One more sect I cannot pass without commenting on is the Zen sect. Its founder in Japan is Yosai, whose time coincided with that of Honen. Twice he went over to China, which had been for more than two hundred years under the sovereignty of the Sung dynasty, and studied there the doctrine of the Zen sect, which was then prevailing in that country. After his return from abroad, he began to preach first at Hakata, which had long continued the most thriving port for the trade with China. Afterwards he removed to Kyoto and thence to Kamakura, making enthusiasts everywhere, especially among the warriors. Like all other new sects, the teaching of Yosai was not entirely a novelty, being a development of one of the many elements which constituted old Buddhism. The specialty of the sect was, instead of arriving at salvation by belief in some supernatural being outside and above one's self, to encourage meditation and introspection and its general character tended to be mystic, intuitive, and individualistic. Strong self-reliance and resolute determination, qualities indispensable to warriors, were the natural and necessary outcome of this teaching. It was largely patronised by the Shogunate and the Hojo on that account. Though Yosai became the founder of the sect, neither he himself nor his teaching could hardly be called sectarian. To establish an hierarchical community or to organise a systematised doctrine was beyond his purpose, but the result of his preaching was precisely to bring both into being. Not only the characteristics of these new sects, but the manner of their propagation deserves close attention. Some of them were started in the eastern provinces, and gradually extended their missionary activity toward the west, that is to say, in the direction which is contrary to that of the extension of civilisation in former times. Others, though started in the west or at Kyoto, concentrated their efforts in the eastern provinces with Kamakura as centre of propagation. In short, all the reformed sects turned their attention rather to the eastern than to the western provinces. This preference of the east to the west originated in the circumstance that the less civilised east gave to those missioners a greater prospect of enlisting new adherents, than western Japan, which would of a surety be slow to follow their new teachings, having been already won over by the older cults. It might, however, be added that the preachers of the new doctrines saw, or rather overvalued, the importance of the new political centre as the nucleus of a fresh civilisation which might rapidly develop.