Of all the forms of Buddhism currently practiced in Asia, Pure Land has been the most widespread for the past  thousand years. At the core of this school is a text of great beauty and poetry, the Amitabha Sutra, intoned every evening in count-less temples and homes throughout the Mahayana world. This important text shares with the Avatamsaka and Brahma Net sutras the distinction of being among the few key scriptures preached  spontaneously  by  the  Buddhas  and  Bodhisattvas, without the customary request from the assembly.

 

Although several translations of the sutra itself are available (the best known, by the renowned scholar Max Muller, dating from 1894), no major commentary appears to have been published in English. The Van Hien Study Group is therefore privileged to be associated with J.C. Cleary’s present rendering of The Essentials of the Amitabha Sutra — a seminal Chinese commentary by the  T’ien-t’ai Master Ou-i  (1599-1655), later recognized as the ninth Patriarch of the Pure Land school.