He is associated with the west direction. It is in this direction that sunset takes place and indeed he is envisioned as the setting sun (red). During sunset, the sun is gentle, and we can directly look into its fierce power, without coming to any harm. As it disappears into the west, the sun is like a proud and fierce king, who at the end of a hard day of rigid protocol turns gentle and jovial, and allows anyone to approach him. Amitabha is thus the supreme power and energy of nature, cast on an earthly plain, accessible to all of us. No wonder he is the most popular of all Dhyani Buddhas.
Amitabha's image has both a simplicity and archetypal quality to it. His demeanour is totally relaxed and his hands are in the Dhyana mudra, the mudra of meditation. According to tradition, this mudra derives from the one assumed by the Buddha when he was meditating under the pipal tree, in the pursuit of Nirvana. He holds a begging bowl (Skt. paatra; Pali. pata) containing the elixir of immortality.
In conformity with his hand mudra, the essential message of Amitabha is that of meditation. His association with the setting sun suggests the withdrawal of our external sense perceptions inwards, into higher states of meditative concentration. Elevating ourselves to such a spiritual level has the ultimate objective of uniting us with that intangible Universal Consciousness which pervades all tangible reality.
Amitabha thus provides us with the archetypal infinite wisdom that helps us transmute the negative trait of obsessive attachment into a discerning awareness that we are all made up of the same primitive substratum. So contemplating, we are able to realize that the object we crave for is not separate from us, and already as much a part of ourselves as we are of it.
Of Related Interest:
The Bodhisattva Ideal
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