Hills of Silver Ruins (2/30)

Sodou is a daoshi (道士), a Taoist monk or priest.

The different Taoist sects described in this chapter appear analogous to the schools of Mahayana and Vajrayana or Esoteric Buddhism. A similar schism occurred in the early Middle Ages during what I call Japan's "Protestant Reformation." For Nichiren, Japan's Martin Luther,

religious ideals were inseparable from society and had to be realized in society. Salvation could not be achieved only at the level of individual meditation, because, first, no individual exists by himself, and secondly, because a living being can only realize itself through action and not by mere spiritual activity

In Chinese mythology, the Ten Kings of Hell (十王) judge the sins of the dead and determine how they will be reborn in the next life, a "Buddhist concept modified by Taoism and indigenous folk beliefs."