 In order to treat Pure Land Buddhist tradition while keeping within the parameters of “Japan” and “philosophy,” this entry will divide the discussion into three sections. In the first, there is a brief sketch of several broad trajectories of thought that stem from central Mahayana concerns and that shape the Pure Land outlook, coming to hold particular significance in the Japanese Pure Land tradition. The second section identifies the central issues involved in Hōnen’s seminal reformulation of the Pure Land path. The third section will then treat several fundamental philosophical issues in Japanese Pure Land thought, focusing upon Pure Land thought as one distinctive stream of a path to religious awakening within the Mahayana traditions of praxis, and further upon the major developments that occurred specifically in Japan. The point will not be to suggest that medieval Japanese thinkers speak directly to Western philosophical issues, but rather to investigate how their thinking might be understood to take up topics commonly considered philosophical in Western intellectual tradition and to illuminate perspectives relevant to current intellectual concerns.