Nianfo, Nembutsu, and the Argument About What Calling the Name Does

Calling the Buddha's name (nianfo in Chinese, nembutsu in Japanese, in the formula Namu Amida Butsu), begins in this sutra as one practice among several and ends, in some schools, as the only one that matters. Shandao in seventh-century China read the eighteenth vow as making vocal recitation the central act. Honen in twelfth-century Japan went further and founded a school on exclusive nembutsu. His disciple Shinran went further again: if rebirth depends wholly on Amida's vow, then even the recitation cannot be a meritorious work of one's own, and the nembutsu becomes an expression of gratitude for something already accomplished rather than a means of obtaining it.

That reading has consequences the tradition has never entirely settled. If practice earns nothing, what is practice for; and if faith itself is given by Amida, what is the practitioner's part? The parallels with the grace-and-works arguments of Western Christianity are close enough to have been noticed by comparative theologians for a century, and different enough that the comparison should be handled carefully: there is no creator, no sin against a lawgiver, and no final judgement here.

One point of description that is often lost. Sukhavati is not a Buddhist heaven in which one remains. It is a realm in which the conditions for practice are perfect and awakening is therefore certain. Rebirth there is penultimate, not final, and the sutra is explicit about it.