Amitabha: The Welcoming Buddha

During my wife’s latest trip to Japan (I stayed home this year for various reasons), she found this delightful patch/sticker:

This is an image of Amida Buddha, welcoming the deceased to the Pure Land. This is called raigō amida (来迎阿弥陀, “Amida welcoming the dead”). I talked about this before a little while ago, becuase it was a common artistic motif in medieval Japanese Buddhism, especially at a time where disease, warfare and death would often cut people’s lives short.

The imagery of Amida Buddha coming to greet the dead is found primarily in the Contemplation of Amitabha Sutra (a.k.a. “the Contemplation Sutra”). The last section of the sutra lists the nine grades of people who are reborn in the Pure Land, and the fourth grade (“highest level of the middle grade”) gives the following description, for example:

“When such a person is about to die, Amitayus [Amida] appears before him, surrounded by a host of monks and radiating a golden light. He then expounds the truth of suffering, emptiness, impermanence and no-self, and praises renunciation of the world as the way to escape from suffering.

“Seeing this, the aspirant greatly rejoices and finds himself seated upon a lotus-flower. He kneels down, joins his palms and worships the Buddha. Before he raises his head, he attains birth in the Land of Utmost Bliss, where his lotus-bud soon opens.

Translation by Rev. Hisao Inagaki

Depending on the grade of the aspirant, this welcome may be more or less elaborate, but all of them are reborn in the Pure Land somehow.

So, I like this patch because it’s a reminder of the goodwill Amida Buddha extends to all beings, and how everyone can be born in the Pure Land if they want to.

Namu Amida Butsu

P.S. I kept the patch in its wrapper for a long time, but finally decided to put it in a sutra book I’ve been making.

P.P.S. Accidental double-post. 🤦🏼‍♂️