One of the masters of Pure Land Buddhism shows how to have a vision of the Land Sukhavati and its Lord by using the sutra as a manual of visualization.

Explores the potential significance of Japanese Pure Land Buddhist Thought in the contemporary world, and provides a new model of interreligious dialogue as Buddhist thinkers engage with Christian theologians concerned with the present-day significance of their own tradition.

Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice is the first book in any western language to provide a comprehensive overview of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism. Even though Pure Land Buddhism was born in China and currently constitutes the dominant form of Buddhist practice there, it has previously received very little attention from western scholars. In this book, Charles B. Jones examines the reasons for the lack of scholarly attention and why the few past treatments of the topic missed many of its distinctive features. He argues that the Chinese Pure Land tradition, with its characteristic promise of rebirth in the Pure Land to even non-elite or undeserving practitioners, should not be viewed from the perspective of the Japanese Pure Land tradition, which differs greatly. More accurately contextualizing Chinese Pure Land Buddhism within the landscape of Chinese Buddhism and the broader global Buddhist tradition, this work celebrates Chinese Pure Land, not as a school or sect, but as a unique and inherently valuable “tradition of practice.” This volume is organized thematically, clearly presenting topics such as the nature of the Pure Land, the relationship between “self-power” and “other-power,” the practice of nianfo (buddha-recollection), and the formation of the line of “patriarchs” that keep the tradition grounded. It guides us in understanding the vigorous debates that Chinese Pure Land Buddhism evoked and delves into the rich apologetic literature that it produced in its own defense. Drawing upon a wealth of previously unexamined primary source materials, as well as modern texts by contemporary Chinese Pure Land masters, the author provides lucid translations of resources previously unavailable in English. He also shares his lifetime of experience in this field, enlivening the narrative with personal anecdotes of his visits to sites of Pure Land practice in China and Taiwan. The straightforward and nontechnical prose makes this book a standby resource for anyone interested in pursuing research in this lively, sophisticated, and still-evolving religious tradition. Scholars—including undergraduates—specializing in East Asian Buddhism, as well as those interested in Buddhism or Chinese religion and history in general, will find this book invaluable.

"What, if anything, is Esoteric Pure Land Buddhism? In 1224, the medieval Japanese scholar-monk Dohan (1179-1252) composed The Compendium on Esoteric Mindfulness of Buddha (Himitsu nenbutsu sho), which begins with another seemingly simple question: Why is it that practitioners of mantra and meditation rely on the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitabha? To answer this question, Dohan explored diverse areas of study spanning the whole of the East Asian Mahayana Buddhist tradition. Although contemporary scholars often study Esoteric Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism as if they were mutually exclusive, diametrically opposed, schools of Buddhism, in the present volume Aaron Proffitt examines Dohan's Compendium in the context of the eastward flow of Mahayana Buddhism from India to Japan and uncovers Mahayana Buddhists employing multiple, overlapping, so-called esoteric approaches along the path to awakening. Proffitt divides his study into two parts. In Part I he considers how early Buddhologists, working under colonialism, first constructed Mahayana Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism as discrete fields of inquiry. He then surveys the flow of Indian Buddhist spells, dharaòni, and mantra texts into China and Japan and the diverse range of Buddhist masters who employed these esoteric techniques to achieve rebirth in Sukhavati, the Pure Land of Bliss. In Part II, he considers the life of Dohan and analyzes the monk's comprehensive view of buddhanusmrti as a form of ritual technology that unified body and mind, Sukhavati as a this-worldly or other-worldly soteriological goal synonymous with nirvana itself, and the Buddha Amitabha as an object of devotion beyond this world of suffering. The work concludes with the first full translation of Dohan's Himitsu nenbutsu sho into a modern language"--