[1] Shandao was also one of the earliest Pure Land authors to teach the primacy of faithfully reciting Amitābha's name (Ch: nianfo).

[1][3] According to Alfred Bloom, Shandao "systematized Pure Land thought and brought it to its highest peak of development in China.

After receiving the full monastic precepts, Shandao (now twenty years old) read the Contemplation Sutra together with his Vinaya Master Miaokai and concluded that Buddhist practices other than the pure land method were too uncertain and difficult.

[14] In around 633, Shandao also studied at Wu chen Monastery on mount Zhōngnán near the capital of Chang'an (modern Xi'an), a center of pure land meditation practice.

[19][18] After Daochuo's death in 645, Shandao returned to Wu-chen temple and also traveled to the imperial capital at Chang'an (modern Shaanxi) to preach Pure Land Buddhism.

[24] In spite of his strict and demanding spiritual practice, Shandao still thought of himself as an ordinary worldly person (pṛthagjana), writing: "certainly, I myself am a sinful prthagjana".

[28] In his lifetime, Shandao wrote five major works on Pure Land Buddhism, with his commentaries on the Contemplation Sutra being among the most influential.

However, Shandao clearly sees the vocal nianfo as the best practice since it is accessible to all, as he writes in his Verses in Praise for Rebirth in the Pure Land:Because sentient beings are burdened with weighty obstacles: their conscious worlds are limited; their minds are coarse; their senses are disturbed and their spirits are frivolous.

[43] According to Atone, Shandao's promotion of the chanting of nianfo as a practice that was superior to meditation was a major innovation in the history of East Asian Buddhism.

[46] Similarly, Shandao's Fǎshì Zàn (法事讚) focuses on the ritual recitation of the Amitabha Sutra in front of an altar with a statue of the Buddha.

[49] In addition, Shandao's expositions on the Pure Land are also rooted in classic Madhyamika and Yogacara principles, indicating his deep study of the Buddhist philosophical tradition.

Second, deep mind; this is the true faith which accepts that you are an ordinary person full of evil passions, possessed of few roots of good, subject to transmigration in the three worlds, and unable to escape from the 'burning house'; nevertheless, now you recognize the fact that Amitabha's Universal Primal Vow definitely ensures birth in the Pure Land of those who recite the Name even ten times or down to once.

For Shandao, anyone seeking Buddhahood must recognize that "one is an evil, ordinary being", and then when "one without doubt or hesitation gives oneself over to the power of the vows" one will definitely attain birth in the pure land.

Indeed, Shandao writes that all ordinary worldly people (prthagjanas) "depend upon the karma power of the great vow of Buddha Amitabha, which they regard as the essential condition [for their birth]".

Previous authors like Jizang had argued that to even be born in the lowest grades one needed to have some spiritual attainment in practicing Mahayana Buddhism.

Shandao describes a man harried by bandits and wild beasts (symbolizing the five aggregates and the eighteen dhatus) who comes to a river bank.

In one text, "The Meritorious Dharma Gate of the Samādhi Involving Contemplation of the Ocean-like Marks of the Buddha Amitābha" (Chinese: 阿彌陀佛相海三昧功德法門; Pinyin: Ēmítuófó xiāng hǎi sānmèi gōngdé fǎmén), Shandao describes a specific set of ritual protocols and practices for helping dying Buddhist devotees achieve successful deliverance from “evil destinies” and procure successful rebirth in the Pure Land.

[46] However, according to Dao Duan Liangxiu, this text has long been considered by scholars to have been a later composition that began to circulate widely in the Song dynasty, and to be a false attribution.

As such, for Shandao, birth in the Pure Land was not for just superior practitioners, but for the lowest kinds of people who have performed "unwholesome acts: the Five Heinous Deeds, the ten evils, and everything that is not good.

"[65] Indeed, Shandao interprets the key passage on the 18th vow in the Infinite Life Sutra as meaning that anyone who, trusting in the Buddha, recites his name ten times, will achieve birth in the Pure Land.

Shandao writes this even though the Infinite Life Sutra states that the pure land excludes those who have comitted the five heinous acts (killing (1) one's father, (2) one's mother, (3) an arhat, (4) harming a Buddha's body, (5) causing a schism in the Buddhist community).

According to Shandao, this is because the Buddha's infinite compassion and power will save all beings and take them to the Pure Land, even those who have committed the worst offenses.

Shandao's main extant works include:[3][68][69] The Commentary on the Contemplation Sūtra (Chinese: 觀無量壽經疏; Pinyin: Guān wúliàngshòu jīng shū; Hepburn: Kanmuryōju kyō sho).

An English translation of it exists by Peter Lunde Johnson (The Land of Pure Bliss, On the Nature of Faith & Practice in Greater Vehicle (Mahāyāna) Buddhism, 2020).

[70] Verses in Praise for Rebirth in the Pure Land (Chinese: 往生禮讚偈; Pinyin: Wǎngshēng lǐ zànjié; Hepburn: Ōjō rai sange, Taishō no.

1959, in one fascicle); Full title: The Dharma Gate of the Merits of the Ocean-like Samādhi of the Contemplation of the Marks of Amitābha Buddha (Chinese: 觀念阿彌陀佛相海三昧功德法門; Pinyin: Guānniàn āmítuó fó xiāng hǎisānmèi gōngdé fǎmén; Hepburn: Kannen amida butsu sō kai sammai kudoku hōmen).

Praise of Dharma Services (Chinese: 法事讚; Pinyin: Fǎshì Zàn; Hepburn: Hōji San), full title: Liturgy for the Rite of Desiring Birth in the Pure Land Through Chanting Sutras and Circumambulation.

[81] Other modern scholars present a more balanced view which see Shandao as teaching the importance of both vocal recitation and meditative visualization.

According to Tanaka, "nianfo" for Shandao also "included a wide range of practices such as "recollection" (i), "listening" (wen), and "oral recitation'' (ch'eng).

"[36] This is as opposed to earlier figures like Jingying Huiyuan who wrote that the main intent of the Contemplation Sutra was just meditative visualization (guan).