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Shinnyo-en is a New Religion in the tradition of the Daigo branch of the Shingon school of Japanese Buddhism. It was founded in 1936 by Ito Shinjo 伊藤真乗 and his wife Tomoji 友司 in a suburb of metropolitan Tokyo, the city of Tachikawa, where its headquarters is still located.
It is open to lay and monastic practitioners alike. Its principal teachings are based on the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. They also integrate elements of traditional Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism as well as teachings and practices initiated by the founders of Shinnyo-en, Shinjō Itō,a grand master of Shingon Buddhism, and his wife Tomoji Itō, the first woman in the 1,000-year history of Daigo-ji monastery in Kyoto to receive the rank of Daisōjō as a laywoman.
Today, Shinnyo-en says to have more than one million practitioners worldwide, and temples and training centers in several countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. The temples are characterised by the statue of the reclining Buddha.
Central to Shinnyo-en is the belief, expressed in the Nirvana Sutra, that all beings possess Buddha-nature, a natural, unfettered purity that can respond creatively and compassionately to any situation in life.
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