Amitabha — the Buddha of Infinite Light and Infinite Life — is among the most beloved and widely worshipped of all the Buddhas: the lord of the western Pure Land of Sukhavati, whose boundless compassion offers rebirth in his paradise to all who call upon his name with faith. He is the centre of Pure Land Buddhism, the most popular form of the religion across East Asia.
The Buddha of Infinite Light
Amitabha’s name means “Infinite Light” (Amitabha) and “Infinite Life” (Amitayus) — the boundless radiance of his compassion and the eternal span of his enlightened existence. The great scriptures tell that, countless ages ago, he was a monk named Dharmakara who made forty-eight vows, chief among them the vow that he would not accept Buddhahood unless he could establish a Pure Land into which any being who sincerely called upon him would be reborn. He fulfilled the vows and became Amitabha, and so his Pure Land, Sukhavati (“the Land of Bliss”) in the West, came into being.
The Western Pure Land
Sukhavati is a paradise of surpassing beauty and bliss, where the conditions for enlightenment are perfect and where, free from suffering and distraction, beings may swiftly attain awakening. The promise of Amitabha is radically accessible: not the arduous self-perfection of the monastic path alone, but rebirth in the Pure Land through faith and the recitation of his name — the nembutsu (Japanese) or nianfo (Chinese), “Namu Amida Butsu,” “Homage to Amitabha Buddha.” This made his worship the religion of the masses across China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, the great hope of ordinary people for liberation.
The Compassion of the West
Among the Five Wisdom Buddhas, Amitabha presides over the West, embodying the wisdom of discernment and transmuting the poison of desire and attachment into discriminating awareness; he is associated with the colour red, the element of fire, the peacock, and the lotus. He is attended by the great bodhisattva of compassion [avalokiteshvara] and the bodhisattva of wisdom-power Mahasthamaprapta, who help to guide the dying to his Pure Land. In Japan he is Amida, the heart of the vast Pure Land schools. In Amitabha, Buddhism gave form to boundless compassion and the universal hope of salvation — the Buddha of Infinite Light whose vows opened the gates of his western paradise to all who call upon him, the most accessible and beloved promise of liberation in the Buddhist world.