The Holy land of the Shaolin

Amituofo (阿彌陀佛) sounds like a greeting and you may have heard it many times. This phrase is a common salutation among Buddhists (chin.: fojiaotu 佛教徒) of all Traditions, especially the Pure Land (chin.: jingtu 淨土) and Chan (禪) Tradition.

Amituofo is the common salutation (chin.: zhijing 致敬) among Monks of The Shaolin Temple (chin.: Shaolinsi Seng (少林寺僧) and the students of the Martial Arts schools which they practice Shaolin Wugong (少林武功). This greeting word is an important part of Shaolin Tradition. Many practitioners are chanting it (chin.: fanbei 梵唄), although they don’t really know what it means.

Many forget that our main practice is Lord Buddha remembrance (chin.: Nian Fo 念佛). This involves chanting Namo Amitabha (Na mo Amituofo) we can chant out loud or we can just say it over and over in our minds and it becomes a meditation (chin.: chan 禪). Meditations are to ‘guard or protect the mind’ (chin.: hanxin 扞心).

When you are reciting a sutra (chin.: zhuangzhou 轉咒) your mind has a hard time of thinking of much else, so this is one way to protect the mind. With a single recitation of Namo Amituofo you destroy countless eons of bad karma (chin.: nieyuan 孽緣).

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