One Vow, and the Practice Built on It

The Pure Land rests on a promise made by a bodhisattva. In the Larger Sukhavativyuha Sutra, the monk Dharmakara sets out a series of vows describing the buddha field he intends to establish and declares he will not accept buddhahood unless every one is fulfilled. He becomes Amitabha, so by the logic of the text the vows are fulfilled and the field exists. The eighteenth vow, that any being who calls his name in sincere faith will be born there, is the one the entire tradition turns on.

That makes the required practice extremely short. Reciting the name, nianfo in Chinese and nembutsu in Japanese, is available to the illiterate, the dying, the busy and the unmonastic, which is why this became the largest form of Buddhism in East Asia. Shinran pressed the logic furthest, arguing that even the impulse to recite is Amitabha's doing rather than the practitioner's, so that no self-powered effort is involved at all.

The Pure Land is not nirvana and the tradition is clear about that. It is a place where the conditions for practice are perfect and there is no falling back, so awakening follows. The offer is not salvation instead of the path; it is a birth in which the path finally becomes possible.