Perfect Bliss
Perfect Bliss
極楽 (Skt Sukhavati; Jpn Gokuraku)
The name of the land of Amida Buddha, said to be located "a hundred thousand million Buddha lands away in the west." According to the Buddha Infinite Life Sutra, when the Buddha Infinite Life (another name for Amida) was engaged in Buddhist practice as a bodhisattva, he vowed to create his own Buddha land that would combine the most outstanding features of various pure lands, where he would live when he attained
Buddhahood. The Sanskrit name Sukhavati means land of happiness or pleasure. In Chinese, it was rendered as Perfect Bliss, Peace and Delight, or Peace and Sustenance. It is also called the Western Pure Land, the Western Paradise, or simply the Pure Land. The splendor of this land is described in detail in the Amida Sutra and the Buddha Infinite Life Sutra. In this land, there is no suffering; there is only comfort and delight, or "perfect bliss." Belief in Amida Buddha and his Pure Land prevailed widely in China and Japan, and the Pure Land of Perfect Bliss became a more popular focus of aspiration than the pure lands of other Buddhas. Thus the term Pure Land came to mean Amida's Pure Land of Perfect Bliss.
