Cook, F. (1989) Sounds of Valley Streams, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. (An introduction to enlightenment in Dōgen’s Zen, with a translation of nine essays from the Shōbōgenzō.)

Dobbins. J. (1989) Jōdo Shinshū: Shin Buddhism in Medieval Japan, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. (A systematic treatment of the doctrines and major figures, such as Hōnen and Shinran, of the Pure Land school.)

Groner, P. (1984) Saichō: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School, Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series. (A systematic study of the founder and teachings of the Tendai school, including the doctrine of attaining Buddhahood in this very existence.)

Hubbard, J. and Swanson, P. (eds) (1997) Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm Over Critical Buddhism, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. (Translations of articles by two major critics of the legacy of inherent enlightenment, N. Hakayama and S. Matsumoto, with responses from differing perspectives.)

Hakeda, Y. (1972) Kūkai: Major Works, New York: Columbia University Press. (An introduction to and translations of the seminal writings of Kūkai, the founder of the Shingon or ‘Truth–word’ school of esoteric Buddhism.)

Kitagawa, J. (1987) On Understanding Japanese Religion, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (A collection of essays by a historian of religions that treats both specific topics and the general character of Japanese Buddhism in a manner accessible to the general reader.)

Kiyota, M. (ed.) (1987) Japanese Buddhism: Its Tradition, New Religions and Interaction with Christianity, Los Angeles, CA and Tokyo: Buddhist Books International. (Essays in the first section elaborate the doctrines of the universal and the particular, and of rebirth and transmigration.)

LaFleur, W. (1983) The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. (Presents the Buddhist philosophical background to Japanese literary works, often in contrast to Western, especially Platonic thinking.)

Matsunaga, A. (1969) The Buddhist Philosophy of Assimilation, Tokyo: Sophia University and Charles Tuttle Co. (Presents the honji suijaku theory.)

Matsunaga, D. and Matsunaga, A. (1974) Foundations of Japanese Buddhism, Los Angeles, CA and Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 2 vols. (A detailed historical survey from the beginnings through the Muromachi Period, 1338–1573.)

Nakamura, H. (1964) Ways of Thinking of Eastern Peoples, Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. (Expounds the acceptance of the phenomenal world as absolute, the social matrix of values and the emphasis of symbolic expression over logical thinking.)

Suzuki, D.T. (1964) An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, New York: Grove Press. (Essays by the most influential advocate of the distinctiveness of Zen Buddhism.)

Tamura Yoshirō (1987) ‘Japanese Culture and the Tendai Concept of Original Enlightenment’, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 14: 203–10. (A brief argument for the positive cultural significance of the hongaku idea of inherent enlightenment.)

Unno, T. (trans.) (1984) Tannisho: A Shin Buddhist Classic, Honolulu, HI: Buddhist Study Center Press. (A translation of Shinran’s most influential writing, ‘Lamenting the Deviations [from the true teaching]’, and an essay on the central doctrines of the True Pure Land school.)

Watanabe, S. (1970) Japanese Buddhism: A Critical Appraisal, Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai. (A realistic and detailed but non-technical treatment of the characteristics of Japanese Buddhism.)