State of Japanese Buddhism

[Su DongPo]

Thanks, Tatsuo. I am sure the picture is much more complicated than my questions suggest it might be. I did not know of the ascetic training you cite, for example.

[Astus]

In the Myoshin-ji school of Rinzai Zen to be a head of the meditation hall (i.e. an actual Zen teacher who trains others) one is required to be unmarried and live pretty much like a monk in other countries. Just another example.

"The shike (師家) is the teacher (師) in the monastic household (家). He is the "true" shukke who has - ideally, but not necessarily - gone through all the koan of the particular monastic koan-system, and who stays permanently in monastic life leading the monastery and guiding the monks, thus also referred to as the "elder teacher in the monk's hall" (sōdō rōshi). He has received the certificate of enlightenment (inka shōmei) just as he himself can transmit this to his successor. Unless returning to lay life, or taking up a position as priest in a temple, a shike within the Myoushinji sect is not allowed to marry but must keep the strict rules of renouncement. As such he has the prestige and generally owns the respect of being a true Zen master, a living symbol of the Zen monastic tradition, the quintessence of zen virtues ideally incarnating wisdom, spirituality, strict discipline, individuality, and yet gentle social personality. He is, in a certain sense, the religious main figure."
(Jørn Borup: Japanese Rinzai Zen Buddhism: Myōshinji, a Living Religion, p. 60)

[Su DongPo]

I wonder if Japan is ripe for a Buddhist revival.

I still haven't scratched the surface of Japanese Buddhism, but I think this comment was a bit presumptuous.

Hard enough to know my own mind, and impossible to know the mind of another. Of an entire tradition or culture? That's probably nutty...