The Buddha of boundless compassion

Zen talk April 2025

By far the most popular Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism is Amitabha (Amituofo in China, Amida Butsu in Japan). In the diagram of the five Buddha families, he is the Buddha of the red family.

In the highest pavilion of a Chinese temple, you will find Amitabha flanked by the bodhisattvas Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin) and Mahastamaprapta (Dashizhi). In Buddhist monasteries, the name of Amitabha is on everyone's lips. People greet each other with "Amituofo". In Chan monasteries, the monks also recite Amituofo as a mantra in their ceremonies. (Unlike in Japan, where the various Buddhist movements have become separated from each other).

Amitabha is the Buddha of boundless compassion. In his previous life, he took a vow that as Buddha he would create a pristine land: Sukhāvatī, the Western Pure Land, a place without suffering. By reciting his name (nianfo in Chinese, nembutsu in Japanese), anyone who wishes to can be reborn there. If you say his name at the moment of your death, Amitabha will personally come to take you with his two bodhisattvas to welcome you into the Pure Land. From there you will become a buddha yourself and create your own Pure Land, from which you can in turn help other suffering beings.

Can you still call this Buddhism? Or is this Buddhism degenerated into a superstitious folk religion? I must admit that I once thought that way too. And it was only by meeting very nice people, who did not practice Zen but meditated with a mantra like the nianfo, that I realized I had to adjust my prejudice.

Pure Land Buddhism is a tradition within Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana originated from the question: "After the death of the Buddha, can we adapt the teachings to new circumstances, or do we adhere to the original words and forms?" Mahayana radically chooses to adapt. This is how new Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, new practices and new texts came into being.

In the Vimalakirti Sutra, a Mahayana text, we find the sentence: “Wisdom (prajnaparamita) is the mother of the bodhisattvas, skillful means (upaya) is their father”. Unlike in the book religions, where the word of God has been recorded literally and preserved for eternity, wisdom in Buddhism is always searching for new paths. The Mahayana is sometimes seen as a further evolution of the teachings of the historical Buddha. For some it is a higher path, for others a degeneration of it. Or is it, as the Vimalakirti Sutra suggests, a new expression of the original wisdom?

New times and new circumstances present us with new questions. We know very little about the historical context in which the various Mahayana traditions originated. But from the Mahayana sutras and the many polemics that followed, we learn what questions were being raised. The Pure Land Sutras also address pertinent questions.

1 Is Buddhism difficult?

Where does the idea that Buddhism should be difficult come from? The Buddha taught everyone, learned or unlearned, from high or low backgrounds, monk or layman, and he found words suitable for everyone. The Palicanon already uses the term upaya for this. In the centuries that followed, more and more learned people became involved in the teachings. From the Pure Land sutras, I understand that Buddhism became increasingly difficult and posited an almost unattainable ideal. Amitabha Buddha again reaches out to all people, including those for whom that lofty ideal of "enlightenment" seems unattainable.

If you read the oldest Zen texts such as Xinxinming and Huangbo, you will notice that Zen initially also presented itself as an easy path. A few centuries later, Zen had become a heroic practice aiming for an unattainable ideal. “In Zen, nine out of ten fail, in Pure Land, ten thousand out of ten thousand succeed”, says Zungben (16th century). Pure Land Buddhism is for "ordinary people", not for spiritual heroes.

2 Personal power or other power?

One does not reach the Pure Land through one's own efforts, but through the power of Amitabha Buddha. Nobody is saying that the practitioner does not play a role in this. The practitioner must still want it and must still pronounce the Buddha's name. But is that enough? Just that? Nothing more? This has been debated endlessly.

In my opinion, the Pure Land sutras rightly refute the idea that awakening is an achievement that you can realize through your own power. This applies equally to Zen. If you sit down on your cushion with the thought that you will reach enlightenment through your own effort, you are really missing the point. Zen meditation is about letting go of that whole idea and opening your mind and your heart. What happens then is definitely not your own power. If you want to attribute it to Amitabha, I don’t mind, as long as you don't attribute it to yourself. The whole notion of "self" does not apply here.

3 Does the Pure Land really exist or is it just a metaphor?

For some, the Pure Land really exists, far away and unreachable in the West, and you must take its description very literally. For others, the Pure Land is this world here and now, and this world is only impure to our unawakened minds. Much ink has been spilled on this. In our scientific world view, the literal interpretation is hard to defend, but nevertheless the discussion is still going on today. There is no definitive answer.

The more I read about it, the more I feel that the uncertainty, the open question, is simply part of it. “It's a feature, not a bug.” I think the best comment is that of Hongdao, a contemporary of Zongben, who argues that the opponents of literality fall into their own trap by taking its non-existence literally. He refers to the middle way between existence and non-existence, an idea that originates in the oldest Buddhism.

4 Is there liberation for everyone?

This is perhaps the most difficult one. Does Amitabha bring everyone to his Western Pure Land, including criminals and people who have done terrible things in their lives? Can you just undo all that accumulated negative karma? That is apparently difficult to digest. According to some interpretations, everyone can indeed be reborn in the Pure Land, according to others there are exceptions, or intermediate solutions with different degrees of rebirth … Again, no definitive answer.

This is often seen as a break with the karma doctrine of the oldest Buddhism. But if you read the Pali Canon, you will see that the Buddha contradicts this very "quantitative" view of karma. There is the story of Angulimala, a serial killer who, face to face with the Buddha, repents and is ordained as a monk on the spot.

Another story is that of two ascetics who come to consult the Buddha. One has taken a vow as an ascetic practice to behave like a dog, the other like a cow. Their question to the Buddha is how they will be reborn. The underlying idea is that extreme asceticism erases negative karma and leads to a higher birth.

The Buddha replies that if they perfect their practice of living as a dog or a cow, they will be reborn as a dog or a cow. However, the Buddha adds, if they do this in the hope of being reborn in the world of the gods, they will be reborn in hell. This story is not about reincarnation but about karma, that is, behavior and its consequences. Reincarnation was common sense in India. But the explanation the Buddha gives is at odds with that common sense.

It is called idappaccayata in Pali, sometimes translated a bit awkwardly as this/that conditionality. This means that each moment builds on the previous one, but is not completely determined by the previous one. I can intervene in this moment. If I live like a dog, it is logical that I will also live like a dog in the next moment. (Whether you place that in this life or a future life is irrelevant here.) If I expect to be a god in a future moment, I will be severely disappointed. If, like Angulimala, I come to this realization in this moment, something new is possible.

For me, this is one of the most important Buddhist insights. I am the author and the heir of my behavior. There are things I cannot control, and there are things I can do. And I can only do those things now. If you like to believe in reincarnation, that is good news. But you should not wait until you die. And you do not have to believe in reincarnation. You can do things differently now, radically differently even. The question is: what will you choose to bring into the timeline of your life at this moment?

5 Do Nianfo and Zen meditation go together?

Much ink has been spilled on this topic as well, with supporters and opponents of both. But I see no reason why Zen meditation and Nianfo should get in each other's way. It depends on how you look at them. By now it should be clear that for me Zen is not reserved for "spiritual heroes", whatever that may mean.

What do you do if you practice Nianfo in the tradition of Pure Land Buddhism? There, too, you can look at it in different ways. Our basic metaphor for causality is billiard ball causality. One ball sets the other ball in motion.When we see someone in China kneeling before a Buddha statue, burning incense and singing or murmuring something, we spontaneously interpret that as praying to a supreme being who is able to intervene in the causal line of your life. But the basic Chinese metaphor for causality is resonance (ganying), a vibrating string that makes a similarly tuned string vibrate. I understand nianfo as resonance. You put yourself, as it were, on the same wavelength as Amithaba and his boundless compassion.

Zen is more than just sitting. We get up from our cushions and go back to doing what we have to do. Will we lose ourselves in that doing? Or can we, in between all the doing, briefly check in with that boundless compassion and bring it into the timeline of our lives? Thich Nhat Hanh calls it a mindfulness bell, something that reminds us. It could be an image, a word or a simple mandala of five colored disks. It doesn't matter, as long as it helps.