| Popis: |
The phrase “Pure Land practice” encompasses many ideas and methods besides oral repetition of the Buddha Amitābha’s name. Even when we restrict the inquiry to practices that lead to rebirth in his buddha-land Sukhāvatī after death, we find that any means of Buddhist cultivation can become Pure Land practice if one directs its merit toward that goal. In addition, the term nianfo/nembutsu covers a multitude of practices from highly complex visualizations to simple vocalization of the name. Moreover, the explanations by which people understand nianfo to work are as various as the practices. Different authors may mix self-power and other-power in a variety of ways: one may invoke the Mahayana philosophical concept of non-duality to show that the two are not ultimately separate, or use the mechanism of ganying (sympathetic resonance) in order to understand how one’s efforts evoke the Buddha’s response. One can even exclude self-power altogether and rely on Amitābha to provide a moment of true conversion, entrusting that it is beyond one’s ability to bring this about by any practice. Finally, making any distinction between self-power and other-power carries a risk. Including self-power among the factors leading to rebirth creates anxieties about the possibility of failure, while excluding self-power raises the possibility of antinomianism in the community. |
