Religion in Japan

On the Henro pilgrimage, most of the 88 temples are Shingon Buddhist but some of them belong to other sects. It's as if a pilgrimage of Catholic cathedrals included some Protestant churches - very strange for people not familiar with Japan. Actually most of the Henro pilgrims also stop to pray at the Shinto shrines along the way as well as Buddhist temples that are not part of the 88. There are probably some churches in the big cities, too, but I have no information about them at this point. I guess this is something to look into.

Most people in Japan consider themselves to be both Buddhist and Shintoist and maybe even a little Christian thrown in to add flavor to the pot. People go to both shrines and temples to pray, and they see little or no contradiction in this. Also marriage ceremonies, conducted by some kind of Christian ordained minister, are extremely popular. I know some foreigners here, who became ordained in some fly-by-night, mail-order ministry and are now making large amounts of money by presiding over church weddings.

One of the reasons that this situation exists is that Buddhism accepts all gods as real, under the Buddhist concept of reality, and uses them to teach Buddhist ideas. This means that the Shinto gods, even the Christian God, are Buddhists and reflect certain aspects of Buddhist ideas.