Calling the Buddha's Name

The nembutsu is the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitabha, in Japanese Amida, the practice at the heart of Pure Land Buddhism, the most widely followed form of Buddhism in East Asia. In its standard Japanese form the practitioner says Namu Amida Butsu, "I take refuge in Amida Buddha," a phrase understood to entrust the speaker wholly to Amida and his vow. The practice rests on the story, told in the Pure Land scriptures, of the bodhisattva who, before becoming the Buddha Amitabha, vowed that all who called upon his name in sincere faith would be reborn in his Pure Land, a realm from which enlightenment is assured. To recite the name is to rely on the power of that vow.

The nembutsu thus embodies a theology of "other-power": salvation is received as a gift through Amida's grace rather than achieved by the practitioner's own effort, a stress that sets Pure Land apart from the self-reliant meditative disciplines and that has drawn frequent comparison with the theology of grace in other religions.