Pure Land Nianfo - Where a Thought Became a Voice

The Name Called Most Often

If you had to pick the phrase heard most often in a Korean temple, it would be namu amita-bul. Monks chant it to the beat of the wooden moktak at funerals, at the forty-ninth-day rites for the dead, and at the close of services. People who know little about Buddhism still know these six syllables. They mean taking refuge in Amitabha Buddha, and the practice of calling a buddha's name this way is called nianfo, yeombul in Korean.

Yet the nian (念) of nianfo is the same character we met in the vipassana essay. Chinese translators used it for Pali sati and Sanskrit smṛti, and its original sense was memory. Nianfo, then, ought to mean remembering the Buddha, bringing him to mind. How did it become calling a name out loud? This essay follows the point where a thought became a voice.

Recollecting the Buddha

The early scriptures already have nianfo. In Pali it is buddhānussati, recollection of the Buddha. In one discourse of the Saṁyutta Nikāya, the Buddha tells monks practicing in the forest, at the root of a tree or in an empty hut what to do if fear arises.

mameva tasmiṁ samaye anussareyyātha: "itipi so bhagavā arahaṁ sammāsambuddho vijjācaraṇasampanno sugato lokavidū anuttaro purisadammasārathi satthā devamanussānaṁ buddho bhagavā"ti.

At that time, recollect me: that Blessed One is perfected, fully awakened, accomplished in knowledge and conduct, well gone, knower of the world, unsurpassed, the guide of those who can be tamed, teacher of gods and humans, awakened, blessed.

Recollecting him this way, the discourse says, fear, trembling and goosebumps will be abandoned (SN 11.3). It goes on to recollecting the Dhamma and the Sangha. The Aṅguttara Nikāya is even more emphatic. There is one thing that, developed and cultivated, leads solely to disillusionment, dispassion and nibbāna, and that one thing is recollection of the Buddha (AN 1.296).

Here nianfo is not calling. It is setting in the mind, one by one, what kind of person the Buddha is. While the nine qualities are brought to mind, the mind rests on them and fear has less room to enter. If sati was the power not to forget what must be seen now, buddhānussati is the power not to forget what can be relied on.

Forty-Eight Vows

With the Mahayana, the object of recollection changes. It is no longer Shakyamuni alone but the buddhas of the ten directions, and among them above all Amitabha of the western world. The scripture that tells his story is the Larger Sukhavati Sutra. In the Chinese version traditionally attributed to Kang Sengkai of the Cao Wei, a monk named Dharmakara makes forty-eight vows before becoming a buddha, each a promise not to attain awakening unless such and such comes true. The whole of East Asian Pure Land faith leans on the eighteenth.

設我得佛 十方眾生至心信樂 欲生我國 乃至十念 若不生者 不取正覺 唯除五逆誹謗正法

When I become a buddha, if the beings of the ten directions, with sincere minds, trusting and rejoicing, wish to be born in my land and nian even ten times, and are not born there, may I not attain perfect awakening. Excluded are those who commit the five grave offenses and those who slander the true Dharma.

The sutra says Dharmakara fulfilled his vows and became Amitabha. If so, the promise has already been kept. The question is what the ten nian are. Ten thoughts, or ten callings? The sutra does not explain the character. For more than a thousand years afterward, East Asian Buddhism kept rereading that one word.

Holding Fast to the Name

Pure Land scriptures are usually counted as three: the Larger Sutra, the Amitabha Sutra and the Contemplation Sutra. The Amitabha Sutra, translated by Kumarajiva, is short and simple.

不可以少善根福德因緣得生彼國 若有善男子善女人 聞說阿彌陀佛 執持名號 若一日 若二日 若三日 若四日 若五日 若六日 若七日 一心不亂

One cannot be born in that land with few roots of goodness and little merit. If a good man or good woman hears of Amitabha Buddha and holds fast to his name for one day, two, three, four, five, six or seven days with a single undistracted mind, then at the end of life Amitabha will appear before them with his holy assembly.

Here the object of practice is the name. Holding fast to the name (執持名號) can mean not letting it go from the mind, and also not letting it go from the mouth. The Contemplation Sutra, meanwhile, seems to take the opposite road: sixteen visualizations that begin with picturing the setting sun and go on to water, ground, trees, ponds and pavilions, and the bodies of Amitabha and his two bodhisattvas. This is the practice of a time when nianfo was still a matter of thought.

But in the sutra's final scene something shifts. A man who has done evil all his life is dying. A good friend comes and teaches him to think of the Buddha, but his pain is too pressing to leave room for thought.

汝若不能念彼佛者 應稱歸命無量壽佛 如是至心令聲不絕 具足十念 稱南無阿彌陀佛

If you cannot think of that buddha, call out that you take refuge in the Buddha of Immeasurable Life. And so, with a sincere mind, keeping his voice unbroken, he completes ten nian, calling namo amituofo.

If you cannot think, call. This is the road left at the very end by a sutra that taught sixteen visualizations in such detail. Here the ten nian overlap with ten callings. This scene is the first place where a thought becomes a voice.

Walking and Sailing

The people who put a theory to this scene came from China. The starting point is a chapter of the Daśabhūmika-vibhāṣā, transmitted under Nagarjuna's name.

佛法有無量門 如世間道 有難有易 陸道步行則苦 水道乘船則樂

The Buddha's teaching has countless gates. Just as worldly roads are hard or easy, walking overland is toilsome while going by boat on the water is pleasant.

Tanluan of the Northern Wei (476 to 542) fixed this image as the names of two paths. Seeking the stage of non-retreat by one's own strength in a turbid age with no buddha present is the difficult path (難行道). Wishing to be born in the Pure Land through faith in the Buddha, riding on the power of his vow, is the easy path (易行道). He called the first self power (自力) and the second other power (他力). Those two words became the axis that divides Pure Land thought from then on.

Tanluan also explained the ten nian of the eighteenth vow. Ten moments of mind thinking of Amitabha, continuing without any other thought, are the ten nian, and calling the name is the same. Then he adds one line.

經言十念者 明業事成辨耳 不必須知頭數也

When the sutra says ten nian, it only makes clear that the karmic act is accomplished. There is no need to know the count.

Ten Thoughts, Ten Voices

The decisive step was taken by Shandao of the Tang (613 to 681). Restating the eighteenth vow in his own words, he changed a character.

若我成佛 十方眾生稱我名號 下至十聲 若不生者 不取正覺

When I become a buddha, if the beings of the ten directions call my name, even down to ten voicings, and are not born there, may I not attain perfect awakening.

The sutra's ten nian (十念) became, in Shandao's Hymns in Praise of Rebirth, ten voices (十聲). Ten thoughts were read as ten sounds. In his commentary on the Contemplation Sutra, Shandao also reweighted practice.

一心專念彌陀名號 行住坐臥 不問時節久近 念念不捨者 是名正定之業 順彼佛願故

To single-mindedly hold Amitabha's name, walking, standing, sitting or lying down, without asking whether the time has been long or short, never letting it go from moment to moment: this is called the rightly settled act, because it accords with that buddha's vow.

Reciting sutras, prostrations and praise all became supporting acts. Calling the name moved to the center and visualization withdrew to its edges. Some five hundred years later in Japan, Hōnen (1133 to 1212) read this passage of Shandao in 1175 and established the path of exclusive nembutsu, setting out its grounds in 1198 in his Senchakushū. That was the beginning of the Jōdo school. His disciple Shinran (1173 to 1263) held that even the calling is not done by one's own power but is given by the Buddha, and his teaching became Jōdo Shinshū. It is where the idea of entrusting oneself to other power goes all the way.

Wonhyo's Two Kinds of Ten

The same question held the Silla monk Wonhyo (617 to 686). In his Doctrinal Essentials of the Sutra of Immeasurable Life, he said the ten nian of the lowest group hold two meanings at once.

此經中說下輩十念 一言之內含有二義 謂顯了義及隱密義

The ten nian of the lowest group spoken of in this sutra hold two meanings within one phrase: the evident meaning and the hidden meaning.

The hidden ten are the ten minds described in the Sutra of Maitreya's Questions: giving rise to compassion toward all beings, not sparing body or life, and so on up to rightly contemplating the Buddha. Wonhyo said these are minds that only a bodhisattva of the first stage or above can complete, not an ordinary person. The evident ten are exactly the final scene of the Contemplation Sutra. Wonhyo explains them with an image he attributes to Kumarajiva. Like someone chased by bandits to a riverbank who thinks only of how to get across, calling the Buddha with no room for any other thought is the ten nian. Wonhyo did not reduce the two to one. The same ten are the highest mind for a bodhisattva and an unbroken calling for an ordinary person.

Wonhyo took that calling into the streets. The Samguk yusa records that he got hold of a large gourd a performer used in his act, named it Unobstructed (無礙), and carried it through countless villages singing and dancing.

使桑樞瓮牖玃猴之輩 皆識佛陀之號 咸作南無之稱

Even the poor who lived behind mulberry-branch doors and broken-jar windows, people treated like monkeys, all came to know the Buddha's name and to say namu.

People who cannot read can still make a sound. Once thought became voice, nianfo belonged for the first time to everyone.

Huineng's Counter-Question

Not everyone nodded along. In the Platform Sutra an official asks Huineng: monks and lay people constantly call on Amitabha and wish to be born in the West. Can they really be born there? Huineng's answer in the Dunhuang manuscript:

迷人念佛生彼 悟者自淨其心

The deluded practice nianfo to be born there; the awakened purify their own minds.

Huineng says the West is not far and turns the distance into a matter of mind. Remove the ten evils and you have gone a hundred thousand; remove the eight errors and you have passed eight thousand. A later edition asks more sharply: when people of the East do wrong they call the Buddha seeking birth in the West, but when people of the West do wrong, where do they seek to be born? For Huineng the Pure Land was not a place to go but the ground a purified mind stands on. The common Korean saying that the West lies a hundred and eight thousand li away comes from this passage, not from any sutra. Passages like this are part of why the Platform Sutra became a scripture of Chan.

Where Chan and Pure Land Meet

Chan did not throw out nianfo, though. The Awakening of Faith had already placed it on the map of practice. A beginner seeks right faith but is timid, fears never meeting a buddha in this world, and thinks of turning back because faith seems impossible to achieve.

當知如來有勝方便攝護信心 謂以專意念佛因緣 隨願得生他方佛土

Know that the Tathagata has an excellent expedient for guarding faith: through single-minded recollection of the Buddha, one is born in another buddha land as one wishes.

An expedient for the timid is not a put-down. In the Awakening of Faith it is a device that keeps people from turning back. From the Five Dynasties and the Song onward, the practice of cultivating Chan and nianfo together became settled, and at the end of the Ming, Yunqi Zhuhong rebuked self-styled meditators who looked down on nianfo. In modern China, Xuyun told those too full of wandering thought to hold a huatou to take up the question Who is it that recites the Buddha's name? (念佛是誰). The voice calling the name became the very question of ganhwa Seon. The path that leans on the calling and the path that asks who is calling meet in one sentence.

Nianfo in Korea

In Korea nianfo took root more deeply as ritual than as theory. A story says that under King Gyeongdeok of Silla, the monk Baljing opened a society at Geonbongsa on Mount Geumgang to recite the Buddha's name for ten thousand days. The story rests on later temple records, but gatherings that set a number of days for reciting together were held at many temples afterward. Calling on Amitabha at funerals and forty-ninth-day rites today stands in that current. Offering a dying person a sound instead of demanding a thought repeats the last scene of the Contemplation Sutra even now.

In Korean Buddhism, where Seon meditation is central, nianfo was long treated as a practice for those of lesser capacity. Daily temple life tells a different story. From the dawn service to the evening service, what Korean Buddhists say aloud most is not a huatou but the names of buddhas and bodhisattvas. As a practice done with the voice, nianfo resembles the mantras of esoteric Buddhism. The difference is that a mantra is a sound whose meaning is not unpacked, while the one who calls a buddha's name knows whose name it is.

For Someone Calling for the First Time

Nianfo is the easiest practice to begin. It does not care where you are and needs no seated posture. Say namu amita-bul aloud, and hear the sound again with your ears. The Contemplation Sutra asks for an unbroken voice because the voice is the rope that holds the mind. When the sound wavers, it is a sign the mind has gone elsewhere.

There is no need to count. As Tanluan said, the number ten makes clear that the act is accomplished. Turning prayer beads is less for counting than for tying the hand to the voice. One condition from the Amitabha Sutra is worth keeping, though: with a single, undistracted mind. Nianfo that only moves the lips is not calling a name; it is only making a sound.

Where a Thought Became a Voice

Nian was memory. The nianfo that recollected the Buddha was a way of not forgetting what to rely on in the midst of fear, and over time that memory became a sound, because for someone who can no longer think, calling was the last road left.

Thoughts scatter easily, but a voice returns to one's own ears. That is why sound is the oldest way to hold on to memory. Someone who forgets the breath while watching it has sati; someone who forgets the Buddha while thinking of him has the name. At the place where ten thoughts became ten voices, nianfo did not lose its first meaning. While we call, we are not forgetting.