What is a Pure Land?

One of the abilities of great Buddhas is to create a Pure Land, a realm of consciousness within which devotees can be born and where the conditions are much more conducive to their spiritual growth than the human realm in which they had been living. Amitabha’s Pure Land is described as both physically very far away in the Western direction and also as being just a membrane’s width away.

For those of us born outside of Buddhist cultures, to imagine a Pure Land, we can look to science fiction movies about alternate realities, other dimensions and the quirks of time travel. Those themes can help to get our mind closer to understanding what a Pure Land is and the abilities of a Buddha. The Pure Land Sutras describe a world beautiful to look at with the trees, pathways and pools all shimmering with light the way it does through a diamond. In the Pure Land, we are a consciousness supported within a body of light, able to fly, travel great distances in an instant and help other beings on a profound level. We will have advanced beyond simply being human into Buddhaood, the true expression of consciousness within the cosmos.