author
Daochuo
562–645
A key early teacher of Pure Land Buddhism, this Chinese monk helped shape a path of practice centered on trust in Amitabha Buddha. His writings became especially influential in East Asian Buddhist traditions that looked for a simpler, more accessible way to salvation.
1 Audiobook
安樂集
by Daochuo
About the author
Born in 562 in what is now Shanxi, Daochuo became a Buddhist monk at a young age and first built his reputation as a teacher of the Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Later, after encountering the legacy of the monk Tanluan, he turned decisively toward Pure Land thought and became one of its most important early systematizers.
Daochuo is remembered for teaching that people living in a spiritually difficult age needed an "easy path" of practice. He emphasized devotion to Amitabha Buddha and argued that rebirth in the Pure Land was open even to ordinary people, not only to advanced monastics or meditators. His best-known work, the Anle Ji (Collection on Peace and Joy), helped organize and explain these ideas for later generations.
He died in 645, but his influence lasted far beyond his own time. In Chinese Buddhist tradition he is honored as a major Pure Land patriarch, and in Japan he was also deeply respected by later Pure Land teachers, who saw him as a crucial link in the development of their tradition.