Buddha's

[gingercatni]

I'm not going to explain this well I'm sure! But does anyone find when they are reading anything about Amitabha or any other Buddha that the information has a kind of "this is so made up" tone to it? Almost like a mocking tone? Maybe I'm being over sensitive. But I believe in the Buddha's, all of them. I just sometimes feel websites with the best intentions make them all sound like a work of fiction.

[Nighthawk]

When I first encountered pure land buddhism, it's definitely the feeling I got. Once you really investigate and read about great realized beings such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Shandao, Honen etc. who all practiced and advocated the pure land path your doubts start to minimize to a certain degree. I still have doubts from time to time but it can always be overcome with practice and study. Unlike all other Buddhist schools, the pure land school is a purely faith based path so doubts are normal. Having said that, there are many ways to experience Amida Buddha and his Pure land right here as many masters have done by means of practices outlined in the pure land sutras.

[steveb1]

I sometimes get the impression that the "strangeness" of some texts might theoretically be due to the attempt to "pull" the transcendent into our realm of immanent samsara. It can give an overly poetic or dreamlike character to the texts.

In this, some of these dreamlike scenarios, to me, highly resemble various descriptions of God, higher beings, other realms, that are found in some of the Gnostic documents.