The Pure Land Buddhism

Buddhism is 2500 years old, in 2011 the Jōdo Shinshū celebrated in Kyōto the 750th anniversary of the death of its founder, Shinran Shōnin. Compared to this dimension of time our lifetime and the activities of our daily life are just an intermezzo.

On this website we want to introduce the reader into Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism hoping to give him a spark of that fascination that caused so many people to transmit these teachings for such a long time.

No better symbol for the message of Jōdo Shinshū can be found than the lotos blossom (or at our picture: a searose). In Buddhism in general the lotos flower stands for the attainment of Buddhahood, but in Jōdo Shinshū it refers to something which is much more ordinary: the so-called Myōkōnin or “wonderful loveley people”. Like lotos flowers grow in a muddy pond, the Myōkōnin are deeply rooted in the difficulties of daily life. They are nothing special and they do nothing special,but nevertheless in their heart something is realized which goes beyond this limited world…