Ryōbu Shintō, the syncretic configuration that intertwined kami and Buddhas, tends to be regarded less as a separate, living path and more as a significant historical layer within Japan’s religious imagination. Mainstream shrine Shintō, especially in its more “pure” or state-oriented forms, often views this blending with suspicion, as a compromise that obscured what is taken to be an authentic Shintō free from Buddhist coloring. Official institutions emphasize the separation of kami and Buddhas and generally avoid overt Ryōbu-style identifications, even when local customs still quietly bear the imprint of that older synthesis. Among Shintō priests and scholars, it is thus approached primarily as an important but superseded phase in the tradition’s development.

Within Buddhism, especially in the esoteric lineages from which Ryōbu Shintō emerged, the syncretism is more readily embraced as a natural and even elegant way of harmonizing imported doctrine with indigenous deities. The conceptualization of kami as manifestations of Buddhas and bodhisattvas is seen as compatible with core teachings, and some temples continue to honor kami within a Buddhist cosmology. At the same time, institutional Buddhism has also had to define itself apart from formal Shintō worship, so Ryōbu elements are often acknowledged as heritage rather than foregrounded as present identity. Other Buddhist currents, such as more exclusivist schools, have historically criticized elaborate syncretic systems as doctrinally confused or as diluting single-minded devotion, and thus tend to treat Ryōbu Shintō as a mistaken or at least non-normative framework.

Beyond these major institutions, syncretic traditions such as Shugendō and many new religious movements see in Ryōbu Shintō a kindred pattern. For mountain ascetic currents that already weave together Shintō, Buddhist, and other elements, Ryōbu-style thinking feels less like an anomaly and more like confirmation that such blending is deeply rooted in the culture. Numerous modern movements that combine kami, Buddhas, and additional influences regard premodern syncretism as a precedent that legitimizes their own configurations, even when they do not explicitly use the name Ryōbu Shintō. Among ordinary practitioners and in folk religion, this heritage often appears in a pragmatic, almost unselfconscious way, as people move between shrines and temples without feeling compelled to draw hard doctrinal lines.

Other traditions in Japan tend to stand at a greater distance. Christian communities, for example, usually engage Ryōbu Shintō only as a historical or cultural phenomenon, rather than as a living partner in theological dialogue. Academic and secular observers, by contrast, often highlight Ryōbu Shintō as a key to understanding the broader pattern of kami–Buddha amalgamation that once characterized much of Japanese religiosity. From that vantage point, it becomes less a curiosity and more a window into the characteristic flexibility with which Japanese traditions have received, adapted, and reinterpreted spiritual influences over time.