 Regarding the nature of Amida Buddha, perhaps the most natural approach for the modern mind is to focus on the relationship between Amida and Sakyamuni. While Amida, Buddha of infinite light and eternal life, may be regarded as the “celestial” personification of perfect wisdom-compassion, and the narrative of his attainment in the inconceivable past as “mythic,” Gotama, known by his honorific title Sakyamuni Buddha, is recognized as a historical figure, a mendicant wanderer and religious teacher of India in the fifth century BCE. It is common to say, therefore, that Sakyamuni belongs to the realm of historical fact and actual existence, while Amida is fictive. This view is supported by the modern understanding of the relationship between the two buddhas. Sakyamuni, having become the “awakened one” through meditative practices, taught his realization to others, and among the teachings attributed to him is the story of Amida Buddha. Although historical evidence now suggests that the teaching of Amida gradually emerged around the beginning of the common era—five centuries after Sakyamuni’s death—even if it appeared later in the tradition stemming from Sakyamuni, the fundamental question of the relationship between Amida and the person(s) who first taught him remains unchanged. Amida Buddha has never appeared directly as a historical personage, and there are no teachings or words that can be attributed to him. Thus, it is common to view the story of Amida as a narrative fashioned by Sakyamuni (or a later figure) to express the content of his own religious insight. Since his awakening could not be conveyed directly, he resorted to the use of parables and myths, and the story of Amida is considered such a “skillful means” (hōben) or mythic device for teaching. In this view, Amida is a fiction whose origins lie in the experience of Sakyamuni. Further, it is often assumed that while unlettered Pure Land adherents may have clung to the notion of Amida and his vows as real, taking them as objects of faith, more sophisticated Buddhists such as those of the Tendai, Shingon, and Zen schools recognized all along that Amida is merely a skillful “metaphor” or “symbol” for the historical realization of Sakyamuni.