Pure Land Buddhism

Pure Land Buddhism is a religion of faith, of faith in Amitabha Buddha [and in one’s capacity to achieve Buddhahood]. Amitabha Buddha presides over the Pure Land in the West, the land of ultimate bliss, named “Peaceful Nurturing”. In Pure Land there is no suffering and defilement and delusion that normally blocks people’s efforts towards achieving enlightenment here in our world which the Buddhist named “Endurance”.

The immediate goal of Pure Land practitioners is to be reborn in Amitabha Buddha’s Pure Land. There, in more favourable surroundings in the presence of Amitabha and his guidance, they will eventually attain complete enlightenment.

The essence of Pure Land practice thus consist of invoking the name of Amitabha Buddha, contemplating the qualities of Amitabha, visualizing Amitabha and taking vows to be born in the Pure Land.

Making a vow to attain birth in the Pure Land signifies a fundamental reorientation of the practitioner’s motivation and will. No longer is the purpose of life brute survival, or fulfillment of a social role or the struggle to wrest some satisfaction from a frustrating and taxing environment. By vowing to be reborn in the Pure Land, practitioners shift their focus. The joys and sorrows of this world become incidental, inconsequential. The present life takes on value chiefly as an opportunity to concentrate one’s awareness on Amitabha and purify one’s mind accordingly.

The hallmark of Pure Land Buddhism is reciting the Buddha name, invoking the Amitabha Buddha by chanting his name. Through recitation of the Buddha name, people focus their attention on Amitabha Buddha. This promotes mindfulness of Buddha, otherwise known as Buddha recitation or Buddha remembrance.

In what sense is Buddha “remembered”? Buddha is the name for the one reality that underlies all forms of being, as well as an epithet for those who witness and express this reality. According to the Buddhist Teaching, all people possess an inherently enlightened true nature of that in their real identity. By becoming mindful of Buddha, therefore people are just regaining their own real identity. They are remembering their own Buddha nature.

Buddha as such is a concept that transcends any particular embodiment such as Sakyamuni Buddha [the historical Buddha borned in India] or Maitreya Buddha [the future Buddha] or Vairocana Buddha [the cosmic Buddha] or Amitabha Buddha [the Buddha of the Western Paradise]. Buddha exist in many forms, but all share the same “body of reality”, the same Dharmakaya, which is formless, omnipresent, all pervading, indescribable, infinite – the everywhere equal essence of all things, the one reality within and beyond all appearances.

Dharmakaya Buddha is utterly abstract and in fact inconceivable, so Buddha takes on particular forms to communicate with living beings by coming within their range of perception. For most people, this is the only way Buddha can become comprehensible and of practical use. The particular embodiments of Buddha known as Nirmanakaya, are supreme examples of compassionate skill-in-means.

Pure Land people focus on Buddha in the form of Amitabha, the Buddha of infinite life and infinite light. Practitioners put their faith in Amitabha Buddha and recite his name, confident in promises he has given to deliver all who recite his name. All classes of people, whatever their other characteristics or shortcomings, are guaranteed rebirth in the Pure Land and ultimate salvation if only they invoke Amitabha’s name with single minded concentration and sincere faith.