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I once said there were five threads I would post. The first among them being how Buddhism spread through Japan. This won't be a long thread, Buddhism dates back to far for me to know all the details in Japan, but here is what I have learned through some research.

Buddhism first came to Japan by the passage of monks, some of which chose to stay in Japan. They brought with them their teachings and so Japanese Buddhist Monks came to be.

Shinto is Japan's national religion. The emperor of Japan used Shinto beliefs to strengthen and form a foundation for his authority(supposedly being the direct descendant of a deity). Because of this he saw Buddhism, which had grown to be a major religion in Japan, as a threat. He ordered the samurai to burn down so many Buddhist temples, but this was merely fuel for a fire.

The samurai did as they were told and while many non-monks did run from the burning temples, the monks themselves sat bravely, not fearing death. Prior to this the samurai were like any other man and, even filled with adrenaline, they feared death when faced with it. The monks, however, sat in meditation and showed no signs of fear, anger, resentment, nothing. The sat in silence and died in silence, the samurai could not go against their orders, but they did respect the monks more for this.

Acknowledging the benefits of Buddhism, the samurai ironically took up parts of Buddhism themselves. They assimilated the practices that could fit with the lifestyle of a warrior and it became a part of Bushido(Way of the Warrior).

With the samurai learning about Buddhism, more Japanese citizens learned of Buddhism and so while a number of temples may have been destroyed the Buddhist population rose again.

I confess, I don't know how much of this is entirely accurate, but I don't believe it to be inaccurate. If I did I would not be posting it. I learned of this while studying Bushido and the samurai a couple/few years ago. I hope this information is helpful in some way to at least some of you.

I have heard of that and I enjoyed hearing it as well, although I didn't think to mention it here. There are some churches that were built on the shores during/after World War 2, they were placed by Americans and are still used today. Of course that was after the time of the Samurai, but I thought I'd mention it is still one of Japan's religions. A minor one, but an existing one.

I'll have to look more into the Christian samurai. As I said, I have heard of them, but I never really took the time to research how Christianity was taken to the samurai or why they took to it. If it is true, than the Samurai had the same belief systems I have now, although possibly not all at the same time. Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto, and Confucianism were all at some point integrated into samurai belief system and the latter four were structured into Bushido.