jing,therefore came to eclipse all other practices within
the sectarian Pure Land traditions. Western scholar-
ship until recently has focused largely upon these tra-
ditions and therefore has tended to overlook the
ongoing importance of the meditative tradition in East
Asia, as well as in Tibet. Since the centrality of the vo-
cal invocation as a distinct practice within the sectar-
ian traditions is treated in other entries, the discussion
below will avoid the bifurcation of the two practices
and assume that the invocatory practice constituted
one method of several within the practice of mindful
recollection.
In China the practice of recollecting the Buddha was
present from the outset of Pure Land belief. The
scholar-monk HUIYUAN(334–416), whom the Chinese
Buddhist tradition came to regard as the initiator of
the Pure Land movement and therefore its first patri-
arch, founded a society of monks and elite gentry in
402 C.E. that adopted the buddha recollection of the
Pratyutpannasamadhi-sutraas its core practice. More
than a century later, ZHIYI(538–597), the founder of
the TIANTAI SCHOOL, incorporated the same sutra’s
practice into his four-fold system of meditative prac-
tice. Zhiyi’s system, which had as its goal the contem-
plative apprehension of ultimate reality, integrated the
meditations into liturgical regimens performed in daily
ritual cycles. These performances often included
preparation of the ritual site, personal purification, of-
ferings of flowers and incense, invitation and invoca-
tion of the deities, physical obeisance, confession of
sins, and application of merit. In the Constantly Walk-
ing Samadhi, the second of the four practices, Zhiyi
structured the Pratyutpannasamadhi-sutra’s practice
of mindful recollection around a strenuous ordeal that
required the practitioner to continuously circumam-
bulate an image of Amitabha in a dedicated hall
throughout a period of ninety days, leaving the
premises only to attend to bodily functions.
Zhiyi’s liturgical and contemplative regimens con-
tinued to exert influence on the development of Pure
Land in the Tiantai school in China, as well as its Japan-
ese counterpart, the Tendai school. Zhiyi’s ninety-day
retreat was promoted by such prominent Tang-
dynasty (618–907) figures as Chengyuan (712–742)
and Fazhao (d. 822), who also created a musically
based ritual for the community on Mount Wutai. Dur-
ing the Song dynasty (960–1279), the Tiantai monk
Zunshi (964–1032), emulating the liturgical patterns
established by Zhiyi, developed a number of rites and
practices dedicated to Amitabha and to the achieve-
ment of rebirth in his Pure Land. Zunshi’s rituals,
which included a longer and a shorter penitential cer-
emony, came to hold a place of honor in subsequent
ritual practice that has survived into the modern era.During the aforementioned historical develop-
ments within the Tiantai school, the practice of rec-
ollection on Amitabha shifted in focus from the
Pratyutpannasamadhi-sutrato emphasis on the Guan
Wuliangshou jing.Members of the Tiantai school in
the Song dynasty consequently constructed retreats
called Sixteen Visualization Halls that were based on
the Guan Wuliangshou jingand consisted of a central
hall at the middle of which stood an image of
Amitabha. Around this cultic focal point were
arranged a series of cells for retreatants dedicated to
extended periods of ritual and contemplative practice.The Tiantai school was not alone in promoting the
practice of recollecting the Buddha as a Pure Land dis-
cipline. Members of the Huayan and Chan traditions
also contributed to the understanding of the practice.
Common to all these traditions, however, was a hier-
archical ranking of the various practices signified by
the term nianfo.Characteristic of this type of ranking
was the fourfold distinction set forth by the great
Chan–Huayan scholar ZONGMI(780–841), who as-
signed the recitation of the name to the lowest posi-
tion, with contemplation of a sculpted or painted
image, visualization either of a single attribute or of the
whole body of the Buddha, and contemplation of the
truly real (that is, apprehension of the dharmakaya) fol-
lowing in ascending order. Implicit in this categoriza-
tion and others like it in other traditions is the notion
that what is ultimately apprehended in contemplation
is the identity of Buddha and his field with one’s own
mind. This identity constituted part of a comprehen-
sive idealistic philosophical system embraced by some
members of the Tiantai, Huayan, and Chan traditions.
These philosophers saw all reality as ultimately re-
ducible to mind, and in some cases applied this ideal-
istic approach to Pure Land. One of the most famous
of such articulations of mind-only Pure Land was that
produced by the Chan scholar YANSHOU(904–975).
Members of the Chan school sometimes adopted this
view as the basis of a polemic that argued for the su-
periority of the goals and practices of Chan over the
aspiration to rebirth and its attendant practices found
within Pure Land.In Tibetan Buddhism, although the devotion to
Amitabha did not acquire the same degree of promi-
nence as in East Asia since his cult coexisted alongside
practices dedicated to other buddhas and their purePURELANDBUDDHISM