which, among other topics, Vimalakirti debates and clarifies the concept of nonduality. The Tannisho is an important record of the sayings of Shinran, the founder of Shin Buddhism--a Japanese form of Pure Land Buddhism. The third book, Zen: Tradition and Transition, is a collection of essays on various aspects of the history and practice of Zen Buddhism. The fourth work, Kitagawa's On Understanding Japanese Religion, consists of four extended essays on the history of Japanese religion, two of which deal with Shinto and Buddhist traditions and offer a great deal of insight into the way Buddhist thought and practice entered Japan and interacted with existing strains of religion. The subjects of the four books amplify the picture of the many facets of Buddhism, its adaptability, and its success as one of the most widespread of religions.
The Vimalakirti Sutra, or Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, claims to record events that happened during the life of the Buddha Sakyamuni (sixth to fifth century BC). But the text of the sutra does not appear in history until the revival of Mahayana Buddhism between 100 BC and 100 AD. All the Sanskrit versions have long disappeared but it was translated many times into Chinese, Tibetan, and other languages. The message of the sutra revolves around the concept of nonduality contained in the essential expression of the Middle Way found in many Mahayana scriptures: "Matter is not void because of voidness; voidness is not elsewhere from matter. Matter itself is voidness. Voidness itself is matter" (quoted in Thurman, Introduction to Holy Teaching 1).
In expounding nonduality, and other concepts, Vimalakirti relied largely on the explication of dichotomies (an alternate title for the sutra is "Reconciliation of Dichotomies"). ...