The smashing popularity of the show Shogun seems to have brought the martial history of Japan back into the Western cultural spotlight. While Japan's long history of fighting factions cultivated one of the most mesmerizing warrior cultures on earth, it also meant that for centuries the lives of normal people were defined by terror and anxiety. Even when their villages weren't being raided by armies for supplies, they were completely at the mercy of their feudal lords, who taxed them heavily. Every day was a struggle for survival, one that often ended early.
Who could be expected, average Buddhists began to wonder, to work toward enlightenment in a world so degraded and full of suffering? It was all well and good for monks and nuns with rich patrons and huge land holdings to cover their hours of practice. Even the rich themselves had time and money to spend on esoteric initiations or meditation, or they could at least cultivate merit by sponsoring temples. But was there any hope at all for the average person facing the gut-wrenching prospect of rebirth into yet another life of misery?
The Amitabha Sutra held the answer to this question in terms as plain as day:
"If a good man or woman who hears of Amitabha Buddha holds fast to his Name even for one day...[at their death] they will be born immediately in the Land of Utmost Bliss."
Itinerant preachers like Kūya (903-972), Hōnen (1133-1212), and Ippen (1239-1289) began
teaching anyone who would listen that if they only recited the name of Amida (the Japanese pronunciation of Amitabha, which means "Infinite Light") with total faith, no matter how miserable their conditions or grave their sins, they would be guaranteed rebirth in Sukhāvatī, Amida's Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss.
In Buddhism, Pure Lands are projections of a Buddha's enlightened mind state, so stable that unenlightened beings can enter them and practice alongside the Buddhas. Believers in the power of Amida taught that since his compassionate desire to save all beings is so incomprehensibly vast, his Pure Land in the West was the most accessible and ideal place to attain enlightenment.
Faith in Amida was present even before this new religious wave: in the mandalas of Japanese Esoteric Buddhism, Amida is depicted to the West of the central Buddha Dainichi Nyorai. Amida and the other enlightened beings in the mandalas are the varied expressions of the absolute enlightenment of Dainichi. We can say that the mandalas depict a top-down view of the cosmos, where all is defined in relation to the Absolute, expressed in Dainichi Nyorai. In this scheme, Amida embodies the "Wisdom of Wondrous Perception" (妙観察智) of Dainichi, which is the wisdom that saves all beings by seeing the causes of their suffering with perfect accuracy.
The faith taught by the Pure Land Masters, as they came to be known, was, on the other hand, a bottom-up view of Amida. Humans are, they taught, virtually powerless to overcome the force of our unwholesome habits, conditioned by repeated wrong actions over billions of years. This negative karma manifests in an insurmountably awful world full of little but suffering. Even so, the awesome compassion of Amida gives us a chance at something better, regardless of our class, gender, or past misdeeds. All we have to do is call him to mind, a practice known as nembutsu, or "recalling the Buddha." This is done in Pure Land Buddhism through the phrase Namu Amida Butsu, "I take refuge in Amitabha Buddha."
This new, simple, and universal approach to Buddhist practice spread like wildfire through every level of society and every school of Buddhism. It was likely due to the influence of nembutsu that itinerant preachers of the Shingon school began spreading the practice of chanting Kōbō Daishi's name, Namu Daishi Henjō Kongō, and the Kōmyō Shingon as simple, accessible practices open to anyone. These quickly became the central prayers of the Shikoku Henro, which gained popularity in the Middle Ages around the same time as Pure Land teachings. 9 of the 88 temples of the pilgrimage enshrine Amida as their main deity.
The influence of Amida faith on the pilgrimage is also apparent in the names of temples. Gokuraku-ji (T2), for example, means "Temple of Ultimate Bliss," a reference to Amida's Pure Land. Konsen-ji (T3), means "Temple of the Golden Spring," a reference to the miraculous pond in the Pure Land where the faithful spring from lotuses upon their rebirth. The list of such references is long.
It's even longer in the case of the goeika, temple songs composed by pilgrims in the medieval period. Nearly a quarter of the songs bear direct references to Amida or his Pure Land. Some songs mince no words, embodying the simplicity and directness of Pure Land faith, such as that of Gokurakuji (T2):
If you want to go
to Amitabha’s Pure Land
of Ultimate Bliss
let Namu Amidabu
be always on your lips.
Others, like that of Anraku-ji (T6), preserve the sense of dissatisfaction with the tumultuous age that drove their authors to seek solace in the pilgrimage:
In this fleeting world
battles over land and wealth
are a waste of time–
look instead to the Ruler
of the Land of Pleasant Ease.
Amida faith's impact on Japanese Buddhism was so intense that the image that comes to mind when Westerners hear the word "Buddha" is probably Amitabha. He may be depicted either sitting or standing. When sitting, his hands are often clasped in a gesture of meditation, one atop the other with the index fingers and thumbs forming rings. When standing he often has one hand up and one down in a gesture of welcoming beings into his Pure Land. He is depicted alone, or with the bodhisattvas Taiseishi and Kannon beside him as expressions of his Wisdom and Compassion, respectively.
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