Namu Amida Butsu!

Welcome to my Buddhism page glorifying the beautiflul and most compassionate Lord, Amida Buddha! Amida is the great fount of love which holds the cosmos together. He is absolute, unconditional love. Amida doesn't care if you're straight or gay, black, white or whatever. Amida's salvation is open to all beings....all it takes is simply opening your heart to Him! In Christianity, God/Jesus loves you an will "save" you only if you "fit." Amida accepts and loves you no matter who or what you are. Amida never gets angry or jealous...He doesn't punish you or keep track of how good or "bad" you are.

I first encountered Amida when i was 18. A good friend of mine had become a Nichiren Buddhist. I was visiting my sister in California, and she had a book about Buddhism called "The Teaching of the Buddha." I read it, and was captivated, yet confused. Who was this Buddha called Amida? Shakyamuni buddha I'd heard about, and the Nichiren Buddhists claimed that Nichiren was the absolute, Universal, Eternal Buddha. But here was a Buddha new to me....a Buddha who lived in a beautiful Pure Land, a Buddha who out of incomprehensible compassion, hade made 48 vows not to enter Nirvana until ALL beings in the universe had been saved from Samsara, the endless cycle of birth and death. All you had to become a Buddha was to say His name, and upon your death, you'd be born into the Pure land and instantly become a Buddha yourself. I uttered the Nembutsu for the first time....Namu Amida Butsu.

Needless to say, I became a Nichiren Buddhist along with most of my friends./ We were all young and seeking. I practiced the buddhism of this sect until about 1999, when I finally became fed ulp with the Nichiren Shoshu/Soka Gakai feud, and the warped theology of the sect, namely that Nichiren was the Universal Buddha. I'll never forget how I felt when I first started chanting the BVuddha's name. It was like warm, nourishing sunlight illuminating a dark, dreary tomb. I felt compassion, serrenity, and a calmness I'd never known. Finally, everything seemed right. I knew that this...THIS was Buddhism!

I have just begun chanting again. My life took a terrible turn about 8 years ago. It's taken me that long to fight...to come back from the living death I was trapped in. I feel alive again...I have hope. Every day I wake up in the light and love of my Amida, bathed in his boundless compassion.