“The contributors’ shared concern with religious praxis in the Amitabha cult provides an effective unifying principle, and while explicit connections among the various subjects covered are drawn rather sparingly, both in Payne’s introduction and in the essays themselves, the linkages are nonetheless there to be discovered; in reading this volume I was often struck by the fascinating and illuminating ways in which chapters on disparate topics resonated with one another. Without exception the essays are also eminently readable, and the book is carefully edited and handsomely produced. . . . An invaluable contribution to the field of religious studies and will be read with interest and profit by scholars from a broad range of backgrounds.” —Journal of the American Academy of Religion (2006)

“A very good, varied and learned collection of writings.” —The Middle Way (Fall 2004)

"A welcomed correction. . . . Rather than emphasizing a normative sectarian Pure Land Buddhism, the broad range of studies herein reveal the diversity of primarily nonsectarian practices devoted to, and doctrinal interpretations of, Amitâbha and his pure realm Sukhâvatî." —Philosophy East and West (57:3, April 2007)

The discourse of Buddhist studies has traditionally been structured around texts and nations (the transmission of Buddhism from India to China to Japan). And yet, it is doubtful that these categories reflect in any significant way the organizing themes familiar to most Buddhists. It could be argued that cultic practices associated with particular buddhas and bodhisattvas are more representative of the way Buddhists conceive of their relation to tradition. This volume aims to explore this aspect of Buddhism by focusing on one of its most important cults, that of the Buddha Amitâbha. Approaching the Land of Bliss is a rich collection of studies of texts and ritual practices devoted to Amitâbha, ranging from Tibet to Japan and from early medieval times to the present.

The cult of Amitâbha is identified as an integral part of Tibet’s Mahayana Buddhist tradition in the opening essay by Matthew Kapstein. Next Daniel Getz, Jr., locates the Pure Land patriarch Shengchang more firmly in a Huayan context and his Pure Conduct Society not so much in the propagation of Pure Land praxis but as a means of modifying anti-Buddhist sentiments. Jacqueline Stone’s study of the practice of reciting nenbutsu at the time of death gives us an understanding of both the practice itself and the motivating logic behind it. Kakuban—the founder of the one major “schism” in the history of the Shingon tradition—is placed in a typology of Japanese Pure Land thought in James Sanford’s study of Kakuban’s Amida hishaku. Hank Glassman contributes an essay on the “subsidiary cult” of Chujohime, which derived from the cult of Amitâbha but grew to such importance that it displaced the latter as the focus of worship in medieval Japan. In his examination of “radical Amidism,” Fabio Rambelli discusses different forms of Japanese Pure Land thought that constitute divergences from the mainstream or normative forms. Richard Jaffe examines the work of the seventeenth-century cleric Ungo Kiyo, who sought to match his teaching to the needs and capacities of his disciples. Todd Lewis highlights the importance of cultic life and finds traces of the desire for rebirth into Sukhavati in stupa worship among Newari Buddhists. Charles Jones’ “thick description” of a one-day recitation retreat in Taiwan provides us with a closer look at how the cult of Amitâbha continues in present-day East Asia.

Approaching the Land of Bliss moves beyond the limitations of defining Buddhism in terms of its textual corpus or nation states, opening up the cult of Amitâbha in Nepal, Tibet, China, and Taiwan, and uncovering new aspects of Japanese Pure Land.

Contributors: Daniel A. Getz, Jr.; Hank Glassman; Richard Jaffe; Charles B. Jones; Matthew T. Kapstein; Todd T. Lewis; Richard K. Payne; Fabio Rambelli; James H. Sanford; Jacqueline I. Stone.

Richard K. Payne is dean of the Institute of Buddhist Studies at the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley. Kenneth K. Tanaka is professor of Buddhist studies at Musashino Women’s University, Tokyo.