 Hōnen promulgated his teaching by adopting an innovative perspective on the nature of the practices taught in Buddhist tradition. He reasoned that, although the utterance of the Buddha’s name had long been transmitted in various Buddhist schools as one among countless different kinds of practice useful for attainment of enlightenment, the vocal nembutsu designated in Amida’s vow as the act leading to birth into the Pure Land was qualitatively distinct from every one of the thousands of other techniques found in the Buddhist teachings. While the physical act of voicing the Name of Amida in itself might be identical, in other forms of Buddhism it was performed in conjunction with various other practices, including the awakening of the resolute aspiration for enlightenment (bodhicitta; see 2.2 above) and the selfless transference of merits, and like other practices, its fulfillment as praxis genuinely leading toward Buddhahood turned on the practitioner’s own purity of motive and powers of concentration and discipline.