Living a human life is like ascending a mountain of jewels: you must not go in vain and return in vain. Reciting the buddha-name is an urgent duty: you should take care of it soon. The phrase "Amitabha Buddha" is the first meditation case of the Zen school. It is like a staff to help you mount a horse. It is a means to hold fast to the living shore. Zen Master Ku-yin

People who like quiet can practice buddha-remembrance alone in silence: they do not have to form groups and create associations for the purpose.

People who fear untoward events can practice buddha-remembrance at home behind closed doors: they do not have to go to temples to hear the scriptures.

Burning incense in temples far and wide is not as good as sitting peacefully in a hall at home practicing buddha-remembrance.

Storing up merit for future lives is not as good as creating merit in the present by practicing buddha-remembrance.

Making vows and promising expiation of wrongdoings is not as good as repenting past faults, undergoing self-renewal and practicing buddha-remembrance.

The method of reciting the Buddha-name is recorded in more than one Sutra. Among the countless scriptues, there is not one that does not contain the method of reciting the Buddha-name. If you practice according to this method, you are sure to be born in the Pure Land.

Master Tsung-pen

If you can recite the name of Amitabha Buddha, you immediately cut off all karmic obstructions, and you will get to be born in the Pure Land.

The Peace and Bliss Collection

To be born in the Pure Land one must abandon self-power [your own power] and embrace Other-power [Amitabha's power]. In fact, when Other-power is embraced by self-power, self-power turns into Other-power, or Other-power takes up self-power altogether.

D.T. Suzuki

Time and space quickly disappear. If we want to seize time and space, if we treasure life, we should chant "O-Mi-To-Fo (Amitabha Buddha)" and learn from "Amitabha Buddha." "Amitabha" means infinite light and infinite life. Infinite light is boundless space; infinite life is endless time. If we can make time and space boundless and limitless, we will have risen above the confinement of time and space. We will have broken from the rounds of birth and death. We will have turned ignorance to enlightenment. We will have escaped from the sea of suffering from samsara and have transcended the confusion and hindrance of worldly phenomena. We will have ventured into the bright and free world of Nirvana, the Pure Land of ultimate bliss.

Master Hsing Yun

by Master Chu-hung

Arrange for a quiet room and cultivate Pure Land practice together. This would be the best thing in the world. The room does not have to be very beautiful, just big enough for making offerings to Buddha, walking, sitting, and bowing.
And it is not necessary to wait till all the family business is done:

Every day there are things to do: you may want to finish them all, but the day will definitely come that they are all finished.

There is reciting "AMITABHA" [or "NAMU AMIDA BUTSU", or "NAMO AMITABHA"] silently; there is reciting it in a loud voice and there is diamond recitation.
When you recite it in a loud voice it feels like too much exertion. When you recite it silently, it is easy to sink into a torpor. It is called diamond recitation when you recite it closely and continuously with the sound between your lips and teeth.
But do not cling this as a fixed rule. If you feel you are expending too much effort, then go ahead and recite silently. If you feel you are sinking into a torpor then go ahead and recite in a loud voice.
Recite the Buddha-name intently. Every syllable should be clear and distinct, every repitation following on the last.

Maintain the recitation with your outmost strenght; every day recite the Buddha-name ten times in the morning and several hundred times during the day: only then will you become qualified to go toward the Pure Land. There are many gates for entering the Path, but this gate (of Buddha-rememberance) is the quickest and most direct.

Every repetition of the sound should come out of your mouth and enter your ears, and awake your inherent mind. It's like a man asleep: another man calls, "Hey you!" and he immediately wakes up. This is why reciting the Buddha-name is the best means for reining in the mind.

Even someone who has commited serious sins throughout his life can get to be born in the Pure Land, if as he is about to die he recites "Amitabha Buddha" ten times. How much the more so for someone who has kept a vegetarian diet and maintained the precepts and recited the Buddha-name his whole life long.

Recite the Buddha-name like this when you have nothing to do, and recite the Buddha-name like this when you are busy.
Recite the Buddha-name like this when you are happy and at ease, and recite the Buddha-name like this when you are sick and in pain.
Recite the Buddha-name like this when you are living, and recite the Buddha-name like this when you are dying.

Master Tsung-pen

Everyone who wants to go to Pure Land vows this at least two times a day, morning and evening: I vow that when my life is ending, All obstructions will be swept away, I will see Amitabha Buddha, And be born in his land of Ultimate Bliss and Peace.

True Vows
Practice without vows means the practice will be isolated. Vows without practice means the vows will be empty. If you have neither practice nor vows, you live in the world of vain. If you have both practice and vows, you enter directly into uncontrived reality.

Master Tz'u-chao

Even though people have only cultivated a little bit of merit, because they have the power of their vows, they will attain great rewards.

The Perfection of Wisdom Treatise

Those who do not make great vows are controlled by delusion. All forms of service to Buddha arise from vows. If you want to attain Supreme Path, you must attain the perfection of vows.

The Flower Ornament (Avatamsaka) Sutra

Being born in a buddha-land is a great affair. It cannot be achieved through the merit of isolated practice. It requires the power of vows as an aid: only then can you attain birth in a buddha-land and see Buddha.

The Great Adornment Treatise

One accumulates merit by doing good deeds. Merits are blessings, like wealth, intelligence etc. They are temporary and subject to Birth and Death. Virtues, on the other hand, transcend Birth and Death and lead to Buddhahood. It depends on the mind of the praticioner, whether he is seeking mundane rewards (merit) or transcendence (virtue). Thus, the Pure Land cultivator should not seek merits for by doing so, he would, in effect, be choosing to remain within samsara. This would be counter to his very wish to escape Birth and Death.

Therefore you should daily transfer your merit to the Land of Amitabha by vowing,

I now universally transfer the merit of my virtuous practices
To the Land of Ultimate Bliss and Peace of Amitabha Buddha,
And I wish to be born there.
May all beings, drowning and adrift,
Soon return to the Land of Limitless Light!