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The number one Google search result today for the word Amitofo was this simple web site. It’s a good read…
The Amitofo mantra, or mantra of Amitabha Buddha, is a very popular mantra, for it is the main cultivation technique of the Buddhist Pure Land school founded by the Chinese monk Hui-Yuan.
Before becoming a monk, Hui-Yuan had studied Confucianism and Taoism but found both lacking, so he went over to Buddhism to look for that transcendental something beyond the physical immortality promised by Taoism, and beyond the rules of behavior espoused by the Confucianism of his times. He was like Ibn Arabi, who turned to Sufism because he could not find the cultivation techniques and results he was looking for in basic, orthodox Islam.
