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“If we want the lotus bud to appear, it will appear. If we want it to grow, it will grow. When the lotus flower in our heart has grown, wherever we walk the Pure Land appears.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Health, wealth, reputation, and status are all mere ingredients of happiness. The key to true well-being is being able to manage them capably.”
― Kentetsu Takamori, Something You Forgot...Along the Way: Stories of Wisdom and Learning

“So, without telling any of my Zen-snob buddies, I liked to pretend everything was the Pure Land, that my life was already perfect as it was.”
― Jaimal Yogis, Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen on the Sea

“People have lost faith in God and the Kingdom of God because they have put God in the wrong place. If they put God in the right place, in their own heart, the spiritual crisis will come to an end. This is a spiritual and a cultural matter. In the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions there are people who have discovered that God does not belong to the future or to another place.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Enjoying the Ultimate: Commentary on the Nirvana Chapter of the Chinese Dharmapada

“In the pre-Mahāyāna �����󾱻�󲹰��������ś��, the Buddha is described as gaining liberation from the three realms of desire, form, and formlessness and returning to nothingness. Such a return to complete nothingness (termed �Ծ����ܱ貹���ś��ṣa-�Ծ�������ṇa, "nirvāṇa without residue") was the goal of pre-Mahāyāna Buddhists. They had no concept of a buddha that retains form and is active in a buddha-land. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, though, the buddhas resolve to train themselves to build their own buddha-lands and work eternally to bring to those lands all the living beings now lost in delusion. We of Sahā can be reborn virtually only in Sukhāvatī, because Amitābha is the only buddha who offers us an effective means for rebirth there (i.e., nembutsu, calling upon Amitābha). Though Śākyamuni and Amitābha have completely different origins, the Pure Land sūtras depict Śākyamuni as expounding Amitābha's teachings.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“There are two theories concerning the location of Amitābha Buddha's pure Land of Sukhāvastī. One places it within the three realms, and the other places it outside them. The reason for this division of opinion lies in the fact that classical cosmology did not speak of buddha-lands. All agree, however, that Sukhāvatī is "ten myriads of a hundred millions of buddha-lands to the west of Sahā," an expression found in the Chinese translations of the Smaller and Larger Sukhāvatī-vyūha ��ū�ٰ�����.&�����ܴ�;
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“As the Chinese translation of the name Sukhāvatī suggests, it is a land of supreme joy. The Sanskrit is of similar meaning: “that which possesses ease and comfort.�� Sukhāvatī is not subject to the sufferings that plague this world and, furthermore, it is a land of surpassed beauty. It is described as having seven tiers of balustrades, seven rows of nets, and seven rows of trees, all adorned with four jewels (gold, silver, lapsis lazuli, and crystal). There is a lake of the seven jewels (gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, a kind of big shell [tridacna gigas], coral, and agate), filled with water having the eight virtues. The bottom of the lake is gold sand. On the four sides of the lake are stairs (galleries) made of the four jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. Above are towers and palaces also adorned with the seven jewels. In the lake bloom lotus flowers as large as chariot wheels. The blue lotus flowers emit a blue light, and the yellow, red, and white lotus flowers emit light of corresponding colors. They all give forth a sweet fragrance.

The delightful sound of heavenly music can be hard, and in the morning, at noon, and in the evening mandārava flowers fall from the sky and gently pile up on the golden ground. Every morning the inhabitants of the Pure Land gather these flowers with the hems of their robes and make offerings of them to myriads of buddhas in other lands. At mealtime they return to their own land, where they take their meal and stroll around.

There are many kinds of birds—swans, peacocks, parrots, sharikas, kalaviṅkas, and jīvaṃjīvakas, which sing with beautiful voices, proclaiming the teachings of the Buddha. When living beings hear this song, they think about the Buddha, Dharma (“law,�� or his teachings), and Saṅgha (“community of believers��). When the gentle breezes blow, the rows of four-jeweled trees and jeweled nets give forth a gentle music, like a beautiful symphony.

In this land dwell Amitābha Buddha and his two attendants, the bodhisattvas Avalokitśvara and Mahāsthāmaprāpta. At their feet are those virtuous beings who have been reborn in that land because of their ardent faith. All, however, are male; women of deep faith are reborn here with male bodies. The female sex, considered inferior and unfortunate, has no place in Sukhāvatī.

All people, says Śākyamuni, should ardently wish for rebirth in that land and become the companions of the most virtuous of all beings. People cannot hope for rebirth there just by performing a few good deeds, however. If living beings meditate eagerly upon the name of Amitābha for even one day with an undisturbed mind, Amitābha and his holy retinue will appear before them to receive them at the end of Life. They will enter the Pure Land with unperturbed hearts.”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“The idea of Sukhāvatī certainly grew out of a concept of a material paradise, but early on it became allied with an elevated spiritual and ethical outlook, the teaching of the Buddha as rescuer, in which Amitābha Buddha, lord of Sukhāvatī, saves those who meditate upon him. Classical Buddhism taught that salvation must occur by one's own efforts ("self-power"). Those who had lost hope in salvation through their own efforts flocked to the new teaching of salvation through the power of another, i.e., of Amitābha Buddha.

At first, people attracted to this new teaching were probably motivated by a desire to escape from suffering into what was conceived of as a materially satisfying land. But Sukhāvatī was soon linked with the idea of good and evil, and those who sought to be reborn in Sukhāvatī did so out of despair at their own evil. A good example of such a thinker iS Shinran (1173��1262 C.E.), the Japanese priest who founded the True Pure Land (Jōdo Shin) sect. Modern Pure Land thought resembles Christianity in many ways—the strong monotheistic coloration, salvation through the Buddha (God), the concern with good and evil rather than with suffering and pleasure. In the mid-twentieth century, Kamegai Ryōun, a Jōdo Shin sect priest, converted to Christianity on the grounds that the Jōdo Shin sect was preparing the road leading to Christianity. It certainly seems possible that in its two thousand years, Pure Land thought has been influenced by Christian ideas (by the Christian Nestorian sect of Ch'ang-an in east-central China, for example).”
― Akira Sadakata, Buddhist Cosmology: Philosophy and Origins

“Basing their teaching on the essay on the Amitabha Sutra by the great monk Van The, the Vietnamese Zen masters have thus realized a synthetic doctrine combining Zen and the Pure Land practices that suits the masses of the people. Except for the pure Zen monasteries, almost every pagoda in Vietnam practices this combined Zen-Pure Land doctrine.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnam: Lotus in a Sea of Fire