Amitabha or Omituofo II

In China the Pure Land school represents this point of view. Known as Jing-tu zhong (淨土宗), it was transplanted to Japan, where it is called Jodo-shu, which is the transliteration of its Chinese name. It was founded in sthe twelfth century by a scholar, trained at the Tendai (天台) monasteries at Mount Hiei in Kyoto. The scholar, Honen shonin (法然上人) had sought vainly for peace by means of the three Buddhist disciplines (precepts, meditation, and wisdom) and had then found enlightenment in a library when he read in a Chinese Amidist commentary the comforting words: “Only repeat the name of Amitabha with all your heart, whether walking or standing, whether sitting or lying: never cease the practice for a moment.” This is the very work which unfailingly issues salvation. He thereupon accepted salvation as coming by divine grace through faith. In old age, it is said, he claimed that after reading the Amidist commentary he began to repeat “Namu Amida Butsu” or Namo Omituofo 60,000 times a day, and increased it later to 70,000 times.

Jodo-shu has an outgrowth, Jodo Shinshu (淨土真宗) or True Pure Land school. Honen’s disciple, Shinran shonin (親鸞上人), founded the new school, which has introduced some radical Japanese innovations, hardly paralleled in Buddhism elsewhere, and is the most widespread of Japanese sects, having the greatest number of temples, monks and teachers. It has taken the confident position that humility and faith in Amitabha’s love are in themselves true signs that the redeeming grace of that Buddha has already been bestowed, and that therefore the repetition of the Amidist formula should not be regarded as a prerequisite to salvation, but should be motivated by gratitude, for Amitabha seeks and saves without first requiring faith and good works. In fact, faith is solely his doing; it springs up spontaneously from Amitabha’s spiritual presence in the heart.

Free from celibacy, Shinshu priests are allowed to marry and eat meat, and live in the world like lay persons. Because the priests can marry, an innovation, something like that in Tibet, has occurred: the abbots are hereditary. In the past, by acquiring political and even military power, these abbots were even more like barons than the celibate prelates of the semi-militarized sects of the feudal era.

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