Nembutsu

Nembutsu, in Chinese nianfo, translates the Sanskrit buddhānusmṛti, “mindfulness” or “recollection of the Buddha”. In early Buddhism this is one of a series of recollections: calling to mind the qualities of the Buddha in order to calm and gladden the mind. In Mahāyāna meditation it came to include visualizing a Buddha and his land in detail.

In the Pure Land tradition it came to mean above all the recitation of the name of the Buddha Amitābha: in Japanese, Namu Amida Butsu. The Chinese master Shandao made vocal recitation the central practice, and Hōnen taught that it should be the only one, because Amida’s vow had chosen it as the practice by which anyone, however weak or sinful, could be born in the Pure Land.

Shinran took a further step. For him the nembutsu is not a practice by which one earns birth, but the expression of a faith that Amida himself gives, and is said in gratitude. The repetition of a sacred name, as a means of union or as an act of trust, is found in many traditions: in the Jesus Prayer of Eastern Christianity, in the Sufi dhikr, and in the Hindu and Sikh repetition of the divine name.