The Significance of “Hearing the Name of Buddha” in Chingai’s Pure Land

Abstract

In his work Ketsujō ōjō-shū 決定往生集, Chingai 珍海 in Chapter 5 Section 3 adheres to the doctrine described by Shandao 善導 in his Guan Wuliang shoufo jing-shu 觀無量壽佛經疏 （T. 1753）. He singles out chanting the name of Amitābha Buddha from among many other practices focused on enlightening the mind as the correct meditative practice. However in this process, Chingai places particular importance on the twentieth of Amitābha’s forty-eight vows. In this paper I examine how Chingai perceives the meaning of ‘hearing the name of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas’ （specifically, ‘hearing the name of Amitābha’） when he chooses the twentieth vow over the eighteenth.