Poverty in Old Japan
In any society in the world, being poor means being at the risk of one's life.
But in Japan it was not so dangerous if you had been poor even before the 19th century.
In the samurai era of Japan, which ended around 1870, farmers accounted for around 85% of the whole population at the time. However they were governed by the samurai class which accounted for only 7%.
Japanese farmers in the samurai era could not freely move or change their residences. They were bound to the land.
Farm lands were a kind of property of daimyo samurai or feudal lords who were subject to shogun or a samurai king who lived in Edo (Tokyo), though plots could be sold and bought by farmers, merchants, etc. Farmers had to pay tax in the form of rice as rice was the staple food and a big commercial commodity in Japan.
Anyway, every farmer was forced to live in a village surrounded by paddy fields on the permanent basis. So, no matter how poor a farmer became, he could rely on help from his community so long as he was a decent member of it. In addition, in every village there was a Buddhist temple or a shinto shrine which could offer some help to a poor member of the community. And low and order was of course maintained by samurai soldiers and officials.
In Japan being poor did not necessarily mean facing a threat to the life even in old days. There were almost no different races, tribes, or foreigners in Japan for these 2000 years.
This situation and circumstance had a great influence on the Japanese culture and Japanese religions. Japanese were not used to encounter extreme cruelty of a large scale, though its society had been governed by the samurai warrior class for more than 700 years before Japan started its westernization around 1870.
In addition, the climate in Japan was not so sever. Though it has snow and ice in winter, people can live even outdoor or in poor wooden houses comfortably from spring to autumn. Safe and humble living was allowed in Japan due to its natural features in old days. Poor people in a village might have looked like one part of the nature.
So, the Japanese Buddhism was especially influenced by this inclination of acceptance of poverty in the Japanese society.
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Mat 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
Mat 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.
Mat 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.