Reciting Namu Ami Dabutsu
There are wise men everywhere.
And people know wisdom makes people live wisely and smartly. However, to make their living comfortable, most of wise men use their wisdom to obtain wealth and social status. As such rich people with high position do not mind existence of and take care of poor and unlucky people, this world becomes so sinful and tragic for all.
So apart from how much wise a person is, Christ Jesus tells to learn and follow teachings of God. Since human wisdom makes only wise men happy, He requests people to learn wisdom of God to make everybody saved and blessed.
How human wisdom is regarded by Christ Jesus is so simple. It never saves people and never improves society. It is because a man surely tries to use his wisdom for his interest but not for others. So, Christ Jesus tells people to abandon their wisdom but learn and practice wisdom of God.
However, in Buddhism where existence of the sole creator of the whole universe is not admitted, wisdom is the only means with which a man can save himself. So, Buddhists try to learn the highest wisdom Gautama Buddha acquired, since such wisdom would make them conquer every pain in this world and fear of death. They want to be free from the cruel and rotten world and their fates of suffering cycles of birth in the helpless world eventually.
But, in order to get higher wisdom, a man has to train himself not only in terms of religious knowledge but also spiritual experiences. It will take years and decades for a monk to reach a certain level of wisdom any other Buddhists would recognize as highly advanced and deeply insightful. Life, pains, unhappiness, death, good, evil, and any other mental objects must be exhaustively examined and reviewed by a monk for him to grab a piece of truce of the inner space.
Of course, there is a long history in the Buddhism. There are may precedent examples of ascetic training and study of truce. Accordingly, there are thousands of holy books and creeds where wisdom of past Buddhists are collected and contained. That is why a Buddhist monk has to read so many Buddhist scriptures to master teachings of Gautama Buddha and his followers.
Nonetheless, some past leading Buddhist priests in Japan invented a new way of practicing Buddhism. They proposed just chanting some simple religious expression or prayer to the Buddha, for example, "Namu Ami Dabutsu.". They said, actually hundreds years ago, that farmers and other poor people did not have to learn difficult characters and read creeds but had better chant some simple but effective prayer to the Buddha or other deities of Buddhism. Of course it was not a simple imprudent idea. Schools founded by those priests produced many religious works and books to explain how such a practice was effective.
Hōnen (1133 – 1212) is the religious reformer and founder of the first independent branch of Japanese Pure Land Buddhism called Jōdo-shū ("The Pure Land School"). In the related Jōdo Shinshū sect, he is considered the Seventh Patriarch. Hōnen became a monk of the Tendai sect at an early age, but grew disaffected, and sought an approach to Buddhism that anyone could follow, even during the perceived Age of Dharma Decline. After discovering the writings of Chinese Buddhist, Shan-tao, he undertook the teaching of rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitabha through reciting the Buddha's name, or nembutsu.
Hōnen's teachings:
Reciting the nembutsu does not come from studying and understanding its meaning. There is no other reason or cause by which we can utterly believe in attaining birth in the Pure Land than the nembutsu itself. Reciting the nembutsu and believing in birth in the Pure Land naturally gives rise to the three minds (sanjin) and the four modes of practice (shishu). If I am withholding any deeper knowledge beyond simple recitation of the nembutsu, then may I lose sight of the compassion of Shakyamuni and Amida Buddha and slip through the embrace of Amida's original vow. Even if those who believe in the nembutsu deeply study all the teachings which Shakyamuni taught during his life, they should not put on any airs and should practice the nembutsu with the sincerity of those untrained followers ignorant of Buddhist doctrines.Anyway the essence in nembutsu recitation is to direct one's mind to the spirit of the Buddha beyond any worldly matters and unholy spiritual matters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dnen#Doctrine
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Rev 3:21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
Rev 3:22 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.